the uncertainty-- your post made me tear up... my littlest one is 5, her older sister is 7. they were so so sad and showed it in different ways...
d5 looked forlorn and kept asking where he was and when he'd get there
d7 actually broke my heart more because she was angry and first blamed her sister and said some very mean things which amounted to her repeating what her father tells me and she tried to project her hurt onto her sister and blame her for it. I tried to talk to d7 gently but firmly and made it clear she couldn't be mean to her sister and that it was okay to be sad or mad or whatever she was feeling... then d7 kept running into the bathroom and saying something was in her eye and clearly she was crying but didn't want to show it... d5 wound up crying and d7 called her a baby and said so what that he wasn't there it wasn't something to cry about...
It was a train wreck. I watched them and saw myself reacting to their dad in each of them and saw their dad and his nastiness in the things d7 said...
I put an end to it all the best way I knew how by distracting them and we went to breakfast and talked a bit there about how they felt...
It just I guess is the first time I really, really saw them both deeply hurt by him at an age where they are old enough to know the truth. I think if they'd been younger maybe I would have glossed it over as I have for SO long and made excuses for him as I did for so long...
But whether I had lied or not, they KNEW. That's what he doesn't get.
I am getting sad all over again thinking about it all...