Time to Talk

He announced that he was home for the weekend. His load dropped on Monday a couple hours away, and he thought he would come home to do laundry, eat food cooked at home, and see us. Kind of a twist, losing the phone, not talking to him in two weeks, he wasn't sure if we would even still be here.
I guess that's when I decided it was time to talk. I can't keep up the facade, I can't lie to him...it is not in my nature...I couldn't spend the entire weekend pretending everything was hunky-dorey. I knew he would either accept what I was saying, and realize that he needed help, or it would end the relationship and he would walk out. I wasn't prepared for that to happen... I really don't know how I would financially support myself and the kids right this minute...I haven't worked in over 12 years, and I do not have a college degree to fall back on...I'm self educated...but that doesn't show up well on a job application!
So, I asked him to sit down and talk. I told him that there were things he had to know, because I knew the kids and I were going to respond strangely at times. I told him that we had learned that what we have gone through, the way we have been living, is emotional abuse. I told him that the kids and I are all showing signs of being the victims of emotional abuse, and we have gone looking for help for it. He started out saying that he has always been supportive of me, and my ideas...how could I feel this way. And then I pointed out when he is overtired or just waking up that he has always said and done things that he doesn't remember later. It was one of the reasons that I asked him to go get help in the first place...it was one of the reasons he decided to go over the road.
And then I said the weirdest thing, the most profound thing. It just flowed out of my mouth, and when I heard myself say it, I knew it was true...although I didn't think about it before I said it, quite the reverse. I actually said something without thinking about it; it wasn't guarded, it wasn't checked for others' feelings, it just came out. And then I thought about it. I said, "I don't blame you." And in that split second of saying it and hearing what I had said, my mind raced. If I didn't blame him, then who did I blame. My mind brought up a tally of all the emotional abuse I have been through in my life, and I thought to blame each of them in turn. And I released that thought for each of them in turn. It was deeper than that, it was older than that. I found myself back in the first moment of abuse I could remember, a child of five with my stepmother. I sat there in my mind and wondered if I could blame her, and then asked myself what good it would do. And I let go of the blame....