(((Big Mama)))

The situation is very complicated ~ it always is.

I really do understand how stuck you must be feeling inside, as you try to work through your emotions about the past 20 years and how to continue to make it through. It has not been easy for you or your children, and you all have the scars to prove it.

While I really do think that it's great that you have been able to keep your hub from hitting your children, it IS important to consider the effects of emotional abuse. While my grandfather rarely hit or kicked me, he did scare the bejeezers out of me and that didn't help me make it through my childhood & teen years. And, he was just my grandfather! Yeah, I saw him for ALL of the holidays and birthdays, but at least I didn't have to live with him. You know??

The emotional abuse was really tough for me to accept. As was watching him hit and kick other people (in the family and completely innocent people)! I would imagine that your children have had a very difficult time watching you get hurt by their father and then listen to you coming up with excuses for him. That is awfully confusing to children. They won't understand why you put up with it & they honestly may be building resentment towards both of you.

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but it's a real possibility. I know that my mom resented her mom a lot for never standing up to her father (my abusive grandfather). I think that it's good that you and your hub are in T, but are your kids in T too? If not, now would be a really good time to initiate that. To help them work through their memories and attached emotions. While you and your hub may see the children as being free from abuse, we all have different perspectives.

I do honestly have empathy for your husband's childhood. He had it pretty rough ~ and thankfully, he hasn't passed on many of those horrors onto his own children to suffer. That is a great improvement from the way that his father treated him and his siblings. But he does need to understand that emotional abuse can & often does have a dramatic effect over a person's emotional health.

Wishing you and your family the very best....