Kids - I banked on your resilience and chose myself. I justified my need to happily, live the life I imagined. You both needed a father who wasn't miserable and lonely. A father who was more than a shell, hoping you wouldn't notice. A father who could be all in. I need to grow old with a woman who loves me - not my presence. Your mom wasn't that woman. So after more than ten years of trying, I finally chose me. But I left her, not you.
There's days I beat myself up because I turned your young lives upside down. I know you’re doing fine on the surface, but I take the pain you haven't processed yet, like jabs to the chin. I get it. You didn't ask for this or to be born - again, my choices were forced on you. So, I suffer a little every day.
Sometimes my son gets chippy over the little things I say. My little girl acts out my X's pain as a substitute for her own. So every day, I do a little extra to compensate. Okay, I do A LOT extra to compensate.
I let you get away with a lot more than I should, sometimes at my peril. I now justify my need to ease your pain with taking a few more on the chin at home. Ok. I'll clean your rooms sometimes. I take a blind eye to you slacking off in school - a little. What I'd like to say is that I'm sorry - but you wouldn't truly understand right now.
We parents often say how we'd die for our kids, but no one ever asks - is okay for your kids to feel a little pain - to save your own life?
