Devastated

My sons are handling the divorce very differently.  An Heritage #3 plays a lot of video games.  But he is not isolating himself.  He plays online games with his friends from school.  He is working hard in school and succeeding (100% and 99% on his finals so far).  He’s the one who came into my room early Sunday morning to wake us up for church (I can’t stand 8am church).  He pops out of bed every morning and showers daily.  Whatever emotional struggles he is having with it just aren’t visible.

Then there is An Heritage #4.  He isolates.  He doesn’t want to get up in the morning or shower.  He gets in fights with his friends.  He is disrespectful to teachers.  He gets in fights at school.  He’s suspended from the bus now.  And he’s failed his last two math tests.  Last night he cried himself to sleep.  He doesn’t want to have to spend any time with his dad because he thinks he is a jerk.  He makes comments like “kids have no rights” because he doesn’t like that a judge gets to decide how often he sees his dad. 

I stayed married to H-er because I had hoped to minimize the impact of addiction on my kids. 

I’m realizing now that it was always a no win situation.  Sure, I limited their exposure to scary people and situations because I had them with me all the time.  But they witnesses emotional and physical abuse and that’s another form of trauma.

My kids are messed up now.  That makes me sad because I contributed to it with my poor boundaries.  I’m owning my part.  It’s painful.