Perfection. There is this desire in us to have everything just so, to appear to the world as flawless and pristine. When others look too close we tend to shout, "Nothing to see here! Look away...."
I'm here to say that my life is far from perfect. Some days I have so much anxiety I feel like I am drowning in it. Other days I look at the kiddo and can't get over how lucky I am to have the life I do.
I almost didn't have it. When I first left, his mom told me on the phone: "you can't go back...he'll kill you." I was floored. I mean I guess I realized that at the rate things were escalating the next time would be worse than the last and so on and so on. There could be no more "so on's" because he was incapable of parenting and I needed to be around to do it. I knew that much. But to hear his own mother say that he had reached that level of violence that she was concerned I could end up dead at his hands was almost more than I could handle. I was still in the "I want to give him a chance to get better" stage.
Deciding to pull the plug on a marriage or relationship in general is tough and no one can make that decision for you. By the time I filed and moved forward legally, it was abundantly clear that I had no choice. It would change everything for my child, but not doing it would change everything as well and put our safety at risk.
Life is not perfect, but it IS wonderful. Because it is ours.