I Will Not Change My Mind

I'm tired.

It's been a very long day full of drama and despair.

I woke up this forgetting that I made you leave 2 nights ago.

I went down stairs to change out the laundry and there is the car that you drove away in. How can this be? Did you get a new one? Did you finally do something resembling taking care of your family?

NO.

I can see your grandmother's blanket poking out of the front seat. I can not believe my eyes. I stand there fury and embarrassment building - we will not be that family too.

Thank goodness your kids aren't awake yet. I have already been answering questions about where you are and why. Questions about when you are coming back and why on Earth you would get so angry to throw pumpkins at the dresser in my bedroom. Why you would then take another on and throw it at the living room wall (hitting a picture in the process) not 3 feet from our 3 year old.

When you finally left I was able to calm your kids to sleep - most of them within just a few minutes - which I gotta say really says something about what they are used to. Then talk to your oldest into calming down for what seems like ages.

Then I get to clean it all up. Glass, seeds and broken pumpkins everywhere.

I didn't cry though. That was surprising to me. I always cry. But you see that last time really was the last time. I told you then...if you didn't get some help - you were out.

That day has come.

Oh you tried every trick in the book on me today: I know that you thought that at least one of them would work. I am not going to change my mind. Your kids need to feel safe and loved. They and I need a break from you. We need to be able to just do the things that we have to without all the stress and yelling.

You were like a weasel just trying to worm your way back in. I know you are embarrassed to have to stay with your parents. I get that - I get that you are mad - but I am done. I will not live like this anymore. I will not live just waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

See that's the worst - I know that you have good intentions - that you are really trying - but trying is not going to cut it anymore. You need professional help. You need parenting classes. You need to talk to someone about the anger that you are always feeling.

Your family will be here waiting for you when you get the help that you have been told for years that you need...but I as a Mother will not have to answer to my kids when they ask me - Why didn't you do something to stop it?

I still have yet to do that very thing with my Mother.

I know that you are not a monster. I know that you have never laid a hand of me or the kids. But you have to know that what you do, say and act like affects us. You have to know that you are raising the next generation of our family.

You have 3 boys who are watching you and taking mental notes. You are responsible for teaching them how to be men, take care of their families and how to treat their wives.

You have a little girl that looks up to you. She is watching you and lets hope that she isn't like the million other girls who seek out men like their fathers.

You have a wife that dearly loves you. That has stood by you when no one else would. That wants nothing more that to live out the life that I always dreamed. I wanted to grow old with you, travel to places with you, watch our grand babies with you and live in this house that we worked so hard for with you.

I know that the steps that I am taking could lead us down a much different path. I have to be realistic though. Even though you are saying all the right things - it's going to take a lot of action on your part and lot less hand holding on mine.

I have 4 kids to look after.

You are on you own with this.


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