People love to say they are staying in a relationship “for the kids.” They say it like it makes them noble. Like dragging yourself through the same misery every day is a sacrifice that your children are going to thank you for later. I do not agree at all. Staying in a toxic relationship for the sake of the children is not only wrong, but it is selfish as fuck. You are not just choosing that life for yourself. You are choosing it for them. You are choosing the energy they wake up in, the way they see love, and the blueprint they will carry into their own relationships later. Then everybody acts shocked when those same kids grow up and walk straight into the same kind of mess. Be fukkin’ forreal!

We just watched a fresh example of this play out in real time on the internet with Ray J and Princess Love. They have had a public pattern of chaos for years. Breakups, makeups, reality television arguments, public fallouts. Recently, it spilled over again in a way that involved police and serious accusations, all while their children were present in the middle of that storm. Regardless of who said what or who did what, what sticks with me is that the babies were right there, caught in the middle of it all.

What’s crazy is, some people will still look at a situation like that and say, “Well, at least they are keeping the family together.” As if the word “family” alone is enough to cancel out the damage of living in a loud, unstable, unpredictable environment. As if a matching last name and everybody in the same house automatically equals safety. It does not. There is nothing healthy about normalizing screaming, tension, disrespect, cheating, threats, or silent cold wars and then trying to wrap it in the label of sacrifice.

Children do not just see what is happening. They feel it. You can tell them “everything is fine” all you want, but their bodies already know the truth. They hear the tone through the walls. They feel when the air in the house changes. They notice when their mother visibly shrinks around their father or when their father completely shuts down around their mother. They see the fake smile in pictures and the real face when the camera turns off. Kids understand energy long before they understand language. In my opinion, children are highly spiritual beings. They are honest. They are present. They see right through the performance. Adults are the ones who get addicted to pretending.

So when you stay in a toxic relationship and tell yourself that you are doing it “for them,” what you are really saying is that you care more about the image of a family than the reality of one. You care more about what people will say if you leave than about what your children are absorbing while you stay. You care more about not being alone, not starting over, not splitting holidays, not dealing with court, and not dealing with child support than you care about the nervous systems of the little people in that house who did not ask to be there in the first place.

There is another way, but people do not talk about it enough. Sometimes a relationship as lovers is over, and that is just the truth. The connection as parents does not have to be over, but the rules need to change. You can separate. You can move out. You can divorce. You can be honest about the fact that this is not working anymore in this form. You can shift from trying to force a romantic relationship to focusing on a parenting partnership that is actually stable and respectful. That is harder than posting a family picture and pretending everything is good. It means dropping the ego and facing your own patterns. It means admitting that you stayed too long. It means being real about the harm that has already been done. It means doing your own healing work instead of hiding behind your children and calling it a sacrifice.

Being real with your children does not mean dumping all the adult details on them. You do not need to sit a child down and drag the other parent or unload court drama and paperwork in their lap. What you can do is model honesty and accountability. You can say, “Things are not working between us, but we both love you and we are going to figure out a better way to live.” You can say, “This is not your fault. Grown people are making grown decisions, and we are still going to make sure you are safe and loved.” You can show them that relationships can change form without turning into war.

When you choose to stay in heavy chaos instead, your kids are not just watching; they are learning. Your son is learning how a man is allowed to speak to a woman or how a woman is allowed to speak to a man. Your daughter is learning how much pain she is supposed to tolerate to keep a family together. All of your children are learning that love and suffering are supposed to live in the same room. You tell yourself you are holding the family together, but what you are really holding together is a stage set. Everyone knows the lines. Nobody feels safe.

That is not for the kids. That is for your fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of starting over at a particular age. Fear of what your family, peers, or social media will say. Fear of that empty side of the bed. Fear of being labeled the one who broke up the home. The truth is, the home is already broken when the main recipe in the house is resentment and tension. Leaving just makes the breakup visible. Paperwork and new addresses are not what breaks a family. The daily damage is what breaks a family.

I genuinely believe it is more loving to restructure a family in honesty than to keep one together in misery. Two calm homes, where parents are actively healing and respectful, will always be better than one home that is a daily battlefield. A child who sees their parents live separately but peacefully still has a better shot at understanding healthy relationships than a child who watches two adults destroy each other while pretending they are staying for love.

Children learn from what you normalize. You can normalize leaving when it is not safe. You can normalize saying, “This is not healthy, and I deserve better.” You can normalize apologizing to your kids for what they have seen and do better moving forward. You can normalize relationships that change, shift, and sometimes end, without the entire world crashing down.

What I cannot normalize is staying in a toxic, chaotic, soul-draining situation and expecting to be celebrated for it because the children are still under the same roof. That is not hero behavior. That is fear, dressed up as pseudo sacrifice. If you choose that, be honest and call it what it is. But do not lie to your kids and pretend you are doing it for them.