Ditto to everything Lillamy said... It is HELL for me to leave the girls with their dad. I worry each time. I feel physical pain like something is being pressed down on my chest and I am miserable for the day and night that the girls are with him... It is harder than anything I have ever or probably will ever do. And knowing how awful if would be I stayed, selfishly so that I would not have to be without the girls for many many years. Yes I was protecting them from the very real concerns I have when they are alone with him but I was protecting my heart too because it is horribly painful to have to not be with ones own kids.
And my therapist and the girls therapist told me as Lillamy said hers did too, that it was better the girls have 6 calm days and 1 hellish one than to live with uncertainty and stress etc... 7 days a week which is what they had when I was with their dad. Even when there was no fighting at all-- just his presence made everyone tense...
So I was told that by people in the field and by many of you here many many many times and I did not want to believe it or couldn't believe it until I was ready... Unfortunately my kids paid the price for my being uncomfortable accepting that hard truth and it will be many years if ever before I can forgive myself for taking away years of their childhoods...
Originally Posted by
lillamy 
I can tell you a few years out that my children are so much better off without their father in their lives.
I can also tell you that the first couple of years when they were court-ordered to spend time with him were sheer hell. My therapist ensured me that it was better for them to have one stable, healthy home even if they were forced to spend time with AXH in a very unhealthy one as well. I sure as hell didn't feel it when I had to send them there, when they would call crying, and when he would refuse to let them leave because He Had A Right To Have His Children.
I still get anxious just typing about it.
The only thing I regret in relation to my children is NOT LEAVING THEIR FATHER SOONER.
We can tell ourselves all those things WTBH said. But the truth is you can't recover from living with a pathological circumstance while you're still living in it - especially if you're a child.
I left when I was able. I know that. Even so, even thinking that I have forgiven myself for not being able sooner, there are times when the guilt is overwhelming. I cried myself to sleep last night after a standoff with one of my teens where she behaved like a carbon copy of her A father.
I hate myself for choosing an addict for a father for them. They were forced to grow up too fast. And i wish I had left years earlier than I did.