Sunshine

Could this be the sunshine after the rain?

This morning, my husband woke me up with a kiss before he departed for work. It has been a while since he's done this. I can't even explain how much joy it put in my heart! I feel like a weight has been lifted and that the negative energy that has plagued our home for past few weeks has somehow been tossed out.

We went to church this evening and when I came home, despite being tired, I felt the urge to cook and sit down at the dining room table to eat with him. After he finished his meal, he was so appreciative, showering me with many a thanks. I breath a sigh of relief and in my heart, I lift a prayer of thanksgiving:

Thank you Lord for lifting this weight off my chest. Thank you for giving me the energy to show my husband that I did not want to continue in this vein. Thank you for changing his disposition. I pray that God will give me the patience, wisdom and understanding to be a supportive and loving wife.

Forwards and Backwards

It is 8PM. Despite making up with my husband last night, I haven't seen or heard from him since I dropped him off at the gym at around noon.

Is intimacy the equivalent of making up? I thought so. But am quickly realizing it is not. This morning, he casually told me as he was getting ready to head out that his cousin would be spending a night at our apartment. I didn't dare say, "...but why didn't you tell me sooner?" I don't want to be in the same boat I was in this time last week.

Is being a good wife, just keeping your mouth shut?

I called him multiple times during the day and he didn't pick up his phone. Why wouldn't he simply call me to tell me where he is?

I finally got through to him, after like the 5th call. He was giving me a long story about how the car he was in broke down. I asked him if his phone was broken too. He told me not to turn this into a big deal. So, I put on my "be a good wife and don't say anything" hat. I won't mention it again.

I don't know if I am coming or going in this relationship. I just don't get it. Funny I should think we were moving forward, when he is now doing things he has never done before!

I sigh in frustration...

At My Wits End

My husband's phone is disconnected. He seems to be in no rush to have it turned back on. So whenever I ask him why he hasn't called me, his reply is, "I don't have a phone." I suppose it is easier to come up with that, than to say, "I just don't want to speak to you."

I am sitting here at the computer, hand over forhead, mulling over this whole situation in my mind. I still can't seem to understand how I got here! Lord, where did I go wrong???

I am starting to dread going home.

At work, I think about having to go home to face my husband. I play different scenarios over and over in my head. Sometimes, the scenario is: Okay, today I'm going to wait until he walks into the door, pull him towards me and kiss him. Tell him that I don't want to fight anymore, and I don't want to not speak to him anymore and tell him over and over how much I love him. Sometimes, the scenario is: Okay, once he walks into the door, bombard him with questions. Ask him if he missed me, if he thought about me today, if he is ready to put all of this behind us and start over...ask what he wants me to change to make things better. But often times, nothing comes to anything. I end up lingering at my mom's house with the baby until very late. I am now the one who is walking into the house at a later hour. Today, I knock on the door with the baby in tow and he opens it. I say, "Comment ou ye?" OR "How are you doing?" in Creole. He grumbles something unintelligible back to me and goes for straight for the baby, asking him how his day was instead. All the scenarios get tossed out of my mind...I can't bring myself to do any of them.

I put out the garbage today. My husband usually takes it out, but after seeing that he hadn't touched it in two days, I asked him to please put it out...especially after seeing a gi-normous bug that resembled a HUGE cockroach in the kitchen at around two o'clock in the morning as I was warming up a bottle for the baby. This was the first "creature" I've seen in our apartment since we moved here in December. My request managed to fall on deaf ears. Not wanting to have my apartment turn into a bug magnet, I took matters into my own hands and took it out myself.

I am so tired of this routine.

I don't know how much more I can take.

For better or for worse...in sickness and in health...'til death do us apart...these are the words I uttered as a vow before God, my family and friends.

Lord help me navigate my way through this storm, that I may uphold my commitment!

Uncertainty

I found this picture on my hard drive. It is a photograph of a flower shaded in blue (nearly the same shade of blue I selected as my wedding color). This flower, actually graced the cover of our wedding program. At the time I selected the flower, I was filled with such certainty: a certainty that I was marrying a good man, a certainty that everything was working out so well, a certainty that like this picture captured in space in time, my marriage would last forever! Flash forward 7 months, 20 days and some odd hours, and my husband and I aren't even on speaking terms.

The funny thing is, I was recently looking at myself in relation to my coworkers, many of whom were experiencing marital woes, and saying to myself, whew, Thank God I am so much better off. There is this one girl who, based on the interaction she shares with us between herself and her husband, left me questioning, "Why she even bother getting married in the first place!" I gathered that the "poor girl" was miserable based on what she had shared with us and commented over and over to myself (and others who also heard the stories) how "sorry" I felt for her.

Another girl, shared with me that she recently became a born again Christian, and her husband, who is not born again, is resenting her for her sudden "change". I was encouragaing her and reaching out in prayer on her behalf due to the fact that he was making her miserable because he, and I quote, "did not sign up for this Christian thing" with her.

Another young lady stated she has been married for nearly 10 years, and literally "hated" her husband for the first 7 years of her marriage. She said he would go out on business trips a lot and she would simply love it, because the more time he was away, the happier she was. While she claims to be happier now, and "in love" with her husband again, he has yet to make a decision on "having children" with her, which he will not even consider until "next year". Tsk, tsk. I said to myself. I am so much better off. These poor, miserable, people. Now all of my certainties have transformed into uncertainties:

I don't know why my husband has yet to wear his wedding band.

I don't know why he has suddenly decided to join a gym and come home late in the evening every night.

I don't know why, because of a stupid little argument, he has stopped calling me throughout the day to find out how I am doing.

I don't know why he told me he would have divorced me if he was not a quote on quote Christian man.

I don't know when my husband and I will even be on speaking terms, much less enjoying the marital bliss that we briefly shared.

I don't know if I will make it through this situation. And even if I do, I don't know if things will be the same between us.

Advice I Didn't Adhere To

1. When having a disagreement, take a breather, walk away.

2. In the heat of an argument, don't blurt out hurtful things, because you can't take them back

3. Do not raise your voice when having an exchange

4. Never go to bed angry

5. Never sleep in separate beds out of anger

6. Don't be hesitant to be the "bigger person" even when you know you are right

7. Don't harbor anger and resentment...let it go!

I have broken all seven of these genuine pieces of advice and am certainly reaping the benefits. I feel like my marriage is totally spiraling out of control and I have no way of getting it back on track.

As a Christian, prayer should be your first option. But I have not been able to do so. I have been finding it more and more difficult for me to pray, specifically about my marriage. Then in the midst of crying and feeling raw pain, I cry out to God saying, "Help me!" And then I start to feel guilty about calling on God to help me at such a time, when I haven't been able to pray to Him about this on a regular basis. Then my mind starts to veer into that dreadful place...the place that tells me that this is ALL a punishment---punishment for having pre-marital sex. I mean, what else could it be. My husband just told me yesterday that if it wasn't the fact that I allegedly "convinced" him to marry me when I found out I was pregnant, he wouldn't have done so. Could he have possibly said that out of simple anger? Could that be really lingering in his mind?

The thought of being with a person who really didn't want to be with me in the first place is unbearable! I am having visions of a miserable existence for the rest of my human life...

Why couldn't I just walk away...again?
What harm would there have been in my saying, "ok baby" and biting my tongue...again?
Why did I have to resort to calling him "hard headed" and "lacking in understanding"?
Why didn't I have the patience to not raise my voice in anger...again?
Why couldn't I have have simply "shrugged it off" and made love to him that night, rather than turn a cold shoulder?
Why couldn't I have simply been "the bigger person" and told him that he was right and I was wrong? I could have simply asked him to forgive me for getting upset!
Why couldn't I just let go?

The advice sounded simple enough. After each spat, I ask myself these questions and come up short every time! No one ever said, marriage was easy, but .... and I quiver as i right this... did it have to be this hard?

He didn't wear his ring today...again.

When my lunch hour had come and gone, and I noticed he hadn't called me, I called him and asked him, why he hadn't worn his ring. His reply: "I forgot". He then ventured to tell me we could talk about it later since he was so busy at work.

But later never came.

He came home very late and mumbled "bon soir" ("good evening" in French) to me. He then washed his hands, took the baby from me, and proceeded to play with our son, asking my 3 month old if he had a good day.

When I saw him brushing his teeth, I asked him if he had eaten and he said he ate at his mother's house. That was the last words he's spoken to me since.

This is so painful. I am trying to cope. I am trying to deal. I don't know which way to turn.

I came across the following verse today:
"It is to a man's honor to avoid strife, but every fool is quick to quarrel." Proverbs 20:3

Lord, why am I such a fool?

Crushed!

Yesterday, in the heat of a dispute, my husband says to me, "If I were not a Christian man, I would divorce you." The daggers, didn't stop there. He continued with, "I didn't even want to marry you!"

"Why?" I shouted back, "Why did you marry me?". His reply: "I allowed you to play with my mind and convince me to do so."

I felt like I had just been hit by a roadside bomb filled with shards of glass, metal and everything that is capable of tearing through flesh straight to the heart.

Now I cannot be one-sided here. I did play a major part in the argument that led up to those words that cut deep through me like a double edged sword. He was upset at the fact I said he was "hard-headed" and that he lacked "understanding". I said this to him because he casually walks into my bedroom yesterday morning to tell me he had made an appointment with our attorney on the morning of September 30th...the same day as my sister's 21st birthday party...my sister, who is a lifesaver to us right now, babysitting our son on a daily basis for free while my mother is out of town. In essence, all I wanted to get through to him was that, before making the decision of making an appointment that I would have to drive him to (since he doesn't drive), he should have told me!!! He claims he did. He did tell me that he was calling the attorney, but he did not tell me it was to make an appointment in two weeks. Once again, I should have had the forsight to ask him what specifically he was calling the attorney for. But I did not. I didn't think it would lead up to this!

He hasn't worn his wedding band in over a week.

He caught the bus to church this morning.

Oh how my heart is filled with sorrow. If only they knew. If only the people who are constantly telling me how happy they are for me knew! If only my parents and sisters and beloved friends knew that the exterior ear-to-ear smile that is spread across my face only masks a deeply broken heart. If only they knew the hardships that I am facing in my marriage right now...an essentially new marriage, since we haven't even been married for a full 9 months yet.

How did I get here? How did I get to this place where I feel like an inadequate wife? I feel hated! I feel unloved!

I feel like I have completely lost my bearings.

I feel like I have failed.

How could I, as a Christian woman, stand up for anything when the very base and backbone of my own life is in disarray!

I can't stop these tears from falling, both internally and externally (when my husband isn't looking). Lord help me!