Hi there. Tonight when I came home I put out food for the kids and AH and then went to my upstairs "office" to do a last teaching activity (online) for a student who is overseas. While I was in the middle of that, AH and kids must of had some talk; he interrupted me AGAIN (luckily at the very very end of the activity) with a loud statement of "Your Children Need You" (making sure all my coworker and student could hear - thank god for the Mute button on Zoom). When I came downstairs all 3 of them were crying. I guess AH had told them we might get a divorce. Had I thought he was actually telling them we were going to do that, I would have called this a banner day. But he wasn't being serious. He only wanted to frighten them and make it my fault. I had to comfort everyone and assure them "mama loves everybody" but the fact of the matter is now my anger at AH is at an even higher level than it was before.

I have been chewing on how I'm going to navigate this new level of stupid, and I'm not sure. If I have a sit down with the kids and tell them that daddy is playing them like a violin, I don't know they would understand that. In their mind, there is no other way to have parents. (Your mama works, your daddy "stays in bed all day and sometimes falls down".) If I do nothing, I think it's also not a kindness. Awhile back my counselor told me that children know everything, even if they don't have the words to describe it.

I feel like I need to find a counselor again. (My old one was part of a practice that folded up and everyone went away so I can't just go back.) I was reading a little bit from an alateen page (from the conference literature) and I'm wondering how to figure out what my kids would benefit from most. I don't want them to grow up thinking that their behavior has anything to do with their dad's life. So far I don't *think* that has occurred. I haven't wanted them to get involved with things because I just wanted them to be kids and only worry about fighting over who played with which toy more. When AH had his seizure and spent a week in the hospital, we had some brief talks. On the surface they seem to understand that "daddy has a problem". But apparently he told the little one that "daddy inherited it, so it's not really his fault" (literal quote from younger kid). I think I've been deluding myself, just hoping I could keep this contained to AH and me.

I guess I'm thinking back to my own childhood. My dad was a smoker and I really wanted him to quit. I remember my uncles were smokers (heck, wasn't everyone back in the day) and my cousins and I would try to gang up on them as a group (during childhood reunions) and beg, plead, conspire against them in hopes that they would quit. (Hey, that sounds kind of familiar.) Eventually I felt anxious and frustrated about my dad's health. I know now that that was useless, and I wish my children wouldn't waste one minute of their lives on that.

(In a good turn, all the uncles and my dad eventually quit smoking. And in a highly ironic and unpleasant way, everything I feared regarding my dad's health came true. He required a bypass, had a massive stroke that unfortunately left him just alive enough that he lived for 9 more years with half of his body paralyzed and unable to communicate. I hope my kids don't have to tell the same story about Their dad. But at the rate we're going, that may be unavoidable.)