Replies to '10/06 "Stand Up for Yourself!"'

Quote From: jmschoen

I've related to your story.   I've too ended a 20 year relationship.  I stayed in the relationship thinking that I was being over reactive to many of the situations.  I knew that it wasn't normal - and so did my children.  I wanted and believed that my relationship with my  ex-husband would change...he would see how we we're hurting.  I didn't want my children to come from a broken home.   But I decided that the only thing I was doing for sure, was teaching my children how to take abuse.  That's when things started to change for me.  I was so emotionally unhappy - I wasn't there for my kids any more than my ex-husband,  who was totally un-plugged from all of us.  They needed to have one emotionally happy, healthy parent.  Even it it meant there would only be one.  I decided that my children would "unlearn" everything unhealthy that they had witnessed.  I would be the one that would set the tone of what a normal healthy, happy house would be - and what a healthy, happy parent should be like.  It's been a hard road - we still have moments that need to be addressed.  We still have times that we have to realize that how we are reacting to a situation is because of our past family history.  We still have intellect issues, esteem issues and issues of being abandoned emotionally and physically from someone that we trusted to nurture us.  I'm happy that I can teach my children, by example,  how  a loving, nurturing, supportive and unconditional relationship with a parent/child/spouse/partner  should be.