Today we had a meeting of me, my H, the child therapist, and our coach (aka my T). This is not a therapy session but focused on how we can make a good and safe future for the kids. Anyway, we were talking about the possibility of my H apologizing to our girls for past bad incidents (when he was angry, yelled at them, hit them, etc.) T said this would be a very powerful healing experience for them, and could help break the cycle--so that when they were grown up, they would not seek out romantic relationships with men who were angry, scared them, mistreated them, etc. My H was kind of dumbfounded--"why would they seek out this kind of relationship?" T explained it was that they would be unconsciously trying to overcome this critical experience with their father from their youth. And they would try this over and over again as adults until they finally succeeded (or maybe they never would). H was so surprised at this. To me, this description is my life. T and I have talked about it before on many occasions. I have been in this abusive relationship with my H for 20 years because I am just repeating the pattern of my childhood. It was ironic--the weird moment--that my H could not fathom this potential response of our girls when here he has lived for 2 decades with a woman who is playing out her pattern of abuse with him as the one who dishes it out. It's crazy. I hope he can mend fences with the girls and help stop this pattern from developing in them. As I hear T explaining how my H should apologize to the girls, I am thinking yeah, that's great, but would he ever apologize to me? No, of course not. But hey, that's therapy, and that's not what we're here for today.