Wondering

I left to go get one of my kids, picking up from a birthday party. I get that child and am driving to the grocery store when I get a text from an older child telling me that they and their dad just got into a massive fight. Please come home...

Well, shit.

I get home, debating with myself on how to approach how I know about this but it doesn't matter. My older child approaches me and tells me that they told their dad about their eating disorder. So first thing I get is him pissed about not telling him I took older child to doctor, then pissed that I kept it from him about child's chest deformity(which was nothing but that kid's ribs are too long and push the breast bone out.) Our older child had asked me not to say anything until they got a chance to tell their dad. Dad seemed far more concerned about the chest thing than the eating disorder...which, to me, is the more serious problem.

Then he complains to me that one of our other children told him, fuck you. He's going on about respect and how he would never talk to his dad that way. Never mind that he cusses and curses every day around the kids and I find myself wondering what he said to make this child say that. My husband claims that they were having a discussion but....

Of course I get to hear about how everyone else is the bad ones...until I catch some of them alone, without dad around. Then I hear how he insulted my family and when my children tried to defend them by simply asking their dad not to say anything more about them, he blew up and was screaming at them, calling them betrayers and worse. Yeah, one of them finally said, fuck you. Any surprise here? The kids said that after that he ran the gambit of rage and then crying, now it's like everything is hunky dory.

That is the norm around here sadly. How do we deal with this? I've thought about making him move out but where does that leave me? I work part time, I don't have a degree. I'd get child support but it would barely cover rent, utilities and gas. Possibly some of the groceries too. How the hell am I supposed to make it? How do I not?

Damned if I do, damned if I don't....



Noly

Fear

Why am I afraid to tell him the truth? What drives me to fudge things? I don't know. I do know that when I tell him the truth, he reacts badly. He uses his words to cut me to pieces and makes me feel ashamed even when I have nothing to be ashamed of. He blows up and then tries to make everything my fault. So I lie and when the lie is found out, he blows up anyway.

I know, I know...why not just tell him from the beginning and save myself the trouble. I just don't know. I think it began as a survival mechanism and now I don't know how to change it. If I have time to think of it, then I can overcome it but when I'm placed on the spot, like today, my first instinct is to lie to him. Which is stupid because the things I am lying about aren't even all that big. But they do set him off. So how do I change this? How do I tell him the truth without it turning ugly (and it will turn ugly)?

I feel like a failure these days.

Noly