I Am A Bit Sad

Do you want to know why I tell other people about what happened?  Because they listen when I talk. Because they don't attack me in an effort to confuse me so much that I forget what the problem was in the first place and believe that the real problem is me.  Because other people don't try to compete with me for my daughter's affection.  Because other people don't talk shit about you. 

I am sad.  I am sad that you have hurt my family in such a way that you will probably never even want to understand. You have hurt us and think that you are right to do so.  You have caused us pain and seem to enjoy that fact.  And I am sad because now, now that I've grown up, I would never try to hurt you that way.  Even the times that I did hurt you, if you can even be hurt, I had other intentions in mind, and knowing that hurts me.  You act as though, I feel as though, you want everything to be my fault.  This is how you want it to be, but it was never what I wanted.  I wanted only for you to return the love and acceptance that I naively gave to you, because that is what I was supposed to do, that is what I was programmed by nature to do.  And you want this all to be my fault as you provide a united front against the "attack" from a five year old-whom " he will never  touch again," only so that you don't have to take responsibility for what you have done, for the pain you have caused.  

I want to understand the fear that causes you to act this way, but I do not.  I told my husband that if he'd been the one to hurt her, she and I would live in my car before I let him do it again.  And he said, "Rightfully so."  But you are not strong enough to understand that and I am sad.  I am sad that the person whom I most modeled my life on turned out, despite all that ranting, to be so weak.  I am sad that when I stepped out into the light you absolutely refused to follow.  What are you so afraid of?  Are you afraid I'll hate you? Something I could never, even now, do?  Or are you afraid I'll still love you?

At this juncture it looks like whatever I do, I lose.  Either I lose the respect of my daughter or I lose my parents' acceptance.  I know which one I choose, but I am sad that I have to, that you would both ask me to.  We have so little time left together, if you think about it.  I hope there is a path ahead that I am unable to see right now, but I fear there is not.  I choose the unconditional love of my daughter, who will either be hurt because I let her go with you again, or she will be hurt because I don't.


All the things that have upset me in the past, although are examples perhaps of what we are going through now, mean nothing to me now.  I have only one issue.  My daughter went to your house for the weekend and she came back different. I can't tell her it was nothing to be scared about, because I don't know, and you know why I don't know. There is really nothing for me to fix.  It's for the two of you to do.