Again, I wake up to the sheer horror of the reality of my days, and reflection is a constant piece of this complicated process.  My marriage is over, yet the “why’s” haunt me.  I am beginning to recognize that the marriage was a formality to a very untrue reality.  With each step of revelation, there seems to be a but.  The “buts” seem to be the most revealing.  You see, I have been spending my days of the last 8 years trying to prove to a man what lies in my spirit and my soul is not what he has chosen to believe.  I can’t even figure out why or how this began.  We are going on week 7 now of my husband abandoning our family.  In an earth shattering time.  As the days roll on, I get more and more emails, phone calls, and messages in total disbelief.  Of course, I am right there with them.  I am still blown away.

In retrospect, I recognize that there was nothing I could say or do to help him see things for the way they really were.  The events over the years are maddening, along with my incessant desire to “prove” to him what he was choosing to see was a perverted sense of reality.  I was not that person, and I did not think like he did.  My mother asked me very early on in this process “WHY” exactly I was sad, and what part of all this I missed.  My answer was simply that I loved and missed my husband.  I tend to believe that I am the hopeless romantic……. clearly I have tried love on for size a few times too many.  I can say I have a fault in choosing which “kind” of love to participate in.  None of which have been healthy.  Clearly.  I have had a very unhealthy view of myself for my entire life, and my reflection has brought forth the realization that I have set out in this world to prove to EVERYONE that I am not who they think I am, but to do that, I have found myself only investing in the ones who think that of everyone around them.  I’m not sure how that happens, because it certainly does not happen consciously .  I can not say enough that I believed in him, and that what he did, was doing, and thought, was not truly who and what he was.  We ALL have the ability to be authentic, to be our best selves, and to choose at any given moment to live a life of truth, happiness, and love.  A positive life.  Looking back, I can see all the times that I was sooo perplexed by what I call “backwards thinking”, and his uncanny ability to see life through a skeptical lens, that was not only negative, but it was a bleak perspective. So dark and dreary.

My responsibility comes in where my heart break is concerned, because I kept thinking that some day a light would shine down, and cause an epiphany of sorts, and he would all of a sudden believe in me.  However, my reflection has brought forth the realization that I never gave him a reason NOT to believe in me.  Sure, I have said things and done things I shouldn’t.  Lord, have I ever.  But I have tried to be ever so careful all the days of our marriage to hold on to “proof” of why, or what happened.  I recognize he had his mind made up about me from day one, and it truly has nothing to do with me, yet had everything to do with him, and how he in fact felt about me.  I have always felt like no matter what, if I was having a bad day, he wanted to beat me to it.  If I didn’t feel good, I was constantly having to upfront make sure I made it clear that it was not about him.  If something happened with the kids, it got to the point that I wasn’t even sure if I should talk to him about it anymore.  I got to the point where I was starting conversations with “Please understand that I am just telling you what is going on, and I have already handled it this way…..”  I was constantly having to point out with my boys that they were in fact really good boys with different strengths and weaknesses, none of which were the same.  The things that constantly angered him, I now realize are the things that defined who HE was.  I constantly wanted him to see the world in a different, more positive, uplifting way.  His family, my family, my children, his daughter, even his ex-wife.  My friends………because you see, I never met any of his friends.  He kept his life FAR away from me.  I never had a relationship with his family, but clearly I understand why now.  Early in our marriage (right after it began) when the first affair was brought into our marriage, I made the mistake of asking him to speak with his Mom about it, because I thought she could help him understand.  She had been through it herself.  Instead, through the laughter and the yelling as I previously wrote about, he told me that his Mom in fact said that she never liked me so he should divorce me anyway.  I didn’t know she didn’t like me……… until then.  For the rest of my days with him, I tolerated the time with his family, because he asked me to.  In this situation as well, I thought some day perhaps they would see that I was a good person.

The funny thing is EVERYONE who knows me, knows my heart.  They see me for who I am….. we all have faults. But I have run myself straight into the ground trying to do and be what I thought everyone wanted me to do and be.  That is why I found myself creating this blog, to say that I just wanted to be okay with being ME.  I do not lie, I do not cheat, I do say things I shouldn’t, yet I OWN what I do.  I take accountability for ALL my actions.  But over the years I have found myself in desperation just trying to get my husband to see the level of insanity that had transpired over the years, just desperately trying to get him to be accountable, to see for himself where he had gone wrong. Not for blame purposes, just so that he perhaps would see the injustice and recognize it, so that he could put it away and never revisit again.  A prime example of this is something that happened last year, that to this day brings tears to my eyes.  The summer of 2011 was an incredibly difficult time, as I had my 2nd brain surgery in June, and had just spent a maddening 9 months in and out of the hospital with a total of 12 major surgeries.  It had gotten to a point where I wasn’t even sure I was going to make it through it.  My oldest son graduated high school in May of that year, and the next week I had the brain surgery.  My Grandmother was in the final days of her life with cancer, we were in a MAJOR financial crisis, and we needed to sell the house in a major way.  We had some things on the horizon to relieve the financial burden, but getting there was the challenge.  I spent hour after hour and day after day trying to build up my husband, reassure him, and give him perspective.  Physically I was absolutely worn out, not to even mention spiritually and emotionally.  I’m not 100% certain of all the details of this, because one thing I truly struggle with are the details.  My brain will not allow me to recall much, at least not on the fly.  But suffice it to say, stress was high, emotions were higher, and I could not even get my husband to see the light of day.  There were days where it was exhausting.  I tried to praise him, I tried to come up with the answers, and when I had none, I tried to convince him that no matter what, as long as WE survive, nothing else mattered.  I remember telling him on the front porch that I just wanted US to be okay, that I would live in a cardboard box with him.  Things are NOT what matters to me, and never have been.  I’m not going to say that I don’t enjoy them, but they do not define me.  They are not what brings me happiness.

Somehow, something happened, and again I don’t remember what, but he became enraged.  Started absolutely shredding me as he so often does when he is at his wits end.  He had actually gotten better about it for a time, but this time he went ALL the way back and used every weapon he always had.  Attacked EVERY facet of who I was.  That night we had a house full of teenage boys, that were leaving for church camp the next morning, and my youngest was leaving for his Dad’s house in the next couple of days.  I fell asleep on the couch, completely unintentionally.  Around midnight he came exploding down the stairs screaming and stomping in such rage, that it actually scared me.  I have previously been in an extremely violent relationship that was driven by fear, and that is one thing I promised myself I would NEVER live again.  I went to bed in shock and horror over what had just happened.  But didn’t sleep……all night long.  The next morning I took the older boys to church camp, and pack my youngest sons stuff, and a bag for me and decided to go stay with a friend for a little while.  This is something I had never done.  As I said, my grandmother was in her final days, and I was going over they daily at this point, and my health was still pretty unstable, and I just didn’t have the strength to fight this battle any longer.  I needed a big time break.  As I was packing my things, I reached up on the wall in the hallway by my bathroom and yanked off a picture of Jesus, the first gift my husband ever got for me, and “tossed” it in his closet.  Right or wrong, I did it.  I did it because he had spent 3 months praying and fasting for my health that year, he was my hero, and I finally believed in his love, and here I stood at ground zero again with him absolutely shredding EVERYTHING there was about me.  I left for a little over a week, we talked the whole time, and looking back at those emails, I see effective healing communication for the first time in our marriage.  A few weeks after I came back, my grandmother died, my family came and went, the boys all came back from their adventures, and little was spoken of this again…….but one day I was walking into my bathroom, and the light was just right, and I realized that the word bitch had been carved into the wall with a knife where that picture once hung.  I didn’t know what to do, or say, so I said nothing.  He HAD to know it was there…… surely he was going to do something about it.  Weeks went by of me looking at that EVERY single morning, several times a day.  You see, over the years I have hired the people to fix the walls that he took down with a base ball bat, I took my car in to have the $3700 worth of damage fixed that he beat into it with his fists, I have cleaned up the messes, replaced the broken furniture, etc., all so that my boys did not have to live in the midst of the “mess”.  Every time these things happened, he would leave for a few days, long enough for me to clean up the mess.  This time I wasn’t going to “fix” it.  I kept waiting.  One day it made my blood boil, so I got a pencil and wrote the word “Thanks” with an arrow pointing to it, but still said nothing.  I mean…. surely he had forgotten it was there, right???  Still nothing.  Months and Months go by, until about 6 months ago, I finally said “Hey.  We need to talk about something.”  Looking at that every day negates his “I love you’s”, and all the other “niceties”. He still didn’t fix it……..we talked about it several times.  A few months ago, I even bought the materials he would need to fix it.  Still nothing.  He justified it, but telling me it was because I “DESTROYED” that picture.  I kept saying over and over and over that I didn’t destroy anything……I tossed it in his closet.  It was maddening to me because I KNEW I didn’t destroy it.  The carving (or writing) is still on the wall…… and then a couple of weeks ago, I was in the attic looking for something for one of my sons activities, and there it was, hidden in the dark attic……..the picture of Jesus.  Without a scratch on it.  Anywhere.  I brought the picture in the house, tears streaming down my face.  I finally had proof.  So, I brought it into the light, trying to explain to my grandmother why I was sooo hysterical at that moment, and took a picture of it with my phone, and sent it to him in a message that said “Here it is.  Here is what you have used to justify carving the word “bitch” into the wall with a knife.  There is not a scratch on it.”  And to this day he hasn’t even acknowledged the text or the picture.  He has just moved on to all the other reasons he hates me.

I tell that story only because I am beginning to realize I have been on a quest, that isn’t mine.  I can have ALL the proof in the world of absolutely anything, yet he find justification for ALL of his insane madness.  I am now firmly standing, knowing with FULL certainty, that NO MATTER WHAT, there is nobody on the face of this earth that deserves this level of disregard and devastation, for any reason.  There is nothing to defend anymore.  I was told by his girl “Janet” the other day that I let a “good man” slip through my fingers……and I have had a range of emotion about that very statement.  First let me just say that a “good man” would not put himself or his family through this, and be living in her home, but most of all, I have finally realized that he too spent all these years trying to be someone other than who he was, and it caught up with him.  It’s funny all the “points of no return” that have come and gone, and each night I still find myself on my knees crying out to God, no longer for him to come home, but for him to find healing.  Whatever that means.  I find myself feeling the pain of his conflicted soul, and for him I just want peace.  When you love someone sooo completely, without abandon, you care DEEPLY for them.  It’s hard to find the anger anymore, I just sooo desperately worry about him.  He is in such a destructive mode, and at 46, it’s time that his life be enveloped with peace.  I do have a final point of no return, and I can’t quite figure out why this even still brings tears to my eyes.  He has known how desperate my health situation has been, he has seen the uncontrollable pain.  He has seen me shake, cry and vomit uncontrollably, yet he has left me to deal with it alone, and to take care of daily life alone, not just for me, but for my 3 boys as well.  I have received devastating news over and over again since he left, and I have spoken with him about the finality of it all, but there is not even a shred of emotion in his voice, BUT…. On Nov. 7th, when I have to walk through those hospital doors, with the sheer horror I have ahead of me, without him there, holding my hand………..I will NEVER EVER look back.  THAT I can guarantee.  This Journey will be over……… and a new one will be begin.  It’s probably time.

Perspective is something I have lost track of through this process, and the fact that I am solution oriented.  I have come to understand that the things this man is running from are in his head, and he can’t get away from them.  The only solution I see is seeking solutions and living in God’s word.  I wish he would join me, there is a great love and great future to be had, but I can’t make him love me, and I definitely can’t make him believe that I am capable of loving him SO completely.  He will forever be a part of my soul, I’m just praying there comes a day when there are less tear stains on my pillow at night.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made, for that I am sure.  Now to put this away, and gain all the strength I can to face Nov. 7th with as much Grace and determination that my little body and GIANT spirit can muster.  I WILL overcome.