It wasn’t too long ago that I left my family. I told my husband “I’m leaving,” grabbed my purse and walked out. I got into my car and drove away. Now granted I only left for 8 minutes and just went around the block, but I had to. I needed to leave.
It had been a day of non-stop whining, demands, fighting from the kids. We are in the process of renovating our home so my husband has been over at the new place working during any free time he has. This leaves me home alone a lot with two children who need constant entertainment, through absolutely no fault of his or their own. This day was particularly hard for no reason other than my kids had lost their ever-loving minds.
It all started when I told them that they needed to undress to take baths. Cue drama. Instead of handling the situation, I chose to leave. Let my husband deal with it … I was done. I announced I was leaving and so I did.
Was this the right thing to do? Absolutely not. Was I proud of what I had done? No way. I felt extremely guilty. I did learn a lot in those 8 minutes around the block, though.
I should have realized the stress hours before hand. I was stressed out all day long. I had let 10 hours of constant anxiety and stress simmer inside of me all day and instead of handling it from the get-go, I chose to let it build. Not good.
I didn’t talk to my husband like I should have. Instead of approaching my husband with how I was feeling, I kept quiet. He is my teammate and needs to know when I am at my breaking point. I did not confide in him like I should have. He would have been happy to help out, but he didn’t know that I was feeling overwhelmed.
I ANNOUNCED I was leaving. What I regret the most was how I made it known that I was walking away. I should have pulled my husband aside and told him I needed to leave and clear my head. What I did instead was make my kids feel bad and blindside my husband. I scared my kids and I had no right to do that. It’s been weeks and I still feel awful.
I can replay this in my head for the rest of my life and it won’t change anything. Maybe I am being too hard on myself. Maybe I need to brush it off and move on. I just know that deep down I could have handled this differently and for that I have some guilt.
One positive thing that came from this was clarity. I now know my own limits with certain things. I know that I need to speak up when I feel that my shoulders are getting heavy. Just like I can’t carry things alone, neither can my husband. I needed to communicate to both him and our kids that hey, Mom is about to loose it. Stand back.
I think we all have an instance in which we know we handled wrong when it comes to our families. This is mine.
