N Focus

I try to make N my number one priority in my life. I don’t always succeed. In approaching a new life with BJ I have put N’s needs way up towards the top of the list. N needs love and security and peace and safety and comfort. N also needs a mom who is not miserable and depressed much of the time. So I’ve struggled, as those of you who’ve been reading a while, to balance providing N with a stable home and a mom who isn’t miserable. I think I swing too far in both directions occasionally.

My big question that I’m trying to answer now is whether my leaving W is truly the best thing to achieve the best for N or if I am indulging in a bit of self-justification in believing so.

My argument (to myself because I’m not really talking to anybody else about it, if you don't count my three readers here that is) is that W’s treatment of N is too harsh in general, even though they do have their good moments, so breaking up the family is not necessarily a bad thing. Also, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I will personally be a happier person without W, with the exception of the guilt I am bound to feel for abandoning him.

On the other side of the coin, maybe I should be focusing on those good moments W and N share rather than the overriding tension between them, and continue to hope that the good moments will become more frequent and lessen the tension. I can no longer argue, however, even to myself, that I can find a way to be happy with W. I find myself increasingly frustrated with him. Anything I feel for him at this point is closer to pity than love, and that’s no way to run a marriage.

I wish more than anything that I could give N the perfect upbringing, but I’ve already blown that. W has been so different as a parent than I ever imagined he would be. In some ways, he acts like a belligerent child himself, sulking when N hurts his feelings or lashing out with cruel words. It is hard to teach N to act better than that when that is the example set for him on a regular basis.

I tell myself that life will be better for N if W and I split up as it will limit the time they spend together. On the other hand, the time they do spend together will be just the two of them without me there as a buffer, and I know N counts on me to be there to be the buffer.

So what is better for N given that I can’t give him the ideal of a two parent happy home? I’ve tried to make that one work, and it just doesn’t because I just can’t suck it up that well. So will N do better in a one parent happy home or a two parent joyless home? That must be my overriding concern. That must be my focus. Am I fooling myself to think the best for him is for W and me to split up? Is it really just me trying to talk myself into feeling okay about it? Or is it really okay?

Well, I’ve talked in circles here long enough. Now my head hurts.