When The Story Gets Rewritten

Yesterday morning, my son told me something that stopped me cold.

He said he was told that the reason his parents aren’t together is because of someone else — someone who came into my life after my marriage ended.

That isn’t true.

And what hurt the most wasn’t the lie itself — it was the weight placed on a child to carry an adult’s rewritten version of history.

Children should never be asked to hold responsibility for the choices of grown-ups. They shouldn’t be used to soften someone else’s guilt, protect an ego, or redirect blame. And they certainly shouldn’t be made to believe that love, healing, or moving forward is the reason a family changed.

The truth is quieter and harder to face.

My marriage didn’t end because another person existed. It ended because of long-standing issues that had nothing to do with anyone else. It ended because staying was costing me pieces of myself. It ended because sometimes love alone isn’t enough to make something healthy.

What came after was healing.
What came after was growth.
What came after was choosing peace.

When adults can’t take accountability, they often change the narrative. And when that happens, children feel the confusion — the sadness — the sense that they need to make sense of something that was never theirs to solve.

So I told my son the truth.

That adult problems are not his responsibility.
That he didn’t cause the ending of anything.
That love doesn’t disappear just because a story changes.

Because the most important thing a child needs isn’t a perfectly preserved past — it’s honesty, safety, and the freedom to just be a child.

And I will always choose that.