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Can I just add in: my parents divorced after 19 years of marriage, when I was just about 11 years old. At the time, of course, it made me sad and angry, and I wished they would stay together. But it really didn't take long at all-- a couple of years, no more-- for me to realize that actually, they should've divorced a long time before that. They had a terrible relationship, and for a long time before they divorced, everyone was unhappy in my house, including me-- I just never quite knew why. Real understanding on deeper levels came much later, of course. But I got it straight pretty fast that the divorce had been more of a blessing than a curse.
I am a much better person for my parents not having stayed together even longer for my sake. I would have probably had an easier time getting my shit together if they hadn't stayed together as long as they did.
Staying together for the sake of the children is, IMHO, not really a good idea: it is self-defeating rather than doing the children any favors. I think you and your SO will both be better parents when you are not tied down in this unhappy relationship to one another.
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Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.
(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)
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