My first marriage ended. Badly. It was toxic and combustible. I was eighteen when it began. Twenty-three when it finally self-destructed, freeing both of us, at least partly. He pulled the plug in the end. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sometimes I wonder if I would still be limping along trying to love him, if he hadn’t made that hard decision for both of us.

But divorce does something to your brain in the problem solving region. Those frontal lobes that are ever collecting information and deciding how to navigate things in the future, based on the results.

I have been with my second husband now for over thirteen years. Married for eleven of them. Our bond is deep. Our personalities compatible. Our interactions healthy and safe and good. It didn’t always feel this way. But we have worked hard for it. We put in the time. We both bettered ourselves and fought for healing and decided to serve and honor one another. It’s lifelong-ness is sure.

But my husband has never had a failed marriage. He has only had this one. He has never left a woman. He has only had me. He has never called it quits.

But I have.

***

We can’t go on like this.

I can’t do this anymore.

This has to stop. It has to.

You can’t stop these thoughts as a foster parent. Every one of us has felt them, I am sure of it. I have heard many stories, read many books and memoirs. Every one of us has felt it, thought it, said it. I can’t do it anymore. It just has to stop. I can’t go on like this.

This is fair.

Extreme struggle. Extreme stress. War and battle. Loss of sleep, loss of sanity, loss of a sense of safety at times. We are driven to make it stop when it torments and drains us. We are driven to solve the problem. We must fix it. It has to be fixed. It has to be! We simply can’t go on like this!

So we plow ahead to fix it.

Set better boundaries

Learn better ways to handle outbursts

Create time to get rest and respite

Reroute behavior with guidance, with consequences and discipline

But no matter how much we work to problem solve, to create order and peace, to prevent utter mayhem, none of it actually guarantees the results we desire. In the end, no matter what you do, if the person you are parenting remains toxic and combustible, then toxic and combustible is a part of your life. And there are times when the only solution feels like quitting and getting as far away from this person as possible.

This is where our past experiences come in. How many difficult relationships have we seen through? And how many times was the solution, the relief, found in running away?

Last night was an amazing day and an amazing night. Jesse and I could not even remember the last time we had gone an entire day without a seriously disturbing or stressful situation. Especially recently, it has been absolutely non-stop. But yesterday was bliss.

He came home happy and we sat on the deck eating cherries and grapes and talking. Then we drove to the store singing bad country music and wandered around having fun. We then all went to the grandparents’ house for dinner, played cards on the floor of the living room, laughed and talked and enjoyed one another. It was one of the best nights I have had in awhile.

We came home and went to bed without incident. All was perfectly peaceful in the house. And then it happened. He heard me come down to fold a last load of laundry that had just finished drying. He wandered out sleepy eyed, and began to needle me for his phone.

It turned into a nightmare.

There was no way to reason with him or calm him once he went over the edge. We felt powerless against it. A force in our home that could not be contained. Only managed. Barely. The things he said to us and about us were so shocking, infuriating, untrue, I can’t even bring myself to think about them. We have to separate our feelings from it, not take it personally, shake them off. But he was like a runaway train, smashing all in its path.

At eleven pm I have a headache creeping up the side of my neck, which is beginning to feel like hardening cement. The stress is high. The frustration off the charts. Jesse and I sit on the floor in the dark hallway upstairs, whispering to each other about what to do.

“I don’t know if he is capable of living in a family,” I confess. “This is only the beginning, isn’t it? How much worse might it get? He is out of control. There was a reason he was in a group home. His behavior is simply far too great, too much, to be in a family. If it goes on like this, he may need to go back to a home, at least part time.”

Our case worker has commented recently that she knows families that have given up after going through only a fraction of what we have. “And it is still escalating,” I continue. “How can we keep holding on if what we have been through isn’t even the worst yet?”

But my stoic husband is shaking his head. “No, no, that would ruin him. He can’t lose another family. He can’t.”

My emotions are still high, my anger still very real. “He’s already ruined!” I whisper back. “And now he is just ruining our lives too! I can’t do this anymore! I really can’t go on like this.”

“You can. We can. And we will. He will only become a criminal if we send him away.”

“He will probably become a criminal anyway! He already is! All he does is break every law and rule he ever comes across! He has no moral compass!”

“But if we send him away, he will absolutely fail. If we give him everything we have… then at least he has a chance. And if he ends up never making it, then at least we know we did everything we could.”

I know this is true. We say it to each other all the time. Passing it back and forth, depending on who is more upset in the moment and who is more calm. We take turns.

“I know that sending him somewhere may not be the answer,” I whisper back, trying to calm myself. “But if it keeps going like this, honey, I just don’t think I can live with this person every day for the next two years. And this is what those places are for, we would still be his parents, it would just give us extra support, professionals who can manage him day to day and more limited time home. But one way or another something has to change. It has to…”

I know I am being a bit irrational, that this probably won’t really happen. But I have to say these things. It feels like a tonic, the ability to just entertain the option of an end to it all. Deep down though, I know it is all talk. I just want the war to end. I hate conflict. I am a peace-lover.

Then a thought hits me. I picture a country, far off, and foreign. Stuck in a war. A war they have no control over. A war they did not ask for. Fearing for their lives. Struggling to survive. Family members killed. Bombs going off. Horrible tyrannical military or dangerous religious groups terrorizing the people. Out of control. Non-stop stress and fear and struggle. Pain and loss. True hunger and lack. This is the reality for much of the world.

Sometimes you are thrust into a war zone and you do not get to escape it. I tell Jesse this and he agrees. This is our war zone at the moment. And we still get a really good life. Our war zone is within a good life, not surrounding us. It is not anywhere close to as bad as what people in warring countries have to endure. We still have everything we need and excess. We are all still alive and do not fear for our lives or the lives of those we love. We sleep in warm Tempur-pedic beds every night with stomachs full of healthy food.

“Imagine packing up his things,” Jesse whispers. “Imagine really doing it. Sending him away.”

“I have,” I say. “And every time it crushes me. I don’t know if I could ever really do it. I imagine him on his first night there, crying himself to sleep, feeling alone and scared and rejected. And I can’t stand the thought. This awful side of him would have retreated by then… and the precious little boy would be the one suffering the results.”

“Yeah.”

We are starting to feel confident that he is asleep now. The threat thrown over his shoulder as he finally went to his room, “I warned you...” haunting us still. Hyper-vigilant. Our home is a war zone.

“I think the reason I might be feeling like this is because of James,” I whisper. “It was this toxic with him. It was hell on earth. For five years. And the only way it was finally resolved… well… was divorce. Getting away from him gave the final relief, the reward. Getting away saved me. I think my brain is rewinding to my time with him. I keep having these thoughts, I refuse to live with this abuse– get away- put up huge boundaries- save yourself. But the thoughts feel like my old thoughts, from living with James. Like they are replaying, reminding me to run from the same situation that is happening all over again. Living with a toxic unsafe person…

“But you,” I tell him, “You stuck it out with me, no matter what we went through, you never gave up. You don’t have divorce in your mind, telling you to run away, giving you that answer to the problem… And I guess I made it through five years with James. By the time Jack turns eighteen he will only have been with us for three and a half years. I can do that. I have done it before, and without a good life. I stayed for love then. I can stay for love now…

“And that is the ultimate lesson isn’t it? Jesus… laying down your own life so another can live. The only chance Jack has of living depends on us being willing to give up part of our life for him.”

“Yeah,” Jesse agrees. Again, this is something we talk about a lot. Remind one another. It gets you through.

Just keep giving… so maybe he can live.

Of course, there are times in a toxic relationship when there must be a separation. There are times where there must be a divorce. There are times when safety requires this. I am certain my divorce was absolutely necessary, that I would never have been able to be healthy in that marriage.

But there are other times too. Times where God says No, you must stay. You must not flee this war zone. It is a war that needs fighting. I’ve learned from reading the scriptures that even God is not a pacifist. He knows when to yield and he knows exactly when to fight. He tells us too, when we listen, when to do which.

Jesse and I sit and sit for a long time in the dark. In the silence. Sometimes, afterward, that’s all that’s left to do.

***

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