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Sunday night, I called the kids, and my daughter answered — as is customary.
The phone was put down. I could hear the kids in the background. The call started with me saying hello a handful of times. My daughter picked up the phone again to talk into it; she said “I hate you dad.” Stoically, I replied “What did you say Maddy?” to make sure I was hearing what I heard. Then my daughter said “I hate it going to Huntsville.”
No, You Don’t
I told my loquacious little girl “No, you don’t. I don’t want you to say the l word hate anymore. That is an ugly word.“ while I attempted to unpack what was happening.
Of course, it hurt to hear my 4 year old say these things to me, but I‘m not bothered by her saying them as much as I am thinking of her emotional state — her feelings behind the words.
That Hurt
I didn’t go into a sad place about it — or an angry place. But, it really affected me. In fact, I am writing this post on Tuesday morning instead of Monday, because I went the whole day(Monday) dreading to write about it.
I thought I had handled the incident as well as I could, and I didn’t want to risk that I would have some emotional breakdown about it.
I Need to Be in Therapy
Since then, I felt like I should seriously be seeing a therapist. But also I think I need to figure out how me and the kids can see a family therapist.