what did you tell your kids?

Tiffany - posted on 11/25/2012

I am totally with you...my verbally abusive husband just turned physical on me. We weren't married when our first daughter was born, now 5. We have been separated for 3 weeks and I am about to file. I have been through this with him before 4 years ago, he was "play fighting" with me and choked me so hard I couldn't breathe. I bit his arm to get him off of me because I couldn't speak. His family was there and took his side, and a similar situation occurred 3 weeks ago and no one to see and I was terrified. We got back together after a year, got married another year later and now have another girl 19 mos old. I was warned but wished for the best and I guess I have to learn things twice. We both have college degrees, I have a commercial pilot's license and we are well in our 30's. I thought I planned it all out and then the abuse continued. So, I would DIE if one of my girls was married to someone like him is what I decided. My 5 year old is having a hard time with missing daddy, but I just stay strong and stick with routine and let her call him when she has a down day. It's hard, he made a lot of money, but was a bipolar, digenerate gambler and yelled constantly..I think I prefer the peace...I am just tell her that daddy is working in another city (which is true) until I get hard questions... I think just being laid back about it until the time occurs when they can understand. I tell her daddy loves her and misses her so much, even though it makes me want to throw up! I'm not a shrink, but my dad is, so I follow his lead too! Hope this helps..I too was moved around a million times and sick of it and he was just bipolar..not military! Hang in there!

Kerstin - posted on 04/11/2010

I just sat my daughter down about a week ago now and I told her straight out. She will be 9 this summer and she took it pretty well. I told her Mommy and Daddy are getting divorced and the reason why is that we don't love each other enough anymore to stay married. This is not her fault and not her brother's fault, but this is between Mommy an Daddy. We both love her and her brother a lot, and we will keep loving them, but we don't love each other anymore. It just happens with adults sometime. I think it helped that one of her friends has divorced parents. His mom is in a new relationship now, but he still gets to spend time with his dad on the weekends. She sees that this is not something bad happening. But that it is ok. Just don't talk bad about her dad. She needs to be able to form her own opinion when she is old enough.

Kerstin - posted on 10/17/2009

i am in the same situation, except my kids are older and we are already separated. my husband is active military and i just couldn't take the moving around and him being gone all the time anymore. and even when he was home, he never seemed to be too interested in his children. so i packed up and moved back home with the kids. now he is stationed in tx and i am back with my family in germany. we've already been here a year and i have told my children (my daughter turned 8 this summer and my son turned 6 two weeks ago) that we are here because of daddy's work and because he has to be gone so much all the time. my son doesn't care one way or the other, he has no connection to his dad. to him, daddy is this cool guy that comes for a visit once in a while, does cool stuff with you and buys you presents. that's it. for my daughter, it was a bit harder. she knows her daddy from a time when he really seemed to care. when she was his little princess. but after a year in irak, all that changed. now we are separated and he officially filed for divorce, it got the papers a week ago.
he is not paying child support or alimony for me (we will be married 15 years come november) and i only have a part-time job. i am lucky that i have my parents and sisters to help me out. but i don't know how to tell my daughter that we are getting divorced. there are times i want to tell her "because your daddy is a piece of shit" when she asks why he isn't here. but i want to keep her illusion of her daddy up. she needs to make her own judgement when she is old enough to understand. but if anybody knows how to tell her, i would really appreciate it. she is very sensitive and i am a bit afraid of how she will react.

Daniela - posted on 10/07/2009

hi janelle. sorry to hear about your separation. i can't tell you what i told my daughter because she was only 2 months old when her father and i separated but i can tell you what my mom told me when my dad left (i was 5 years old). she told me that dad was living somewhere else but that we're still a family and that they both love me very much and that dad will be visiting often. she never told me details about why they separated until i was old enought to handle it, which was when i was 17 or 18. i am glad that she did it that way because she allowed me to make up my own mind about my dad instead of her telling me he was a bad guy and how much pain he has put her through- which would've tainted my veiw of him. just make sure that he is still a big part of thier lives and show them that you both still love them everyday. and in my opinion it is healthier to not show your children when you're mad at each other or to yell at eachother when the children are present. i know sometimes it's easier said than done but in the end it's what your children need- a healthy happy family atmosphere. i hope everything is going alright, and remember if you need to talk to anyone you can talk here and you can talk to me :) i'll always be around to listen