I thought back to the days when I journaled. I filled my journals with about the same, until I started dating a MEM. The dating was a roller coaster and I often was confused. I still wrote. About a year or two after we got married I quit writing down any of my experiences. There was no joy besides the joy I felt in raising our children. I was lonely, I didn't really have friends anymore because my MEM didn't approve of most of them. I wasn't part of his family because I was declared the enemy long before we even got married, I had no laughter, no accomplishments worth writing about because everything I did was met with criticism. I had nothing positive to write about and I decided I wasn't going to write about my miserable life, the workload I carried nor the criticism I received daily. I was ashamed I made a mistake of marrying a mama's boy and I didn't want my children to know the depths of hurt he caused. I wanted to spare them knowing details of their abusive father. They were already aware of a lot of it simply by living under the same roof. I thought I could protect them from the ugliness of a mother enmeshed father by simply not documenting what I experienced daily.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have detailed it in order to make sure our children will see the red flags and never be attracted to the same miserable life.
For now I still do not journal and have no intention of starting again. Maybe one day I have the courage to face it and write it down in book format for my posterity. For now I educate them on the red flags and hope their journals are filled with lots of joy and laughter.