Marriage On The Verge Of Divorce
Hello friends, and thank you so much for joining me today. I am so pleased, to tell you that I have joined up with a few other amazing Christian bloggy friends, to bring you a mini series (a post every Tuesday for the month of March) on Marriage. Check out the linky party below to visit each of my friends blog posts, and what they are sharing on marriage. We plan to bring you some some hope and encouragement, and how God has brought love and healing out of the times of suffering our marriages have endured.
This series will be very personal, and even emotional. But its my prayer that God will use our stories to bring hope, and encouragement to others. We all have different stories, not just we who are sharing them, but YOU who are reading this. Though our stories may be different, there are a couple things that are the same... 1. We will all go through hard times and struggles, and 2. God can and WILL bring us through those rough patches, if we trust and rely on Him to do so.
If you missed my previous posts, I encourage you to catch up... Find part one here: "A Marriage Doomed From The Start" and part two here: "Marriage in the Midst of Tragedy".
Last week, I left off with our very impromptu trip to California. Things were tense between The Hubs and I, but I think we both agreed without saying a word to "leave" our troubles in Washington. We both put on our happy faces, and let our families believe this was just a surprise visit. While we were in Cali, The Hubs contacted a realtor and we house hunted. It wasn't very long until we found and bought our home, and were official Californians again.
For a while things seemed great. It seemed that moving was the perfect way to start anew with a clean slate. It felt nice, and almost relaxing... For a little while. Trouble was, our slate was far from clean. Hidden beneath the surface, just waiting to break through, was everything we "left" behind. Anger, resentment, fear, guilt, and so much more...
With all the things that go along with a big move and buying a home, we had plenty of things to do to keep us physically and mentally occupied. Our "new" home was a fixer-upper, and of course that took some time... We did all the necessary things you do when settling into a new place, like finding a Doctor, and finding a school, and though finding a church was on the list... That was something we didn't put as a priority. I feel like that was one of our biggest mistakes right there.
However, I know that I was still missing our church family in Washington, and didn't feel ready to find a new church. The Hubs was just enjoying the laid back weekends. We were actually very involved in our Church in WA... So I'll admit we both enjoyed the "freedom" and time off from all our "obligations". Even with living close to family now, we actually kept to ourselves quite a bit. For a while it felt very calming and relaxing.
Then one day, all our dirty baggage beneath the surface of our so called "clean slate" broke through. Now even if I wanted to, I could not tell you what it was that made this "suddenly" happen. Because it almost feels as if it were out of nowhere when everything just snapped and crumbled. Looking back I know it was an accumulation of many unresolved issued that just finally exploded from the both of us.
At the time though, to me, it just seemed like The Hubs snapped. Like suddenly he just couldn't stand the thought of being married to me. He knew that I wouldn't divorce him no matter what. But he also didn't want to be the one who initiated a divorce (I'm not quite sure why). So he did all he could think to do, both physically and mentally, to bring me to my breaking point. To try to get ME to be the one who said it was over. I wont go into detail on what those things were, but I will say that I chose to stay with him through it all, because I felt it was the right thing to do. I believed God would bless me for staying strong and true to my husband in this time of suffering and conflict. I believed if I stayed strong and true, that in the end God would heal our marriage.
This series will be very personal, and even emotional. But its my prayer that God will use our stories to bring hope, and encouragement to others. We all have different stories, not just we who are sharing them, but YOU who are reading this. Though our stories may be different, there are a couple things that are the same... 1. We will all go through hard times and struggles, and 2. God can and WILL bring us through those rough patches, if we trust and rely on Him to do so.
If you missed my previous posts, I encourage you to catch up... Find part one here: "A Marriage Doomed From The Start" and part two here: "Marriage in the Midst of Tragedy".
Last week, I left off with our very impromptu trip to California. Things were tense between The Hubs and I, but I think we both agreed without saying a word to "leave" our troubles in Washington. We both put on our happy faces, and let our families believe this was just a surprise visit. While we were in Cali, The Hubs contacted a realtor and we house hunted. It wasn't very long until we found and bought our home, and were official Californians again.
For a while things seemed great. It seemed that moving was the perfect way to start anew with a clean slate. It felt nice, and almost relaxing... For a little while. Trouble was, our slate was far from clean. Hidden beneath the surface, just waiting to break through, was everything we "left" behind. Anger, resentment, fear, guilt, and so much more...
With all the things that go along with a big move and buying a home, we had plenty of things to do to keep us physically and mentally occupied. Our "new" home was a fixer-upper, and of course that took some time... We did all the necessary things you do when settling into a new place, like finding a Doctor, and finding a school, and though finding a church was on the list... That was something we didn't put as a priority. I feel like that was one of our biggest mistakes right there.
However, I know that I was still missing our church family in Washington, and didn't feel ready to find a new church. The Hubs was just enjoying the laid back weekends. We were actually very involved in our Church in WA... So I'll admit we both enjoyed the "freedom" and time off from all our "obligations". Even with living close to family now, we actually kept to ourselves quite a bit. For a while it felt very calming and relaxing.
Then one day, all our dirty baggage beneath the surface of our so called "clean slate" broke through. Now even if I wanted to, I could not tell you what it was that made this "suddenly" happen. Because it almost feels as if it were out of nowhere when everything just snapped and crumbled. Looking back I know it was an accumulation of many unresolved issued that just finally exploded from the both of us.
At the time though, to me, it just seemed like The Hubs snapped. Like suddenly he just couldn't stand the thought of being married to me. He knew that I wouldn't divorce him no matter what. But he also didn't want to be the one who initiated a divorce (I'm not quite sure why). So he did all he could think to do, both physically and mentally, to bring me to my breaking point. To try to get ME to be the one who said it was over. I wont go into detail on what those things were, but I will say that I chose to stay with him through it all, because I felt it was the right thing to do. I believed God would bless me for staying strong and true to my husband in this time of suffering and conflict. I believed if I stayed strong and true, that in the end God would heal our marriage.
I had so much faith things would get better, that I didn't expect things to get worse. But they did. It got to a point where I had to call my sister for help to come get me and the kids. When they came, they heard us fighting and decided it best to call the police for help.... Rather than step in themselves. I was upset about it, I never wanted to have it go this far... But at the same time I was grateful too.. Because I was truly terrified about our situation. I was glad to get the kids out and away from the craziness of it all.
I felt safe at my sisters house. At the same time, though, I was in so much emotional pain, it was extremely hard for me. I thought this was it... My marriage is over. And my heart literally hurt so bad, I physically felt the pain. It was awful. I remember I just couldn't stop crying. For days I cried. As bad as things were, I still didn't want my marriage to be over. I cried and racked my brain, trying to think of what really went wrong. How we got this way. Its interesting to say that my mind could only find all the good things, and good memories. And I would think, how did we go from that to this!?
Finally I cried out to God. I thought there is no way this is the end. So Prayed, I asked God to show me what I could do, what could be done. It was then that I realized that a big part of The Hubs problems, OUR problems was... ME. I, for reason I felt were valid at the time, was withdrawn, very in-affectionate, and hardly ever wanted to be physically intimate with him. God revealed to me something I never would have thought on my own... That it was my fault, just as much as it was The Hubs. So I started praying more so that God would change me and MY heart, more so than praying for his....
Join me next week for more of my story. .. And until then, please visit these other lovely gals who are also talking about marriage revival....
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I felt safe at my sisters house. At the same time, though, I was in so much emotional pain, it was extremely hard for me. I thought this was it... My marriage is over. And my heart literally hurt so bad, I physically felt the pain. It was awful. I remember I just couldn't stop crying. For days I cried. As bad as things were, I still didn't want my marriage to be over. I cried and racked my brain, trying to think of what really went wrong. How we got this way. Its interesting to say that my mind could only find all the good things, and good memories. And I would think, how did we go from that to this!?
Finally I cried out to God. I thought there is no way this is the end. So Prayed, I asked God to show me what I could do, what could be done. It was then that I realized that a big part of The Hubs problems, OUR problems was... ME. I, for reason I felt were valid at the time, was withdrawn, very in-affectionate, and hardly ever wanted to be physically intimate with him. God revealed to me something I never would have thought on my own... That it was my fault, just as much as it was The Hubs. So I started praying more so that God would change me and MY heart, more so than praying for his....
Join me next week for more of my story. .. And until then, please visit these other lovely gals who are also talking about marriage revival....
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