The Separation post was easily the most shocking thing for me in three years of reading Steve's blog. I was raised with the understanding that once a couple decides to have kids, they have turned their marriage into something bigger than themselves and have the responsibility to stay together and make it work at least until the kids have grown up and moved out. I understand that this may be a flawed perspective, and I'd love to hear what other people think about divorce with kids.
To take care of the disclaimers, I have never been married and do not have kids and so don't have first hand experience with any of this. I am young and therefore probably relatively unwise in this area. I do not wish to project onto Steve and Erin's relationship. I do not know them personally, but respect them both very much and see them as highly intelligent people who I'm sure have made the right decision for them. It just challenged my personal view that I grew up with and I'd like to understand the other perspective.
I can easily see how two conscious people could both be more conscious and happy as a result of separation, but I have trouble understanding how the two people would make this decision from the kids' perspective. (I understand and respect that Steve and Erin don't want to share specifics about their kids, and have probably received more input than they care to process, so lets keep it to the more general issue and understanding a lack of perspective that I bet others share. If anyone has had parents separate their input would be awesome as well.)
