Before you decide to divorce, consider the impact on your children. I am not saying that you should stay together for the children, but simply suggesting that before you decide not to work on your marriage, you ought to think what you are doing to the children to whom you made commitments when you decided to have them.

You must recognize the fact that children are collateral damage in every divorce. Once there is a divorce, no matter how well you get along with your ex-spouse, the children have lost the security of the family. They are no longer living as their friends do, living with a mommy and a daddy. They’re different.

You may think you will get along much better with your ex once you are in separate households, but that is generally not the case. While it is usually true that divorce does not hurt children, parents do, parents going into a divorce proceeding almost cannot help themselves from somehow using the children as weapons or pawns.

Divorce significantly affects children in other ways as well. Where, pre-divorce, the family’s income supports one household, the same income must support two separate households post-divorce. Obviously, the children’s lifestyle will have to be reduced. And, divorce often forces a family to sell their house, the only home the children have ever lived in, so they lose their home, their neighborhoods and their security. This uprooting from their old neighborhood has to have an impact on them.

After a custody agreement is worked out, if that is possible, the children then have the stress of pleasing both sides, ("I missed you, Daddy, when I was at Mommy’s…"), being involved in message carrying ("Daddy told me to tell you…"), and being downloaded like a piece of software every time they return to the other parent’s home ("So, was Daddy’s girlfriend over there…?").

It is obvious to the children that they will be accidentally leaving clothes at each parent’s house and forgetting their favorite toys or even, as they get older, their computers. Going back and forth between their parents’ homes with little suitcases is not exactly a pleasant experience for anyone.

Unfortunately, in most divorces, there is some misbehavior on the part of the parents. That misbehavior may be as simple as asking the children to tell your ex that you will be late for an appointment or that you will not able to pick them up the following week, but it may extend to trying to enlist the children on your side in a continuing battle with your former spouse.

The worst, of course, is the custody litigation. Often, children are hostages as parents fight over who will get the marital residence and how much support will be given to each side. That will ultimately mean custody litigation, an evaluation in which the children will be required to meet with not only a psychologist, but also ultimately a judge. Parents will often try to manipulate their children into saying certain things to each of these adults in the hopes of "winning" in the litigation. Oftentimes, the children will be asked which parent they prefer, which is a dreadful situation to put your children in; they only have two parents and they are entitled to love both.

The last and most difficult thing in the divorce case is when one of the parents has found a new partner and the children are now introduced to that person as a new parent figure. No matter how you feel about your ex, your children are entitled to love the other parent as their parent. Attempting to substitute someone else as that parent figure is not only bad for the children, but will ultimately have a severe impact on them as they grow up.

Where there is abuse, cheating or alcoholism, the children are going to be affected, and divorce may be inevitable. Where the parties have just grown apart, however, your decisions about separation and divorce should always take into consideration how your children will fare in two homes or how possibly losing the parent who moves away as a result of the divorce will impact them. Your children should be the first consideration, and you should think of them before you think about getting a divorce. Improving your communication skills with your spouse and working on your marriage is often a better option.

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Lynne Z. Gold-Bikin was the head of the family law practice at Weber Gallagher Simpson Stapleton Fires & Newby, LLP.