Thank you, my friends, for all these comments.

I will write more soon to reply to each of you.

I don't know if you remember what happened the last eight years. The children were decimated by this man. And it took me seven years to get my son out of the worst of it. Self harm, shoplifting, refusing to go to school, reported twice to ACS, rage, running away, etc. It was just this summer that I started to feel he was going to be okay.

Now that he is seeing his father again, and living this secret life always at his place, my son has totally transformed and totally regressed.

Just now he spent 1/2 an hour telling me what a loser I am, how lame that I can't afford the things I need, why I had to get a "real" job so that I could finally pay for things for this family, and the look on his face, of pure hatred, disdain, disgust. It's like he is absorbing the MLC monster and coming home to puke it out all over me. I tried to listen to him at first and let him get it out, but after a while I realized it was a sort of monstering and that all i could do was disengage by leaving. And then I remembered that until maybe 10 months ago, S would regularly wreck my things when he was in a rage. Just in small ways, like knocking over my jewelry box or something. But his face is like that again. It's like he's not in there anymore. This all happened just in the last month of seeing his father again and being sucked into that vortex, working hours and hours there and I think tonight he was just hanging out there.

There are many things I have to do to do work on myself, trauma therapy sounds right. And I agree that there is not much I can do to keep S from his dad. But I do not agree that what is happening between me and H is separate from my kids. I think it's almost dangerous to see it that way. There is a difference between trying not to share any details and thinking this is only between a husband and wife. My H's goal is to destroy the family unit, not me. He doesn't have any mercy or empathy for these kids, and I can see already what he is doing to my son, my son is literally transformed in the space of three weeks.

Anyway Thank you for all the time you took to help me, DnJ, Sage, SJohn, Eagle, Bttrfly. Will reply more soon.

Last edited by Gerda; 09/29/21 04:55 AM.
I believe I will see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord with courage.
Be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.