“Staying together for the kids” is a delusion that parents engage in for themselves. Their children grow up with two miserable, dysfunctional parents who are constantly trying to track their transactions and misery, not healthy relationships, and then what? They’re the reason why their parents have been miserable all along? Stay together if you’re saving money (up to a certain magic number) but don’t delude yourself into believing children are better off participating in your loveless marriage that you want out of for emotional/developmental reasons. That flies in the face of logic.