It is too risky to talk about the husband-wife relationship. Each can't blame the other because it might make matters worse. So the childhood has to remain the focus. And the anger factor has to be dealt with.

In other cases, the spouse is the main focus for blame ...and there is no fear in exposing faults, nor interest in working to improve their relationship. And there are children that develop an effective means of coping ...that would give them an edge on one of those competitive TV shows, in this case, Survivor comes to mind.  They seek advantage by using one parent against the other, seeing no harm in it, as they feel they are already against one another ...and they frankly don't care much for one of the parents, or both of them.   Respect has long since departed from their home, and they make it clear that they too will soon depart ...thriving on the decisiveness that is so prevalent, and so easily manipulated. It's like learning a trade ...it may not be easy at first, and there are difficult times, but soon you best the competition. Though this is not the case for Murray and me.  We know of kids our age who are like this, but we have both endured many years of deep-seeded pain ...never trying to take advantage, and always looking for real hope and change.