“I’ll move to the Azores if you want,” I said to my wife, Samantha, after a conflict with an extended family member, who blamed me for something they’d done. It wasn’t really an offer; it was a threat, and one I’d used before. The Portuguese islands where my ancestors came from had become my go-to escape fantasy whenever things got tough.
This was my default setting: fleeing when fighting didn’t achieve the desired result. I’d been doing it my whole life, and despite a decade of marriage to the love of my life, I couldn’t stop myself when I felt cornered.
One time, during a particularly intense argument early in our marriage, I ran out of the house, raced around the block, snuck back in, and hid away in a remote bedroom.
On the surface, I was living what anyone would call a charmed life: successful career, published author, six wonderful kids between us (three mine, three hers). But inside, a constant voice whispered, You’re not enough. You destroy everything you love. Run before you get hurt.
This voice had grown louder with the recent family crisis, which called into question my place in the family and soon spiraled into something far deeper. What might have seemed like a simple family squabble cut to my core, challenging my legitimacy, and awakening every childhood fear I had about being unwanted, being an interloper, and being somehow fundamentally wrong.
