It's hard to believe it's been so long since I've posted anything....but that's how I roll. It's been about a year. So much has happened in a year. Some good, and some not so good. I'll get to that in a minute.
If you've ever ready anything here before, you know that over the years I've talked about dieting, my kids, my husband, my job. It started out as a way for me to talk about the struggles a mom faces every day. I focused alot on weight loss. UGH! My weight!!! Something I've struggled with my entire life. My weight goes up and my weight goes down. I'm a stress eater, I'm an emotional eater. If it gets REALLY bad, I don't eat at all and my weight goes down. A vicious cycle that many women know all too well.
So, where the heck have I been this past year? Well, I went back to work part-time to help my family out financially. During that time my husband and I went through a very traumatic time in our marriage. And when I say traumatic, it was traumatic to me. We are in our 40's and we were coming up on our 12 year wedding anniversary. To me, it felt like this came out of nowhere. A brick in the face. My normally happy and loving husband asked for a separation. I have to say.....I was so stunned that I thought he was messing with me. Things had been on edge for several weeks between us. I'm not sure how it got so bad so fast. I always felt like my husband and I were lucky because after so many years together, we still liked each other and enjoyed spending time together.
All of that changed in the spring of 2013. A friend suggested to me that I should be writing about it here. To talk out what I was going through and maybe get help from my readers, or help someone else that was going through the same thing I was. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. My heart was in so much pain that the only reason I even got out of bed every day was to take care of my kids. I turned to prayer. It was the ONLY way I could function. I was working part-time but looking back, I wasn't giving my employer my best. In fact, my boss offered me a leave from the office and I should have taken it.
If you have ever been through something like this, I know you can understand. I suspected there was someone else in the picture. And when a women gets this idea in her head, we turn into a Bloodhound. We are going to find out exactly what is going on. I still struggle with this scenario so I don't want to talk about it here.
It's amazing what happens to a woman when something like this happens. I was in such shock over my husbands declaration that he didn't love me anymore that I didn't even know what to do. I stopped eating. Some days, I didn't eat a single thing. All the other days, I would force myself to eat a little bit of something at dinner time. I am diabetic and I know this was making me even more sick. I lost 30 pounds during a couple of months time. I was struggling from headaches, being light-headed, nausea,vomiting, insomnia, and memory loss. My sugar levels were so out of whack that I passed out a few times, thankfully at home. I was a mess. I couldn't fathom the thought of never hugging my husband or not being able to tell him that I loved him. I couldn't imagine going the rest of my life without making love to him. I couldn't imagine what would happen when he started a new relationship with someone new when I loved him so much.
I know I'm skipping alot of the details here, they are still very painful for me. The relationship between my husband and I became so bad that he took a vacation by himself over Labor Day. It was the last straw for me. He had become so verbally and emotionally abusive that I just couldn't deal with it anymore. And while he was gone, he crossed a line that I couldn't deal with anymore. No, it's not what you are thinking, he didn't have another woman with him. But he did do something that I just decided was too much, and while he was gone I stayed up the entire night and packed every one of his belongings and put it at the front door for him. My heart hurt so badly for so long that I'd become numb. I didn't want to live like this anymore. I couldn't believe I'd made the decision to pack him up. I just couldn't believe it. But he had completely shut down, would go days without speaking to me, he was trying to find a place to rent anyways. I'd just had enough.
Today, my husband and I are still married. Happily married. How'd we get here? Well, my husband returned home from his trip and saw everything he owned sitting there packed up in our entryway. I know he was very surprised. My therapist told me he was going through a mid-life crisis. You're darn right he was and he almost destroyed his family. But when he came home and saw everything sitting there, he finally spoke to me. We argued, of course and it was ugly. I told him what I expected from him in marriage and that I was ready for him to go. At this point, I'd met with an attorney but had been sitting on it because I didn't want a divorce, but I wasn't going to be raked over the coals like I did in my first marriage.
I had no idea what would happen. I went to bed knowing that the next day he would be gone. I don't even know if I slept. He was pretty much living on the lower level of our home, and I didn't see him again until the next day. And it was like a light switch went on in him. Suddenly, my husband came back. He was friendly, engaged with the kids and me, and no more moody silence. I wasn't sure of what to make of it, I wanted things to be right between us. Each day got a little better for us, and eventually he moved back upstairs into our bedroom.
For months I felt like I was walking on egg shells. I didn't want to do anything wrong or disagree with him for fear of going back to where we were for the last 6 months. That would be like a knife in my heart. So, I tiptoed around for months and months. I tried to keep my mood positive, I didn't complain about what he wanted to watch on TV, I let him choose what we had for dinner. In a nutshell, I was kissing his ass full-time.
We finally got through the holiday's and I began to feel more secure in our marriage. I stopped walking on eggshells and I finally started giving my opinion. I remain positive. After all who wants to be around a chronic negative person. And it's made me feel better. Through this entire ordeal, I relied on prayer. It was what got me through the pain and heartache. I realized how powerful prayer is and that God does hear our prayers. As bad as it was in our marriage, I am convinced that God intervened in our marriage and worked on us both. And this is why we were able to work through our problems and get back to a happy marriage.
My husband and I are stronger than ever in our marriage. I often pray for guidance to give us each what we need to be happy in our marriage. And I pray for the ability to forgive. My husband made alot of mistakes during this time in our marriage, but I did too. I've realized that sometimes I need to pick my battles, and look to myself for change. You can't change a man. You just can't. So I had to change some things inside myself so I wasn't making him crazy....or myself.
That brings us to today. I have a great new topic that I'll be writing about and can't wait to share the details. I'll be working on shortly. Thanks for stopping by.
