I couldn’t let it go. The next day, I asked him again. I waited until a calm moment, during breakfast, hoping that maybe the stress of the previous day had cleared his mind and he had forgotten his harsh words. He was sitting at the table, enjoying his cereal, swinging his little legs under the table. I approached the topic very carefully. I said, “Hey, about what you said yesterday in the car… what did you mean?”
He didn’t hesitate or look away. He looked at me, spoon halfway to his mouth. His answer was clear, direct, and devastating. “I like being with Grandma and Grandpa better. They don’t fight.” Then, demonstrating the uncomplicated focus of a child, he stuffed his mouth with cereal and turned back to the cartoons on TV.
A knot of anxiety tightened in my chest. I felt my chest tighten. He had noticed. My husband and I had convinced ourselves that we were being discreet. I thought we were doing a better job hiding it. We had certainly been arguing a lot—money, schedules, house chores, all of it. These are common stressors for any couple, but our arguments had clearly become too frequent and too loud. But to hear it from my six-year-old… it was like someone had taken a mirror and shoved it in my face. Our personal disagreements were directly impacting our child’s sense of security.
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