DIVORCE: DO NOT WEAPONIZE YOUR CHILDREN

Divorce can be very devastating, most time it takes the wheel on its own and recks havoc as it goes on. Divorce is horrible when one person wants to continue with the marriage and the other is hell-bent on having a leaving. It gets really ugly when both parties involved cannot stand the sight of each other and would not bear to be in the same room with the other person. At this point, the emotions have eaten up so bad that they can't get past their animosity and everything becomes a weapon in their fight, including their children.
Splitting up in a relationship that has no kids can often turn out to be a war between the husband and wife. However,
when there are children involved it is more like World War III. The anger, the frustrations, the lies, and drama are poured out on the kids, then they end up as foot soldiers in the divorce. They take sides and fight their parent.

I was in court one time for a matter. One of the cases that were called that day was a divorce case. The husband and the wife had been poisoning the mind of their children to the extent the Judge had to warn them to desist from this act or he would take the children from their custody. Most divorce cases in Nigeria takes this turn. One parent wants to look like the better one, the faultless one that did not cause the break up of the marriage. So they end up weaponizing their children in order to look like the victim.
You have the father on one side feeding his children with negative information about their mother and their mother telling them similar things about their father. Statements like "your father is a foolish and stingy man, he is this he is that or your mother is a wicked woman, she abandoned you people and went to live with another man" et cetera. {AIRTIME62294USED} The negativity is endless. In this situation, the kids are vulnerable so they start to believe the information that is fed to them. You have them acting out on the information they got about their parent, refusing to go close to the parent that could not convince them enough that they were the better person.
It is already emotional that they have to watch their parents go their separate ways and sometimes have to live watching them be happy with other people. They don't need the extra trauma of seeing one of their parents as a bad person.
You shouldn't use children to fight battles that you should be fighting on your own. Don't hinder them from having a relationship with their parent because you couldn't see past yourself. It is not your own father or your mother, don't intentionally deprive them of enjoying the love they deserve from their parent.
As much as a divorce process is an emotional roller-coaster, try to shield your kids from this. Both of you should sit your kids down and tell them that whatever happens between you two has nothing to do with them. Make them understand that you both love them even though you would not be together. Explain the importance of not seeing any of you as a bad person that caused the family too split.

Allow your kids experience and create memories with their father or their mother even though you would not be there. Protect them from your personal issues, don't use them as an instrument in a battle that you would only lose.