The Things I Never Said

I'm angry.

Not a little bit angry. Not momentarily frustrated because somebody hasn't replied to a message.

I'm fucking furious.

And the worst part is that I've been carrying this anger for six years, quietly, carefully, responsibly, because I believed that was what I needed to do for my child.

When I was recovering from cancer, you went elsewhere.

I was facing navigating something terrifying, something that should have been met with love, support and compassion, and instead I was left dealing with the choices you made. And somehow, somewhere, you managed to become the victim of a situation in which I was the one who needed you.

But what you did to me isn't even the part that makes me angriest.

It's what you did to my boys.

Ten years.

Ten years of being their dad. Ten years of birthdays, Christmases, ordinary Tuesdays, school mornings, family life. Ten years of allowing two children to love you as their father.

And then you met someone else.

And suddenly, they weren't your children anymore.

"They're not my kids."

As though ten years of love and attachment could be undone by a biological technicality.

As though children simply stop loving someone because that person decides they no longer have a responsibility towards them.

You walked away from two boys who called you Dad.

I had to watch that happen.

I had to watch you make that choice, knowing I couldn't make you stay around for them.

And then I had to put all of that somewhere inside myself, lock the door and carry on communicating with you because we had another child together.

I couldn't allow my anger to become his burden. I couldn't let what happened to his brothers determine the relationship he would have with his father.

So I swallowed it.

I swallowed the betrayal, the disappointment, the resentment and the sheer disbelief that somebody could walk away from children they'd helped raise for a decade.

I stayed reasonable.

I stayed civil.

I kept the peace.

And now, six years later, I'm watching another one of my children struggle with his relationship with you.

A child who has reached the point of talking to teachers because he doesn't feel heard by his own dad.

Now I'm left wondering whether all that restraint protected anyone, or simply protected you from ever having to confront the consequences.

More fool me??

And I'm supposed to do what?

Be patient?

Be understanding?

Give you more time?

Choose my words carefully so I don't upset you?

I've been doing that for six fucking years.

I'm tired.

Tired of being the one who thinks about the emotional consequences. Tired of being the one who has to initiate the difficult conversations. I'm tired of wondering whether you'll recognise how much your choices affect the children who love you.

Most of all, I'm tired of watching children carry feelings that adults should have had the courage to address.

I cannot make you understand what you've done.

I cannot make you look backwards and recognise the hurt you've caused.

And I cannot make you become the father this boy needs you to be.

But I can stop silencing myself to make this situation easier for everybody else.

My silence has never meant that I agreed with you.

My restraint has never meant that there wasn't pain.

And my willingness to put my youngest child first has never meant that I forgot what happened to his brothers.

I remember all of it.

And I believe that's what I need to acknowledge now.

I am allowed to be angry.

I am allowed to be disappointed.

I am allowed to stop carrying the responsibility for relationships I didn't break.

I don't know whether you'll ever understand the weight of what you've done.

But I know this.

I will not spend another six years pretending that my children's pain is something I can simply keep swallowing.

I have carried enough.

I am putting it down.

Is that spiritual? Who knows.

I'm not convinced that spirituality is always about forgiveness, understanding or finding the higher perspective. I believe that sometimes it's allowing yourself to feel the full, unfiltered weight of something you've spent years trying to rise above.

The lesson can't always be to become more peaceful.

In this case, when its about my children, I believe I can't accept my own silence for peace. This is not peaceful.

I need some respite.

From the anger, the responsibility and the exhausting business of being the bigger person when all I've ever wanted was for you to consider the smaller people caught in the middle.

And that's the part I've struggled with most.

I've spent years questioning my own reactions, examining my triggers, looking for the lesson, wondering what I could do differently. Trying to understand why something feels unjust.

But understanding someone else's behaviour doesn't make the consequences disappear.

And being spiritually aware doesn't mean I have to be endlessly accommodating.

I can recognise that people are imperfect. That relationships are complicated. That everyone has their own version of events.

Yet still believe that children deserve better.

I can choose not to act on every angry thought without pretending those thoughts don't exist.

I can be compassionate and absolutely fucking furious at the same time.

Be grateful I'm not a lioness.

Because a lioness doesn't spend six years holding back and then explaining why her cubs deserve protecting.

She doesn't negotiate the legitimacy of their pain.

She doesn't ask permission to defend them.

But I am human.

And for six years, I have chosen restraint.

Don't think I didn't have anything to say.

Don't think I didn't see what was happening.

And certainly don't think it was because I didn't care.

I chose restraint because I thought it was the best way to protect the children I love.

But I'm beginning to understand that protecting them doesn't have to mean silencing myself.

I write a lot and I've never written about this. That's restraint.

Peace isn't the absence of anger.

It's reaching a point where I no longer have to betray my own feelings to maintain it. I learnt that a while ago but never applied it to this.

I don't want revenge.

I don't want an argument.

I don't want an apology.

I want my children to be happy. To feel loved. To know that the adults in their lives consider their feelings important enough to listen to.

And I want to stop feeling as though I have to fight for something that should never have been in question.

Yes, I'm angry.

I'm fucking furious.

And I'm finally allowing myself to say it.

Don't ever mistake my restraint for the absence of teeth.