I said goodbye to my husband's family today. It was so brief and so cordial as to appear inconsequential. But I knew that this farewell was forever. Yes, I will see them again but it will never be the same.

My dependence on them was the basis for my decision to stay with their verbally abusive son. I wanted a family. I have always wanted a family. Being with him gave me an instant family -- a set of parents that have been married for 40 years and two adoring younger sisters.

They were my life. I devoted as much love to them as I did to my husband -- maybe more. I loved having sisters -- they are twins. I met them when they were just 16 years old. I was their big sister. They hung on my every word. How I loved to give them advice about relationships. We would talk for hours about boys and dreams and boys. I talked to them like I knew everything, all the while showing them in my relationship with their brother that I knew nothing. Luckily, they eventually found love. Their husbands are kind and respectful. And my little sisters, now almost 33 years old, are doctors now. I am so immensely proud of them. One is expecting a baby -- a girl. She showed me ultrasound photos today.. her daughter is 22 weeks in her growth. She will no doubt be a beauty like her mother.

And then there is my husband's mother. My God, how I love her. And she loves me... still does. "You are my third daughter," she would often say to me. "You know that don't you?" She hugged me too. Warm hugs. The hugs I didn't have as a child from my own mother. Of course, my mother-in-law often drove me crazy (what mother-in-law doesn't?) She was a prideful woman -- rarely apologetic. Whatever the squabble -- her fault or ours -- we had to do the apologizing first. It was just her way. And, in return, she would apologize two-fold, never in words but through her cooking and her hugs. And there are also her funny idiosyncrasies -- her habit of unconsciously taking credit for everything good that happens in our lives--"ah, you see! God answered my prayers." If it hadn't been for her prayers, the world as we know it would have stopped long ago. And she was always, always praying for us. She found peace from her own verbally/emotionally abusive relationship in going to church each day and praying.

I can not speak with the same warmth of my father-in-law. He was the red flag that I chose to ignore. I saw the future when I first met him and I immediately turned my head and walked to the warmth of his wife and his daughters. He was the dark shadow -- overly critical and narcissistic. Was the first time or the second time that I met him when his wife came to me crying that he had called her a "Negrita" - a nigger. She has dark skin -- a source of discrimination in their homeland of Peru. Her dark skin is a "button" that he pushes (and she allows to be pushed).

My father-in-law was so badly damaged as a child, along with his siblings, and the scars remain. He lost one of his eyes because he father threw a fork at him in anger. The toxicity of generations was passed by he and his wife to my husband. My husband grew up listening to father call his mother names and his mother defending herself, over and over again. The screaming, crying, raging, ranting, sobbing, curses and threats. Sam heard it all. The anger of his parents, of generations before him, seeped into his heart. Poor kid didn't have a chance.

So today I said goodbye to the family that was my foundation. It is the consequence of leaving their son and the necessity of my spirit's journey.