It didn’t happen with a scream or a slammed door. Those were the sounds of last year—the echoes of a life being torn apart at the seams. No, this moment was quiet. It arrived on a Tuesday, blinking on my phone screen while the house was finally still.
For a split second, the air in the room changed. My heart, which I have tried so hard to train into a steady, business-like rhythm, skipped. It felt like progress. It felt like the heavy, jagged ice that has sat between us might finally be thinning. In that brief window of digital connection, I felt a familiar warmth creep back in—the “us” that used to navigate five rowdy boys, camping trips, and the beautiful, chaotic business of building a life together.
It felt like maybe something had shifted.
But as the words settled, so did the emotional whiplash. My mind, the part of me that runs a business and keeps MJ, Matthew, and Jack fed and on schedule, was screaming, “Wait. Look at the patterns.” My heart, however, was already halfway out the door, longing for the version of “Papi” who was my partner in every adventure. This is the exhaustion of the entrepreneur-mom: the constant war between logic and longing. I wanted to believe that a moment of softness meant a change in the weather. I wanted to believe that if we could just talk long enough, the bridge would rebuild itself and Jasper and Mateo would be back in the fold of our daily chaos.
But this wasn’t a story about reconciliation. It was a story about discernment. I realized in the silence that followed that some doors remain open not because they lead somewhere new, but because we are too afraid to hear the click of the lock. This is what happens when love hasn’t fully let go—but you realize you finally must.
Why Attachment Makes Us Misread Emotional Moments
As a woman who has spent her life building—businesses, a home, a family of seven—I’ve always viewed deep attachment as my greatest strength. But in the wake of a separation that literally ripped my children apart, I’ve had to learn that attachment isn’t always an ally.
Attachment is not weakness. Loving deeply doesn’t mean you lack boundaries; it means you’re human. It is biological. My nervous system is wired to the history we shared. When you’ve raised five boys together—from the sleepless nights with Jack to the pre-teen milestones of MJ—your soul develops a “muscle memory.”
The trap, however, is the Nervous System Trap. When someone who was once your “safe harbor” reaches out with a shred of vulnerability, your body remembers the safety before your mind remembers the betrayal. You feel a rush of hope that feels like healing, but it’s often just the relief of a familiar drug.
We tell ourselves a subtle lie: “If they’re opening up, they’re changing.” We think that if we can just explain our pain clearly enough, if we can find the perfect combination of words, they will finally “get it.” But here is the hard, cold truth I’m learning: Emotional expression can coexist with emotional stagnation. Someone can cry about the past without having any intention of fixing the present.
The Most Dangerous Traps When You Still Love Someone
When you are a “fixer” by nature—a planner, a doer—you are particularly susceptible to certain emotional traps. I’ve fallen into all of them over the last twelve months.
- Confusing Vulnerability with Accountability This is the most deceptive one. We hear someone express pain or regret and we think, “They’re taking responsibility.” But talking about pain is not the same as taking responsibility for the choices that caused it. Self-pity is not change. Insight without repair is just a performance of growth.
- Taking Responsibility for Someone Else’s Narrative I spent months trying to “correct the record.” I felt compelled to explain the “why” behind my actions, to be “fair,” to ensure he understood my side. I carried guilt that wasn’t mine to carry because I didn’t want to be the “bad guy.” I’ve realized now that I cannot manage his version of me. If his story requires me to be the villain so he can avoid being the one who walked away, I have to let him tell it.
- Hoping Consistency Will Come After Understanding I used to think that if we reached a point of mutual understanding, the actions would follow. I stayed emotionally available “just in case” the lightbulb went off. But clarity doesn’t create change—character does. Staying available for someone who is inconsistent is just volunteering for more whiplash.
- Believing Love Alone Is Enough This is the hardest pill to swallow. I love Papi. I love the father he was when we were a whole unit. But love without reliability is just a recipe for self-betrayal. Love without safety—emotional, legal, or relational—is just chronic grief.
The trap isn’t loving them. The trap is abandoning yourself to keep loving them.
The Moment I Saw It Clearly
The turning point didn’t come during a fight. It came during a conversation that was, on the surface, quite civil.
As we spoke, I felt that internal shift. It wasn’t anger; anger is hot and loud. This was cold and quiet. It was clarity. I looked at the words, I heard the tone, and I noticed what was missing: accountability. The responsibility for our current state—for the fact that I haven’t held Jasper or Mateo in months—was still being externalized. It was “I was demonized”, it was “medical marijuana”, it was “I am a good man, an excellent father”. It was never “I played a part in this” and it certainly wasn’t ever “MJ stopped wanting to come home because I was there”. He seems to forget those parts when he tells his ego the stories he needs to hear to avoid looking in the mirror.
I realized that the conversation wasn’t moving us toward a solution. It was simply reopening the wound so we could both look at the blood. Some conversations don’t bring closure; they reveal the truth that closure isn’t coming from the other person. It has to come from within. I saw the repetition of old patterns wrapped in the same old language. The realization hit me: He hasn’t changed. He’s just mad. And those are two very different things.
Strength Isn’t Cutting Someone Off—It’s Staying Oriented to Reality
For a long time, I thought being “strong” meant being “hard.” I thought I had to be the “Chaos Planner” who could cut off emotions like a bad business deal. But that’s not real strength.
Real strength looked like staying oriented to reality. It meant not escalating the conflict, but also not pleading for him to see me.
- It meant not collapsing into the “hope” that he might suddenly bring my boys home tomorrow because he had a moment of kindness today.
- It meant trusting patterns over promises.
The cost of ignoring the truth is too high. Every time I let myself believe in a fantasy version of our reconciliation, I delayed my own healing and the healing of the three boys still under my roof. MJ, Matthew, and Jack need a mother who is present, not a mother who is perpetually waiting by the phone for a ghost to become a man again. And it’s certainly not a mother who tells a little boy turning 12 that “Surely, Papi will call you on your birthday!” only to have that beautiful boy fall asleep with a death grip on his cell phone waiting for a call that will never come. Not only do I have to let go of my hope, I have to help them let go of theirs.
Grief Isn’t a Sign You Made the Wrong Choice
I have to tell myself this every morning: Grief can follow the right decision. Missing the family we were—the rough and tumble adventures, the seven of us piled into the car—doesn’t mean I should go back to the way things were at the end. Sadness does not equal doubt. I am crushed, yes. I mourn Jasper and Mateo every single hour. But that mourning is a testament to the love I have, not a sign that I should lower my standards for a man that doesn’t know how to hold our family.
Reframe your grief. It isn’t a hole you’re falling into; it’s a nervous system recalibrating to a new reality. It is the closing of a chapter that was beautiful and terrible all at once.
What I Know Now
I am 43 years old. I have built businesses and I have birthed three incredible humans. I know how to work hard. But I am learning that I cannot outwork a broken dynamic.
I can love someone and still choose not to move forward with them. I can hold tenderness for the “Papi” I knew while keeping the door firmly locked against the person he actually is when his ego is at stake. Accountability is the “non-negotiable” for intimacy. Without it, you aren’t in a relationship; you’re in a hostage situation.
I don’t need hope to survive this. Hope has actually been the thing that kept me stuck in the “what ifs.”
I need honesty. I need to be honest about what happened, honest about who he is right now, and honest about what I deserve. Today, I’m finally choosing that honesty. I’m choosing the three boys who are here, the two who are in my heart, and the woman I am becoming in the fire.