Yeahhhh, it gets to where you aren't weighing "keeping family intact" against "breaking family apart" any more.  It's more like "Being able to say we stayed together" vs. "Giving them a better model for their future relationships".  Once I realized that the choices weren't *good vs. bad* that I started to see the options differently.  For me, it was more like, "teach them that appearing happy was more important than being happy" vs. "Give them a blueprint for what to aspire to."  I was SO reluctant to break us all up.  Keep in mind that for me, I was not only removing my kids' father from the home, but also his mother.  My youngest - who at that point in time was seven - didn't even remember Grandma not having lived with us (despite the fact that it had been only 3 years).  In addition, another family friend was living with us then, too.  I was removing THREE adults from my kids' lives by deciding to separate from my ex.  And that likely meant moving to a different home, a different neighborhood different schools, friends, neighbors, teachers.  I couldn't see any way around it.  But bottom line was that I was going to explode.  That wasn't MORE important than the kids.  But if I wound up going off the deep end, THEY wouldn't exactly have a good life after that, anyway.  I hate to feel so central to my kids' well being, but that's just how it was.

Now..... I wound up staying in the same house, same schools, same car, same neighbors, same friends.  My current boyfriend moved in, and that's how my life stayed largely the same.  For a while after my ex left, both my former MIL and the family friend continued to live there - for another 8 months, actually.  My former mother-in-law died about a year and half later (cancer).  The family friend who lived with us died of a drug overdose even before MIL died.  In reality, if I'd let allll those unknowns make me stay, the people who I was afraid of removing from my kids' lives would have been gone, anyway.  My ex wasn't gone from anything except the house.  The kids began to see over time how little he actually interacts with them vs. just being around them.  He always had, but they hadn't noticed.  NOW they do.

And now they have a much better model for both a father, a marriage, and a man.  My ex could have shown them how to be a good man, but he just.... didn't.  He's just floating along in life, like he's sleepwalking to his kids' adulthood.  My current husband is intentional.  My son told me that I laugh so much more now.  My daughter told me that she's glad things wound up the way they did.  I was Sooooo scared to blast that family apart.  And in the end, the family wound up much better than if I'd stayed.

They have a better knowledge of a good woman and wife, too.  I'm much happier this way, and much better at showing my husband respect and loving actions.  Those were rebuffed in my old relationship.  So they see a better me now, too.

Kel

Last edited by Kel (May 19, 2017 4:03 pm)