Dear Janet:

“I consider my mother to be very strong.. she could not or actually did not leave him because he threatened to kill her and himself and all of us”-

Choosing the easier route of staying in the home she had, staying in the life she was used to (while her children are being emotionally harmed) is not strength. Strength is choosing the difficult route of making real-life changes: leaving the home and life she knew, planning and working hard to make a new life possible for her and for her children, a life safe from a man she believed to be capable of killing her children and herself.

“She sacrificed her whole life for her children and defended us from our father”- did she tell you that she sacrificed her whole life for her children, and if she did, did she tell you exactly what it was that she sacrificed?

anita