Finding My Rhythm: Healing, Leading, Becoming

I should have seen it sooner.

The signs were everywhere, flashing like hazard lights—except I didn’t know how to read them. I didn’t yet understand that I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I didn’t yet understand that my children weren’t just bystanders—they were collateral damage.

My eldest daughter was ten when the anxiety began to take over her life. She couldn’t sleep. She was afraid to be alone. She was terrified to do simple things like ride the bus or walk into school by herself. Her friendships became fraught, her smile dimmed. It was like something inside her was always bracing for impact.

So I did what I thought was the right thing: I found her a therapist.

After a few sessions, the therapist asked to meet with both of us. She gently, cautiously, brought up my husband. She said she was concerned about his anger. She believed his behavior was the root of my daughter’s anxiety. She didn’t say “abuse.” She said “anger.” And so I filed it away as something serious—but not yet urgent.

At the same time, my husband was having “problems at work.” Or so he claimed. A few employees had filed complaints. He painted it all as retaliation—unfair pushback from staff he had disciplined. According to him, he was the victim. I believed him. I always did.

But since anger had come up at work, I thought maybe—just maybe—I could bring up the therapist’s concerns. I gently mentioned that his yelling was affecting our daughter. That she was struggling. That maybe he could consider what work had suggested—an anger management course.

He snapped.

Of course, it wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault. I was being disrespectful. I was undermining him. I was making a mountain out of nothing. How dare I suggest he was the problem?

Still, I held my ground. For the first time in a long time, I stood firm. I told him, clearly, that if he didn’t take the course, I would leave him.

He didn’t believe me at first. But something in my voice, in the way I didn’t flinch this time, must have made him hesitate. He took the course. He learned some tools—counting, taking space, breathing techniques. For a little while, things got better.

But it didn’t last.

Life got busy. The tools gathered dust. The yelling returned.

But the yelling wasn’t the only problem. It never had been.

The problem wasn’t just his anger. That was only the part you could hear through the walls.

The real damage came in silence—in the way he manipulated conversations until I questioned my memory. In the way he controlled decisions so subtly I thought they were mine. In the way he’d turn the children against each other, praising one and criticizing another, setting up quiet wars between siblings while claiming to be the hero. In the way he made me feel guilty for having boundaries. In the way I stopped recognizing myself.

It was emotional abuse. It was gaslighting. It was control.

But we only talked about the anger.

And so when the therapist said “he has anger issues,” I didn’t yet understand what she was really trying to tell me. Maybe she didn’t fully grasp it either. Or maybe she was trying to protect me from something I wasn’t ready to see.

But my daughter knew.
She knew what it felt like to live in that house.
She knew what it did to her.
She cried into her pillow at night. She watched her father’s rages and her mother’s silence. She watched and absorbed and internalized.
And still, at ten years old, she had the courage to tell someone.

I wish I had listened more closely.
I wish I had understood sooner.
I wish I had realized that her anxiety wasn’t just “sensitivity.” That it was a signal. A warning flare.

I stayed.
He took the course.
He got better—for a little while.
And then everything went back to the way it had always been.
And we moved on, as if it had never been a crisis.
But it was. It always was.

Now I carry the weight of that missed opportunity.
Not just for me—but for her.
Because she spoke up.
And the adults around her didn’t do enough.