"Children need to find their own path in life, but by confronting life's problems bravely, we adults can serve as role models to them," says Ms. Chen, a single mother raising three daughters.

"I like it this way, because at least now mom and dad don't fight anymore," says fourth-grader Hsiao Mi, who knows very well that while her parents are separated they're negotiating their divorce. Compared with the last two years, when she would hide in her room and cry whenever her parents fought, Hsiao Mi seems happy with her parents' separation.

The divorced always argue, "Only with happy parents can there be happy children." But if the children are unhappy, can the parents still enjoy life?

Stormy weather

Everyone wants a happy marriage, but you don't always get what you want.

"By the time I found out my ex-husband was having an affair, we were already at the point of no return," says 45-year-old Ms. Chen, who has been divorced for eight years. It seemed like all their friends knew her ex-husband was cheating, and that she was the only one still in the dark. This left her feeling betrayed, and so, courageously, she suggested they divorce.

Having won custody of their three girls, along with child support, Ms. Chen initially seems to have come out of the divorce the winner, but in reality, she's lost virtually everything else. At the time of their divorce, their youngest daughter was only 18 months old; "Watching our youngest staggering and stumbling as she learned to walk, I got this sense of dread that this was going to be a long, long road, with no end in sight," she says.

Another divorcee, Mr. Hsieh, lost his job in the media and was unemployed for three years, leading to his already tense relationship with his wife taking a turn for the worse, eventually leading to physical violence. His wife could take no more, and took her injury diagnosis and applied for a restraining order. She and their ten-year-old daughter left home, and she sought a divorce and custody of their daughter .

Hsieh, who had always seemed like a polite and upstanding gentleman to others, was shocked into realizing the terrible, out-of-control situation he was in, and fearful, angered, but helpless, was forced to take a 36-hour course on gender education and constantly show up at court. After initially being resentful, unwilling, and unable to understand, asking, "Do we really need to get a divorce?" and "Am I really that much of a jerk?", he gradually resigned himself to the inevitable. "Perhaps it really would be better for our daughter if we split." Mr. Hsieh dedicated himself to finding new work and making a new start, and is now fully psychologically prepared to amicably sign off on the divorce.

Life can feel more complete with marriage and a family. But under the pressures of paying the bills, romance fades, and the home becomes the prison.

Modern marriage

The speed at which marriages fall apart in Taiwan resembles the landslides that follow typhoons, fast and furious, leaving people in their wake feeling helpless.

"The difficulty of marriage is less a technical issue than a structural one," says Shih Chi-ching, founder of the Warm Life Association for Women. The institution of marriage was the product of a patriarchal society, and is incompatible with modern society's compulsive search for romantic love.

"From staying together at all costs to leaving whenever the whim takes them, Taiwanese have gone too far in their attempts at progress," says Leu Yih-shi, counseling psychologist at Mackay Counseling Center. Many people in the financial and political elite are divorcees, and many movie and pop stars come from single-parent families; society as a whole has concluded that divorce is fine and single-parent families are no big deal. "In this kind of atmosphere, who would be willing to stick through a marriage?"

In the past, many people--particularly women--would stay in a bad marriage, despite the difficulties and constant clashes, for the sake of the children, right until those children were adults. Dr. Wang's parents were just such a couple.

"Thankfully eventually they divorced, and my mother has at least been able to enjoy her twilight years," says Dr. Wang. His father was always cheating on his mother right into their old age, but his mother stuck with the marriage for their children. Finally, at the age of 65, his mother decided she'd shouldered this burden long enough, saying she wanted a divorce. Not one of the children were so cold as to try and stop her.

Parents are not only the source of economic support for children, they also provide the models from which children will learn about intimate relationships. The attitude adults take toward life will have far-reaching effects on their children.

Who comes first?

"Happy parents have happy children" --since time immemorial, this saying has been praised as an inarguable truth by much of society, and has given many people the courage to seek a divorce.

However, research by Dr. Judith S. Wallerstein, sociologist and author of The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce, concludes otherwise. Wallerstein's research shows that even if the home environment is unhappy and full of conflict, what children need more is a stable home environment, rather than the turmoil divorce can bring.

In other words, the needs of children and parents may conflict. This can be best illustrated through parents' ability to raise their children. American research has shown that, facing the twin pressures of raising a family alone and trying to find a new partner, ten years after divorce only half of mothers and one in four fathers are able to take the same level of care of their children as they could pre-divorce.

Emotionally unstable parents can ruin their children's own happiness. When a marriage falls apart, adults can feel as though they are drowning, struggling to save themselves, which makes them unable to see things from their children's point of view. Some people even use their children as tools for revenge, using them to hurt their partner, and sacrificing their children on the altar of their own selfishness.

While serving as an objective third-party negotiator, Child Welfare League Foundation social work supervisor Sung Chia-hui discovered that in the course of their divorce proceedings many people try and superficially focus the disputes on their catchcries of "I love my kids, I can't bear to lose them!" However, in reality this is just a means for them to vent their anger, shame, and frustration at their perceived failure.

Ms. Chang, 46, divorced her husband when her daughter was six years old because both she and her husband were having affairs. She never expected the divorce process would leave her and her daughter feeling so overwhelmed.

Prior to their divorce, Chang's husband lived and worked away from the family, and never really shouldered his responsibilities as a father. Since the divorce, he has changed jobs, remarried, and emigrated, but still doesn't take good care of his daughter. On the other hand, for taking the initiative in seeking a divorce, Ms. Chang has earned herself the epithet of "heartless mother," and since then she has suffered gnawing memories and feelings of guilt, crying when she thinks of her daughter.

Still clinging to the hope that one day her daughter will return to her, Chang swore that she would not remarry while her daughter is under 18. However, succumbing to feelings of loneliness and the sorrow of wanting her "lost" daughter to come back to her, she fell pregnant to her boyfriend, giving birth to another child.

Five years after the divorce, Ms. Chang's daughter started showing symptoms of depression, and was "sent back" by her stepmother. Having got back what she had lost, Chang was determined to repair the mother-daughter bond, and give her deeply scarred daughter her complete and total love. As a result, she began to drift away from her boyfriend and new four-year-old daughter. The cruel hand of fate had led to another child being hurt.

"I don't regret getting a divorce, but I do regret having and abandoning my youngest--that's the biggest mistake I've ever made," says Chang, recalling the difficult path she has traveled, her determined spirit racked by remorse and regret.

Into the light

Of all the reasons people seek divorce, getting a divorce due to domestic violence is the one most likely to get sympathy and support. Virtually everyone is unanimous in the belief that domestic violence should not and cannot be tolerated, particularly when there are children involved; children should be taken as far away as they can be from a violent marriage.

"I never really had any negative impressions of divorcees or single parents," says 40-something, attractive Ms. Sung. In order to give her infant daughter a proper home, Ms. Sung spent three years burying all thought of divorce, but eventually decided to leave her husband, again out of consideration of her child. "He would hit me in front of our daughter, and I thought to myself, I might not be able to help my husband rein himself in, but I can definitely help my daughter."

In fact, Ms. Sung's husband had himself grown up in an atmosphere of domestic violence, with his father frequently beating his mother. It may have been due to this that neither Ms. Chang's husband nor any of his siblings have been able to sustain a happy marriage, with most of them having already divorced.

"My mother-in-law even told me once that since her husband turned 50, he's gotten weaker, so it doesn't hurt as much when he hits her," says Ms. Sung. Hearing this left her choked up and speechless.

"Other than being a source of income, is a father really all that important to a child?" asks Sung. Her daughter's only sense of security came from her mother, and her father was not only not a protector to her, but was actually harming her.

Recently, Ms. Sung even took her daughter to the household registration office to get her family name officially changed to her mother's maiden name, giving her a new given name in the process. Since then, her daughter has been adamant that everyone use her new name. This change of names could represent a new start, and both mother and daughter hope to now step out from the shadow of their old life and walk proudly into the light.

Best for the children

For parents taking steps down the path to divorce, choosing to upend the nest they'd so carefully built can expose their fledglings to all kinds of unforeseen risks. However, the inevitable criticism of divorcees as "loving themselves more than their kids," and "not thinking of their children's welfare," is both harsh and unfair. Many of these mothers and fathers would still willingly sacrifice themselves for their children.

Due to their different jobs and life plans, Mr. and Mrs. Lee spent many years living apart, one in Taiwan, one in America. Six years ago, when they began down the road to divorce, their daughter was five years old.

Mr. Lee was his family's only son, and dearly loved his daughter, but reasoning that staying in the US would give his daughter a better education, he had no hesitation in giving his ex-wife, who was soon to remarry, custody of their daughter, returning to the life of a bachelor.

In reality, since his divorce Mr. Lee has not really had that sense of freedom or resolution, instead feeling tied up in thoughts of his daughter and feelings of shame, from which he cannot free himself. His desk and the walls of his home are full of adorable pictures of his daughter. As well as looking after his daughter when she returns to Taiwan for summer vacations, Mr. Lee travels to the US around three times a year, all to visit his little girl. "Over the past few years, I've spent almost NT$2 million on return tickets to the States," Mr. Lee remarks with a bitter smile.

Hsiao Fei, the wife of a Taiwanese businessman working in China, was faced with divorce after her husband returned to Taiwan, having started an affair with his business partner. She had only one condition--if he wanted a divorce, first he had to get a vasectomy.

"A father's love for his children is the most valuable thing in the world. I'm not worried about getting a divorce, but I have to protect my children," says Hsiao Fei. At the time, her oldest was a year old, and their second child had just been born. While she could live without her husband, the children needed a father. "The moment he had a child with someone else, his love and care for our children would naturally decline, and I will not allow that!"

She escorted her husband to the hospital, and after his vasectomy she kept her promise, letting him do what he wanted, no longer asking him about his affair, and focusing on raising her children. Believing that no life could spring forth from that "dead ground," she stuck with the marriage. Perhaps the parental bond was too strong to sever, or maybe he finally realized his wife's sacrifices and love for their children, but after five years, Hsiao Fei's husband decided to change his ways.

In order to avoid or reduce the possible harm to their children, some people search hard and long for the "right time" to end their marriage. Some say a divorce should happen early, that it's best to get it done while the children are too young to understand what's going on. This way they don't feel like they've lost everything, and the parents can find someone else while they're still young.

However, losing the chance at a regular childhood can have a negative impact on a child's development. US research shows that half the children of divorced parents had their full family split by the age of six; these children can feel abandoned and ignored during their childhood.

Some parents are concerned that divorce could cause psychological damage to young children, and choose to keep the truth from them. "The children know, though," says Sung Chia-hui, so honesty is the best policy. "Rather than leaving the children guessing, suspecting, and fearing the worst, it would be better to get it out in the open and face it together with the children." Besides, the harm to the children begins before the divorce, with the arguments and fights.

The middle ground

Every family has its troubles, and every unhappy couple has their own reasons to split. But no matter what, for the sake of the children some principles have to be ingrained in them. Since 2002, the Child Welfare League Foundation has provided a divorce counseling and arbitration service, with the aim of avoiding emotional outbursts and subsequent unreasonable behavior from the two sides, which would result in wrong decisions and cause enormous harm to the children.

"A social worker advocates neither splitting up nor staying together, but instead just helps the two parties find the path that would be best for their children," explains Sung Chia-hui. In most cases, both the mother and father dearly love their children, and after a few rounds of negotiation and due thought to their children's welfare, they find the way that is best for their children by keeping change to a minimum and trying to keep the children together.

Is signing the divorce papers the end of all the problems? Not necessarily.

Divorce can be agreed upon amicably by both sides, who may then never see one another again, but no matter what, the bonds of blood between parent and child cannot and should not be severed. The law states that one party shall have custody over the couple's child or children, while the other shall have visitation rights. But when the relationship between mother and father is not good, after divorce the parent-child relationship can be hard to maintain as the law would like. Many people have no idea where their children have been taken, even if they have visitation rights; some believe in "out of sight, out of mind," vanishing from their children's lives forever; and some children simply do not want to see their father, but have to visit him twice a month regardless. There are a whole variety of such situations. Even if the parents can both work hard to uphold their agreements for the sake of the children, the problems of the children being pulled in two different directions can remain unsolved.

"I have to try and raise them properly, and naturally I can't give them everything they want every day," says the previously mentioned Ms. Chen, but her children use Sundays with their father as chances to beg him for things their mother can't offer. Still haunted by his old mistakes, he obliges. Ms. Chen has tried to remind her ex about this several times by text message, but, having seen no results yet, is close to giving up. "All I can do is do my job to the best of my ability, and let the rest fall as it may."

A parent forever

In life, there is rarely any absolute right or wrong, and marriage is no different. Parents who stay together for their children, tolerating their own hardships, are worthy of our respect, just as are those who decide to bravely put an end to a mistake and get divorced. As marriages seem to crumble around us like rockslides, we would do well to have faith that as long as there is love in their hearts, and as long as their children are in their hearts, even though these parents may have technically left their marriages, their love for their children will always be strong.