Moving In - The First Time

I moved into his house on a Wednesday. The plan was to live there, until we found a place to buy together that had room for all of us. I woke up in a panic early Thursday morning and walked to the kitchen to breathe. I stood there, leaning on the counter, staring at nothing, wondering what I had done. It was 4 AM. I went for a walk, trying to stay calm. I could feel already that I needed to make a change. This wouldn’t work. But I told myself it was just nerves, we’d be fine, we just needed to settle in. That day I went to work as usual and brought the kids to this new ‘home’ after school. I showed them their new rooms. Nothing about this felt right. My oldest was quiet and did not want to be there. My youngest was hesitant but willing. That night, the first issue I remember was the spoon in the ice cream. The ice cream was frozen so solid that the spoon bent when my oldest tried to fill a bowl. This is my first memory of knowing he was annoyed with my kids, and me trying to shield them from knowing, while I tried to convince him that what he found annoying was normal kid behaviour. It would be 7 more years of trying to be this barrier between them, trying to shield them from his unreasonable frustrations with them. I thought that if I could ignore, or not react to, his surly comments and reactions, act as though everything was fine, distract everyone with something silly or unrelated, they wouldn’t notice the way he was treating all of us. One of the saddest realizations that came later was that they always knew. Of course they knew. I’m not sure why I thought any different. It is unbelievable to me that I thought they wouldn’t see what was happening.

Later that first night, with my boys in this new place, I went to my oldest’s room to see how he was doing. He was resigned, unhappy, but I told myself it would pass. As I turned to leave the room I noticed a whiteboard propped behind the door. In small letters at the bottom my son had written, “I hate it here.” It broke my heart. Breaks it still because I moved them out that very weekend, but I still stayed in the relationship for 7 more years. And nothing ever changed. And much more was left to come.