Ask Dan & Jennifer

I'm not going to pretend to understand your situation well enough to try to tell you what to do. I can hopefully give you some information to consider.

When I was a boy, the traditional wisdom was "We're staying together for the sake of the children." Then in the '80's the mantra became "If the parents aren't happy, then their children aren't happy. We saw a tremendous increase in the divorce rate in the early 1980's.

Now, we have over 20 years of good hard data to draw from. Children whose parents don't live together are more likely to drop out of school, to require psychiatric care, to become an unwed parent, and to be incarcerated than children of two parent homes. The most frightening statistic is that children whose parents don't live together are at a significantly higher risk of physical and sexual abuse than children whose parents live in the same home. Author David Blankenhorn attributes this to the social taboo against sex with a stepchild as being weaker than the taboo against sex with a biological child.

Single parents are more likely to behave in an abusive manner than are parents who are working together. This is usually seen as a reflection of the stress inherent in being a single parent. Your implied concern about your wife's temper is valid and the risk of physical abuse will increase if she is the only adult in the home.

In the interests of being scientifically fair, there are situations where children are actually better off after divorce. This includes cases where the child is being abused and cases in which there is physical domestic violence in the home. From objective measurements, children whose parents are simply unhappy with each other have a higher quality of life if their parents remain together. If there is violence in the home, then children's quality of life and mental health is better after the divorce than children who continue to be exposed to violence, but not as good as children of two-parent homes where there is no violence. Then, it becomes a measure of assessing relative harm.

I am a counselor in private practice. When I am involved in a situation in which there is violence in the home, I have no problem recommending to the parent(s) and the court (if involved) that children are better off being out of that situation. Assuming that's not the case, and I gather it's not, then it becomes a matter of your values. Based on the available data, your daughter's mental health and quality of life would probably be better if you and her mother remain together. I know that's probably not what you wanted to hear, but it is based on the best current information. I'm sure that individuals will tell you that their was no harm that resulted to the children from a divorce, but the probability is a negative outcome for the child.

I'm going to give you some links to some data so you can make an informed decision. The first book is a collection of accounts by children whose parents divorced. The second is more scientific in it's approach and is a review of the data. While it is mainly directed to situations in which the father is absent, it has two chapters devoted to data on situations where the father is involved but not residing with the mother. (I'm not affiliated with either author or Amazon.)

Amazon.com: Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (9780307237118): Elizabeth Marquardt: Books

Amazon.com: Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem (9780060926830): David Blankenhorn: Books

The link below has good information and is free of charge. It is a Christian site and I will say that they are definitely biased in that direction. The studies they cite are valid, however. (Again, I'm not affiliated with the organization except as a financial donor.)

How Could Divorce Affect My Kids?