a different perspective

I love my son. I really do. I couldn’t imagine a life without him (or could I?).
But sometimes, just before falling asleep, I ask myself if I would have made a different decision if I had known how I feel now. Trapped. Entangled in the threads of my own decisions.  Decisions I didn’t think through and now I have to live with the consequences. I am stuck in a house with a man I don’t really love anymore, unable to escape because if I would, everything would fall apart. I have to think about what’s best for my son. I want him to have a family. Knowing how hard it was for my daughters when my relationship to their dad broke apart, I wouldn’t want my son going through the same pain, always being torn between mom and dad.

So I have to bear living with this man. A man only interested in himself, not recognizing the needs or the desires of the person he is living with. Not being able to reflect his own behavior, able to make compromises, to understand how interaction between people should work. No. He lives in his own world that he built around him, which no one can access. Unable to take criticism or to accept an opinion that differs from his as equivalent. What he does and says is always right and correct and I can’t stand this anymore. In a relationship, partners make compromises, because they love each other and respect the other person’s values and wants.

But here I am: working from 8am to 4pm every day, but when I come home I don’t feel the relief anymore which every person should feel coming home: a feeling of serenity, tranquility, and support. Instead, my work continues.  I have to buy the groceries, take care of our garden, do the laundry, free the whole house from filth, dust and messiness and along the way also make time for my three children, trying to satisfy their needs and wants. Trying to manage all that, my own interests and wishes get lost and I find myself questioning if a (pretended) happy family is worth my struggle, not being able to give my children the attention they need and should get; putting myself aside to concentrate on not going insane and ignoring the fact of being completely overstrained…