Letting Go
Marc left the house with his dad yesterday. They’re going to live together for a while; maybe it will be permanent.
A piece of me feels like I found out about “myself” and decided what behaviors I would and wouldn’t tolerate TOO LATE. A big piece of me wonders “What if I had realized my marriage was abusive three years ago? 10 years? 17 years ago?…How would my life be different now?”
The question fuels my guilt. I feel guilty for not doing something sooner.
On the other hand, when I look over the past years, I know I was doing the best I knew to do at the time. Whether I was compromising, negotiating, caving, pretending, yelling, fighting or crying, I was doing the best thing I knew to do.
I’ve been in communication with an angel (an ANGEL!) for about 15 of these years…I’ve had the best guidance possible. If an angel wouldn’t tell me what to do, then I can surmise that no one could have told me what to do. I wasn’t ready to hear it, wasn’t ready to do THIS that I’ve been doing for the past year and a half.
But now that I am ready, now that I know, to do differently could only result in feelings of failure and anxiety. When I’m 60, I don’t want to look back over this period wishing I had pretended I didn’t know about boundaries, co dependence, abuse, manipulation and control.
I don’t want to pretend I am wrong for doing what is right for me, or wrong for doing what I believe is right for my children.
Every action has a consequence. Positive action, such as standing up to my teen, can have hurtful consequences in the short-term. But what about next year? Where will Marc and I be next year?
Well, it won’t be a world in which my words and beliefs don’t matter. It won’t be a world in which I allow my boys to run all over me and I anguish about “giving in” to teenage hormones and emotional manipulation.
Better? Worse? Only time will tell. But right now, I’m doing the best I can with the knowledge I have. That will have to be enough.
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October 18th, 2011 at 11:06 AM
I just found this post. It’s dated almost a year to the day Marc came back to live with me. It seemed he was missing from my life much longer than a year…
I like the last sentence in this post – “But right now, I’m doing the best I can with the knowledge I have. That will have to be enough.”
It was enough. Life is good.