Your story has been on my mind since you began posting it. It was my story almost exactly. So close in fact, I worried it would trigger a ptsd flashback. It hasn't which to me means I'm healing and I'm in a much healthier and happier place now than I would have been if I stayed. And it validates for me all the work and effort I've put into healing my own wounds.

I've been divorced 10 years. My children are happier and healthier too. As a mom, the best gift I ever gave my children was the space and distance they needed to become the healthy, happy and strong people they are now.

I still remember the moment when I no longer felt stuck and stopped rationalizing the choices and options. I was so tired of maintaining dysfunction and patching together tiny bits of hope. In the end, there were more stitches than bits of hope, more dysfunction, eggshells and triggers than safe spaces. I decided why I was being abused no longer mattered. The fact that I was being abused needed to be addressed first. That one tiny change in my thinking saved me and my children.

I pulled out of traffic on my way to work and into the parking lot of an attorneys office. I called the phone number on the sign and made an appointment. I do not regret choosing myself.

I wish you and your children happiness. All the best to you.