Lately, I have been encountering many couples fighting very openly and bluntly in public. Whether it was in a restaurant or in a mall. Although this comes as a shock to me, it is not what really bothers me, what really bothers me is when this happens right in front of their kids. You see their reaction very helpless with a bit of embarrassment as they stare back at the people filling the room staring back at them. This was when I decided to read more about how couples think it’s “healthy” to discuss or in their cases fight in front of their kids. This is a very big misconception.
Couples usually confuse “discussions” and “finding a solution to a problem” to “fighting and attacking each other”. There is a red line that is drawn between those to concepts. If you are discussing an issue or a problem with your spouse with mutual respect and points where you can both discuss in a respectful way. This is where it is healthy to discuss certain topics amongst your kids; by doing so, you are teaching them how to respect opinions, speak their minds, and follow your footsteps in finding a solution to a quarrel.
Fighting on the other hand causes much bigger damage than you expect. While fighting in front of your kids, they are automatically plotting one of the parents as being the “bad guy” even though they don’t know it, they see both of their parents fighting and attacking each other… this is also another way for them to adopt certain traits from your discussions and quarrels. Kids seeing their parents fight could cause them emotional trauma even if they seem fine at that exact moment, first they get scared, then horrified and disgusted on how two people could live together and fight this much, and last but not least they fall back into the very first stage which is fear; the fear of maybe one day they might relive the experience their parents went through when they grow up.
What is even worse than everything already mentioned, is the fact that certain parents make it an obligation (indirectly) for the child to take sides, whether it was by badmouthing their spouse, or by asking for their opinion. This is where things are getting out of control and the parents mistake their kids for counselors. Even if those kids were mature, or old enough to understand certain issues. At the end of the day, your spouse is either the kids’ mother or father. Not a spouse to them. Indirectly, you are implanting ideas and belittling the image of the father or the mother in your child’s brain. By this being said, they slowly start losing confidence in their parent, and with that disrespect grows.
As difficult as it may seem for you to admit that you’re going through a problem, which you probably need to talk to someone (not a friend or a family memeber but an actual specialist or a counselor) about, you have to keep in mind that your child is not your marriage counselor. Most probably your kid in this case is a tool you’re using to make yourself feel better about your life, but what you don’t know is that by doing that, you’re wrecking your own child’s life.