Yikes! Need help, please.

[TrentC]

I just read the email you were planning to send, and here are my thoughts:

You asked how the kids were, and I said fine. I did that to spare your feelings and not create drama.[1] The truth is, they are not fine. D11 is acting out severely. Her grades have tanked. She got a 23 on a math quiz, she is refusing to participate in PE, she is doing her homework, but not turning it in, and she has to spend next week going to tutorials for math work she absolutely knows how to do. I asked her why she got the 23, and she snapped...maybe I just made some computation errors and stormed off. Last night, she blew up at Grandpa and actually threw a back scratcher at him.

D8 and S5 cry daily and beg me to tell you to come home. I tell them I am sorry, and we will get through this and be okay. I always tell them it is my fault you left, not theirs.[2] D8 asked me if she could hope, and I didn't know what to say. Couldn't bring myself to tell a little girl there is no point in hoping.[3] Her world should be filled with hopes and dreams right now. She wouldn't even sing Louis Armstrong "What a Wonderful World" at her school performance. She just stood there mumbling.

D10, seems to have internalized the whole thing. I caught her crying in her bed and I tried to talk to her about how she was feeling. She said she was fine with it and told me she had something in her eye.

I don't know what we need to do, but we need to help them make this transition. They are broken and they didn't do a thing to deserve it.

Please, give me your thoughts.[4]

1: Stop that right now. He doesn't deserve to have his feelings spared. You are enabling his behavior by doing this.

2: Bullshit. You don't get to put this on yourself; he's already doing that to you. Don't ever do that again.

3: There is nothing wrong with hoping. I mean, that's what you are doing and why you are here, right? Just make it clear to your kids that Daddy chose to leave, so it's his choice to come back.

4: Who gives a damn what his "thoughts" are? This is pursuing. He doesn't want to think about what his selfish behavior is doing to his family.