How is it that you are so blind? You continually blame me for everything. Yet until you had an affair and filed for divorce, the kids were holding it together. Somehow, them now falling apart lands at my feet.
I begged for years for affection. For you to put down the phone and engage. But never for more than 5-10 minutes at a time. You turned away from the family years ago, but I was able to hold the kids together, because they knew they would always have me.
But now, you try to push yourself into their life unnaturally. You seem to prefer to communicate via text. But they are still kids, they need face to face interactions for a relationship to develop. They need time to just be together well before they will tell you anything real. But you consistently reject their requests for time. If it's not on your terms, it doesn't happen at all. But they aren't toddlers.
Our daughter fell apart last fall. She is still struggling, wishing away the pain of your rejection along with the typical middle school drama. Do you realize the amount of time she spends with therapists right now? You are one, but yet you can't connect with her. Because you don't actually listen to her. Do you see all her medical issues? Her body is struggling because she's living in a constant state of fight or flight. I beg you, let her no be no, without requirement of justification. Don't we want her to learn that saying no is enough? It starts with giving her a voice at home. It's hard when I'm the only one showing her that she deserves respect just for being herself.
Our son is falling apart more slowly. He can hold it together for a few days, maybe a week. But eventually, he becomes a puddle, often in my arms. He wishes he could run away, because he hurts so much. He wants a break from the hard parts of life, from dealing with your rejection as well as the rejection from the kids at school. But you refuse to give him any break. And you expect me to patch him up, and put him on the bus every morning. Some mornings, it just doesn't happen. I can often sense it coming, but I don't know how to stop the train.
I'm exhausted. Being a single mom is hard. But you know what is even harder? Being a single mom that has to fight against the father. You don't add anything positive to their lives right now. It's like you don't see these 2 amazing children with hearts of gold sitting in front of you. Watching our son interact with my baby, you can see the love just pouring out of him. If you sat and truly listened to either child, your heart would break, just as mine keeps doing. They are trying so hard and feel unheard and defeated. Yet they get up the next day and try again.
When does it end? When do you stop torturing these kids? Will you ever stop putting yourself first? Or will you at least let us leave? Because I don't know how much longer we can all keep putting ourselves back together after interacting with you. They can only take so much and we are all running out of the strength to keep fighting.
