Growing Up and Growing Apart Part I

Growing up, all I wanted to be was a mother.  After high school, I was shipped off to college without complaint but also without the desire to go.  I just wanted to have a home, a peaceful home, filled with children and cooking aromas and flowers in the garden.

I married a nice boy from a good family.  He had beautiful manners and I beamed just to be by his side.  He and I were a happy little couple, living an exciting life as a team.  We were equals.

It was after the birth of our first child that things began to change shape.  I was born to be a mother and our son and I were close from the second I sensed my pregnancy.  Maybe my partner felt as though he had lost his girlfriend, maybe his fears of responsibility were bigger than I had seen ~ but regardless, I know that he felt left out.

It wasn’t a deliberate thing, it was just that under his father’s shaking hands, our son sensed that this person did not have the confidence that his constant mama had and when he sensed my rare absence, he would begin to cry.  The second I stepped foot back onboard the little boat that was our home, the baby would settle and coo and Daddy felt expendable. 

I share this with you because I keep going back to those days when the cracks began to show.  Now that it’s all said and done and the fat lady has sung her song, I want to try to see it from the ex’s perspective.  I no longer embrace the image of him as the abusive despot that he became, I now can see how little things such as our baby being unsettled in his presence did contribute to this lack of confidence as a father. 

And like most things, one grain added to another and then another, eventually we have a mountain.  In time he became someone that I no longer could identify with as his frustrations grew to monumental proportions.  As the family grew and the children continued to identify more with me (as children do with their mothers), he felt more and more that he was solely the breadwinner and left out of the love.  He was angry, resentful and began to take it out on us in ways that were not acceptable. 

These days my dreams have come full circle.  I do have that lovely little home with cookies baking and children’s happy sounds echo.  Without the angry man.  And as I sit here in my down-home bliss, I can begin to uncover where WE began to fall apart, where HE began to fight for his survival, and where WE could have attempted to repair the damage.  

To be continued…  love from ~maya~

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