This is your life…
How can I decide what’s right
When you’re clouding up my mind?
I can’t win your losing fight
All the time
Not gonna ever own what’s mine
When you’re always taking sides
But you won’t take away my pride
No, not this time
Not this time
How did we get here?
When I used to know you so well
How did we get here?
Well, I think I know how
The truth is hiding in your eyes
And it’s hanging on your tongue
Just boiling in my blood
But you think that I can’t see
What kind of man that you are
If you’re a man at all
Well, I will figure this one out
On my own
(I’m screaming, “I love you so”)
On my own
(My thoughts you can’t decode)
How did we get here?
When I used to know you so well, yeah
How did we get here?
Well, I think I know how
Do you see what we’ve done?
We’ve gone and made such fools
Of ourselves
Do you see what we’ve done?
We’ve gone and made such fools
Of ourselves
How did we get here?
When I used to know you so well, yeah, yeah
Well, how did we get here?
When I used to know you so well.
I think I know
I think I know
There is something I see in you
It might kill me
But I want it to be true
Decode
-Paramore
How did we get here? I do not recognize the man I married. I can not reconcile the image I have always had of my gentle, slow-to-anger husband with the man I am married to now. Bringing these sweet, energetic, traumatized little boys into our home has turned him into an emotionally and physically abusive person.
I don’t have the energy to rehash it all. Perhaps if I had been writing, I would have been more cognizant of the gradual escalation instead of feeling blind-sided and disillusioned by the realization. I wrote each rough handling and nasty comment off for the heat-of-the-moment instant that it was instead of looking at the bigger picture. I agonized over what to do; how to help him bond with the children; how to help him cope with this sudden change in our lives. He has been honest since the first few weeks that they were in our home that he is not enjoying parenting. I love them, but to be honest, I don’t enjoy it much either. Maybe I could if I had a supportive spouse and did not have the haunting anxiety of what little thing they do next will set him off in a funk for days. He admitted he only went along with this to make me happy. Apparently he doesn’t know me either, if he thinks that this was the only way for me to be happy. He says he can’t control himself when they make him mad…but somehow he manages to do it when other people are around, which shines truth on the lie he is telling himself.
Now that I am sitting, dizzy, in the middle of this bomb that has gone off in my brain and my heart, it is really a very simple conundrum. It is possible that he might bond or learn better ways to cope with their behavior in time, but he doesn’t have time. Every second that I allow this to continue is a detriment to the children, even if my husband would get the help he needs. The best parenting decision that I can make is to disrupt the adoption process. They deserve so much more. Disruptions are traumatic, but growing up with a father like my husband is turning out to be would be worse. At least this way they will have a chance at an adoptive home where they can receive the type of unconditional love and kindness they deserve.
After I give them up, then what? Where does that leave my marriage? Can we survive this? Do I want our marriage to survive this?
Theoretically, we were fine before the kids, and we could go back to being fine once they are gone. However, my husband has made the very bleak self-realization that he is not a good man. My automatic response is to soothe his concerns. Of course he is a good man, he has just done some not nice things, and he needs help to learn better coping mechanisms. It sounds like the same speech I give my three year old after time out. While it is true for my toddler, is it true for my husband? How does he come through that realization and out the other side? And what does it say about me if I stay? Do I still love him the same now that I have seen this side of him? Is loving him a form of accepting and condoning his actions? Will I ever be able to see anything else when I look at him? I told him several weeks ago that there was no shame in not being able to bond with the children. That we both had to be in this 100%, and if he couldn’t be, we would deal with it together. That we could be happy just the two of us again. I could have forgiven him trying and failing. Can I forgive him for hurting these already hurting children?
Three months ago my world was full of hope. We were adopting two beautiful little boys. Now I am staring down the barrel of a very dark time ahead; and when I think of him, I still can not reconcile the picture I have painted here, with the man I see and love everyday. This cognitive dissonance is alarming.