Leaving the first time
In October of 2007 my son who was 7 at the time, lied to his father. It was a stupid little lie – “no I don’t have any homework tonight” or “yes, I cleaned my room”. I don’t even recall. He found out he’d been lied to. He called my son into the living room, stood over him and started screaming questions at him “IS THIS A LIE!? YOU DARED TO LIE TO ME! WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?!” When my son cowered in fear and didn’t respond he got whacked upside the head. I moved closer to the exchange, fearing it would get worse, as I got within arms reach He hit him again, this time harder – enough to knock him to the ground. I got between them, and instead of trying to tell him he was wrong in front of our son (which I have no doubt would have ended badly for both of us) I told him “that’s enough, he’ll clean his room” (or do his homework, or whatever it was the lie was about). I took my son down the hall to his room and left him in his room with the door closed.
In november of 2007 I decided I was going to leave. I left a note on the table, took the kids and went to my parents house. He called and called and called. When we were asleep he came by. Afraid of what my dad would do to him if he didn’t leave, I tried to talk to him, tried to tell him I needed some space and time. That I wasnt happy, it wasnt good for the kids the way we were living … The kids cried and cried and cried – I felt awful.
During this time he told me that I was the reason he’d gained so much weight. He told me that I was toxic. He told me that it was better that we didn’t get back together, now he would have time to focus on himself, and do all the things he’d really wanted to do – all the things I had been keeping him from.
After 4 days of this, I decided I needed to go back. that maybe I could somehow control things better, that I just needed to make my mind up to not care about what a jerk he was and what a bad parent he was. Clearly he believed it was all my fault as to why he was an asshole. If i was a better wife, or had better control over the kids, then none of his behavior would be happening. I needed to try harder to be a better wife and mom. I was the one who was failing, not him – so I went back.
There were stipulations however. I wasnt allowed to have any friends that were guys. There was one man in particular that I had become friends with online. We talked about movies and books and tv shows, and we were both trying to quit smoking. He would have none of that. I also was now to go to the local store, our daycare, his family, and tell them all that I was running back to him. I was humiliated. But, I wanted to believe that this would all work out and make us a better family. If this is what it would take to get him to be the kind of man i could live with, then yes, I’d do anything.
Because this all transpired around his birthday, I was reminded of my poor decision to leave in the first place by telling me he was never celebrating his birthday again. Every november, “What do you want to do for your birthday this year?!” was met with “Im not having any more birthdays. It’s not a good time of year for me anymore.”
Looking Forward 