The kids.

We had a fight in early November that is still with me. Then another around the same magnitude in December. Then another on Monday night.

These are bad. They are too frequent now.

November fight led to me discovering the term trauma bond.

Interesting. No excuse, I’m not going to grab on to the term and excuse me staying and say stupid shit like “well, I can’t leave. I’m in a trauma bond. Duh.”

No, it’s just nice to have a little light on why I feel stuck and why I can’t seem to work my way out of this.

I put some things in place for my head and promised myself if things that happened in that fight ever happened again, I would walk away.

But then it did happen again in December. Two days before Christmas. So I put more plans in place.

But through January I noticed I wasn’t doing the things. I thought about it, pondered if you will, and realized that I knew if I did the things, that I was really looking at the door for the first time. Really looking.

Scary. Unknown. Just terrifying really.

Then Monday night happened.

It was worse than November and December combined.

My daughter had her boyfriend here. My husband, who likes the world to see him in a certain light, acted and screamed and yelled the most vile things ever well within ear shot of a stranger.

Our son was also in the same room. It escalated to a point that our son got up off the couch and our daughter came down and they got between us. Our son shoved him down the stairs with a threat and he turned and held me. Our daughter followed her dad down the stairs and stayed there for a bit.

It was bad. Probably the worst it’s ever been.

Tuesday I mentally couldn’t function as a human. So I read a book and took a little walk in the woods.

Wednesday I got myself together and took a stray kitty that adopted us to the vet.

I started functioning as a human again. I realized the words screamed in that fight were not bouncing around my skull as they have in the past.

I have realized, even though it’s been a short time since the fight, that I don’t want to grovel and try to get it fixed. I realized that I don’t give two shits and this whole situation is beyond toxic.

To me. To our kids.

Even to my daughter’s boyfriend. 🙄

He will usually put me through a two plus week of silent treatment after these fights.

I pushed him on the Christmas one to stop it and at least act normal for our oldest who was coming home and to just try to be normal for Christmas Day. He did.

I realized in the November fight that he knows I’ll start following him around and crying and begging him to talk to me and let’s get it figured out.

I realized he likes the chase. I grovel, he won’t have to apologize for anything and we continue on as of nothing ever happened.

This time, I welcome the silent treatment. I fucking welcome it.

I don’t want to hear his voice, I don’t want to be near him, I hate when he walks through the same room I’m in.

He’s been gone Tuesday and Wednesday night. It’s been nice.

Yesterday afternoon I was on the couch with our son and we both had our faces in our phones. Husband comes in and sits down to eat something before he leaves.

He had to make his own food. I’m sure it tasted like shit.

Anyway, he says to our son, “Something wrong with you?”

I don’t look up.

Son says, “What do you mean?”

He replies, “You’re not acting like yourself.”

I look up at him with a complete quizzed look on my face.

Are you kidding me? It’s like he has no idea the insanity he just caused two nights before! Does he not think his actions, and my actions, can cause a ripple effect through everyone? They are affected! This bullshit between us is definitely causing them to eventually need to face their own traumas and probably counseling.

This sucks so bad!!

Son didn’t say anything.

He leaves for the night. Later my son comes into the kitchen and says, “I think I’m going to talk to Dad. This is bullshit and he’s acting like a dick.”

I just looked at him. I don’t know what to say because I feel horrible and guilty and protective and all the things.

I said, “I don’t want to involve you.”

He, for the first time since all of this hit our house, spills his guts.

He’s sorry. He said we were all against you during that time. Thinking that if you kept fighting with dad you would drive him away. That you were pushing him to another woman. He said they all felt like if they got mad at what their dad was doing that they feared he would leave.

That they knew I wasn’t going anywhere and was an easy target.

He said “I should’ve stood by you.”

He told me not leave now. He asked me not to go and to stay. He said his Dad should go.

He said, “Dad broke you. He broke the machine that runs this family and instead of trying to fix it, he is breaking it more. How are you supposed to keep going with no oil in the machine? He doesn’t even try to replace the oil.”

He’s a mechanic, so I guess that’s where that came from. But it made me cry.

My husband created his own narrative during the affair. I had to be the villain. He created it with anyone who would listen and that included our children.

He’s doing it now, to me too, and I truly believe he’s doing all he can to make me make the choice to divorce so it doesn’t look bad on him.

I don’t care what he looks like to anyone. I don’t care at all.

For the first time in 8 years, I felt like I could breathe. I didn’t say anything to my son as he talked, I just nodded and told him it was OK. I told him how sorry I was for everything.

It was an eye opening talk and I stressed hard there are no sides. I don’t want him doing that.

It’s so weird when they become adults.

I was doing dishes yesterday and I had to stop for a minute and breathe.

It hit me that I’ve never had a relationship in my life that I didn’t have to heal from.

From my parents, to my foster family, to my husband.

I fear it’s passed on to my kids. I hate that all while I’m trying to break the circle, I’ve passed the circle on and now they will have to break their own.

My husband will never know how loved he could’ve been if he had been safe to love.

I will never know what safe love is.

But God I hope my kids will know.