Dear bigglasses:

I was thinking further and wanted to add the following:

It takes courage for a mother to acknowledge that you hurt your children. Most mothers who do, deny it, especially to others and wouldn’t do it online, exposing themselves to possible or even likely negative criticism and condemnation. So I applaud you and admire you for acknowledging this fact and posting here.

I know that you already feel shame about hurting your children in the form of shaming and rejecting them verbally (verbal/ emotional abuse). My purpose in the post I wrote you above and in any future writing is not to make you feel worse than you are already feeling, not to add shame to you.

My purpose in the first post I wrote you on this thread is to make sure we understand each other on the following: that stopping this verbal abuse of your children needs to be done immediately, before any solutions to other elements in your life are attempted. That is, before you get your stored stuff back, before you resolve the relationship with your husband one way or another, before you decide where to live… before any and all these things are addressed, the verbal abuse needs to stop, immediately. This is the understanding I hope you have too. Please let me know if this is so.

anita