Dear Child who watched their parents fall apart

Dear Child Who Watched Their Parents Fall Apart,

You remember the slammed doors.

The words that cut through walls.

The silence that said more than shouting ever could.

You remember trying to be small,

to not take up space, to be the reason they stayed

or at least the reason they didn’t fight that night.

And you tried—you tried so hard to keep the peace in a war that wasn’t yours.

You didn’t understand all of it,

but you felt it.

The shift.

The distance.

The way love started to sound different—like something sharp and cold.

You watched the people who were supposed to teach you how to love, forget how to love each other.

And that kind of heartbreak?

It stays with you in quiet ways.

In the way you flinch at conflict.

In the way you over-apologize.

In the way you question if love always ends in leaving.

But none of this was your fault.

Not the tension.

Not the breaking.

Not the way they stopped looking at each other like they used to.

You were just a child.

And children should never have to carry adult heartbreak.

You deserved to feel safe.

To feel shielded.

To feel like your home was a soft place to land—not a battlefield with no winner.

So if no one ever told you this before,

hear it now:

You were never the problem.

You were just the quiet witness to something they couldn’t hold together.

And you deserved so much more peace than they gave you.

You still do.