I AM A DIPLOMAT

When I talk to my husband. Why? Because I always need to choose my words very carefully and sometimes, I require a translator. But it's not all that bad.

Sure we get into scrapes here and there, but overall I'm very pleased at how smooth things run between us. Cohabitation is difficult enough, so I would expect co-parenting to be proportionately harder. But we have managed (so far) to do it without a lot of shouting. And I'm really happy about that. My parent's marriage is a minefield of pain, disappointment, and revenge, (and contempt and manipulation and mental illness). When I was little, they used to fight at night. I'd hear them screaming at each other downstairs and sometimes, things were broken. The sound of them fighting literally made me shake in my bed. My chin would quiver like a seismograph pen.

I will not be like them.
I will not be like them.
I will not be like them.