Grief-stricken, I sought help beyond the walls of our home and began seeing a therapist. Fall 2020, August through October, our season of birthdays, we celebrated each milestone twice: once with our younger daughter, without her father, and once with my husband, without her. What should have been joyful gatherings became quiet negotiations, divided loyalties, and an unspoken acknowledgment that our family was no longer whole.
In therapy, I could no longer avoid the truth I had been naming around for years. I had lived in an abusive relationship since the earliest days of my marriage. I had softened it, called it “his anger issues,” learned to work around it, learned to endure it. I told myself I stayed because I did not want to be divorced twice. Because I did not believe I could raise three children on my own. Because I feared my family would not stand behind my decision. So I waited - for the storm to vanish. I waited for the children to finish high school, to leave for college, to escape the atmosphere I had learned to survive. But the waiting did not protect them. It only postponed the reckoning.
The pandemic stripped away the distractions and the distance. What I had managed for years; buffering, explaining, smoothing over, holding everyone together; was no longer possible. I realized I could not manage my children’s relationships with their father anymore, nor should I have been trying. The cost was too high. Facing that truth was terrifying, but it was also the beginning of clarity. The family had already fractured; now I had to decide whether I would continue to pretend otherwise, or finally face the reality I had spent years avoiding.
Our son decided to sit down with his father, and they spoke for hours in our backyard. I do not know what was said between them, but afterward they began to speak normally, cautiously rebuilding a line of communication. That fragile progress sparked a shared hope: that we might be able to bring our younger daughter back home.
My husband, however, did not seek professional help to address what had caused the rupture in the first place. His refusal filled me with anger. It felt as though the burden of repair had once again fallen to me. I asked him to sell the house and provide me with a separate home; a place where the children could feel safe, and where he could visit me just like children. I searched through books, articles, and online resources, trying to find ways to help him approach our daughter with humility and care. He eventually wrote her a letter with just a hint of accountability and sent her a beautiful coat, a gesture meant to convey warmth and regret. She could see through him and it was not enough.
Because of the pandemic, death felt closer, less abstract. Each news alert, each rising number, carried the reminder that life could end suddenly and without warning. I asked my husband to create a trust—to secure our assets in the event that something happened to both of us, to ensure our children would be protected. He agreed, but with a condition: our younger daughter would not be included as a beneficiary.
That condition landed with devastating clarity. It revealed what I had been struggling to name. He was unwilling to take accountability for his role in the estrangement and instead placed the responsibility entirely on her. Even in matters of protection and legacy, he chose punishment over repair. It felt like outright erasure, a deliberate dismissal of our daughter’s very existence and the pain he had caused. The letter was just a manipulation.
Thanksgiving came and went. Winter holidays followed. Our daughter did not come home. I stayed where I was, holding my ground, choosing to fight my battles from the fort I had built, no longer negotiating my own safety or theirs, no longer pretending that love alone could mend.
Although our younger daughter began her job in October, the financial weight of her transition, moving into an apartment, covering expenses until her first paycheck, still rested with us. At the same time, the world beyond our home was erupting in protest; the farmers’ movement dominated the news, demanding attention and solidarity. During our evening walks, my husband and I spoke in general terms about donating to support the cause. We never agreed on an amount. Still, without discussion, he set up a monthly automatic transfer of a significant sum into a separate account designated solely for donations.
I soon noticed that our checking account was slipping into overdraft month after month. When I pointed out that our financial responsibility toward our daughter had not yet ended, that our household was already stretched thin, he did not reverse the transfers. The message was unspoken but unmistakable: the needs of causes outside our family took precedence over the needs within it.
Looking back, this moment felt strikingly out of character for him. In the past, even small donations at the Gurdwara Sahib had always been discussed with me, considered together, and never acted on unilaterally. This sudden decision to set up a large automatic transfer without conversation signaled something deeper: a shift in priorities and a subtle disregard for shared decision-making within the household. It wasn’t simply about money; it was a message that external causes, even important ones, could outweigh the immediate responsibilities and well-being of our family. In that silence, I could sense the pattern that had been emerging for years. Choices made without consultation, control masked as principle, and an implicit expectation that I adapt rather than question.
I was still trying to save our marriage. In October, we attended my sister’s husband’s sixtieth birthday celebration, and soon after took a brief, two-day trip to San Diego to mark our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. I asked him to give us couples therapy as an anniversary gift, a chance, I hoped, to confront what we had been avoiding. From the outside, we appeared content, even celebratory. At night, however, we lay awake beside each other, unable to sleep. Next morning, I spent half the day alone in a nearby park by the beach while he stayed behind, catching up on rest. Even our attempts at escape revealed how far apart we had grown.
After the winter holidays of 2020, strengthened by the support I was receiving in therapy, I began to accept a painful truth: our younger daughter was estranged from her father. I felt grateful that he had reconnected with our son, and I held onto the hope that, in time, that fragile bridge might help bring their sister back as well.
The house, once alive with family rhythms, became a place of endurance rather than belonging. I still hoped change was possible, but I came to understand that real change required acknowledgment, empathy, and sustained commitment, things I could not summon on his behalf, and which never fully arrived.Next
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