My Kids Needed Me To Be Kind, So I Stopped Trying to Be Nice

Why kindness meant leaving my marriage

The world is not always the kindest place to be, is it. In the last few years of my marriage, family life became scary, unstable, and dangerous for my kids and I.

After I left, I took a look at what I really valued the most and the type of home environment I wanted to create for my new smaller family as a single parent.

This is what my list came down to:

• A place where we all felt safe.
• A place where emotions were accepted, and where we were supported to name, express, and regulate them well.
• A calm environment.
• A place where we could pursue our dreams and everyone’s dreams mattered.
• A home that everyone contributed to building and maintaining (where we all pitch in).

I saw that two core values covered all of these: hard work and kindness.

“Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind.”― Henry James

(This is one of my favourite quotes!)

I’d been so worried about how divorce would affect my children (I knew all the research…