I’m fairly certain my
husband doesn’t even read my blog,
but sometimes I just need to let it all out
to make myself feel better.
Marriage isn’t always pretty.
In fact, there are a lot of times where I find it to be
downright ugly and mean. Does that mean I want to call it quits? Throw in the
towel? Give up? NO!
Are there days where I wish I could just push the restart
button on our marriage? Yes.
There are so many different “phases”, as the experts say, of
marriage. Right now, at this “phase” in our lives, we are going through
probably the roughest one we will have to face. In my heart I know we will make
it through these rocky waters, but it doesn’t change the daily struggles we
face. Before I go any farther, let me give you a little back story on the story
of Justin and me.
I was 16 when I met Justin, he was almost 18. We met at a
local church’s youth group where Justin was often asked to play guitar at the
beginning of our Wednesday night group. You could say it was infatuation at
first sight. As soon as I saw him I was obsessed with everything about him. His
long hair, his baby blue eyes, his tall almost awkwardly skinny body,
everything. All I could do was stare at him up there on the stage and hope that
he would notice me as well. It only took me a couple weeks to muster up enough
courage to finally start talking to him, because Lord knows he wasn’t going to
be the first to approach me. Not because he didn’t want to, but because Justin
has never been much for randomly talking to strangers. I suppose you could say
that after that the rest is history……
Although, it really didn’t end like that. Justin graduated
high school and I still had 2 more years left to go. We did the whole long
distance relationship for 2 years while he was at Southern and it definitely
had its ups and downs as well. But there was still that passion there that
never left. Any time he came home for a visit we were inseparable. We not only
grew as a couple but he truly became my best friend. He was a constant joker;
some would say he never takes anything seriously. I loved that about him. He
could make me laugh until I cried.
The next 3 ½ years we really started to find our groove. It
was like we knew what made each other tick. We also knew what would make the
other go crazy. We were growing as a couple in maturity (sometimes) and we knew
that marriage was in our future.
By the time we got married we had already been together for
5 years. We thought we were ready for this next step in our relationship, even
though we were both still babies in a lot of people’s eyes. I was 21 and I was
ready…..or so I thought.
Within 3 months of us being married I was in a bicycling
accident, which left me with a catheter bag that I had to wear around my leg
and a minimum of 6 weeks with no hanky panky with my new husband. Talk about a
buzzkill on the newlywed bliss. It could only go up from here, right?
2 months after all that fun stuff happened we found out, unexpectedly,
that we were expecting.
I went from being a 21 year old thinking I had everything
figured out, to a woman who was questioning every decision she had made. Little
did I know that this was the start of that rough “phase” I was speaking about
in the beginning.
Being a mommy, a college student, and trying to work part
time to help out with the bills was more draining then I could have ever
imagined. Whatever sex drive I had was completely diminished and even though I
still loved Justin we felt more like roommates at times.
Physical affection felt like a chore at times, and not
because I dislike my husband or because I don’t find him attractive. It was
more the fact that when I started having my boys, my brain almost did a
complete 180 and sex wasn’t even on the radar anymore. I was also struggling
with my own self-image at this point, constantly hating the way I looked and
feeling like my body wasn’t even my body anymore.
My best friend and husband, the person I wanted so badly to
talk to about all of this was the last person I was going to talk to about all
of this. It put a strain on our relationship because he could feel me withdrawing
from him.
I began spending money, money we didn’t even have, and
hiding it from him. Maybe I was trying to buy things to fill that emptiness I
was feeling, I don’t know. I was caught on several occasions for hiding things
that I had bought and we couldn’t afford. He started to resent me and was
losing the trust he had in me. While he was starting to feel the hatred for me
he had no problem expressing it verbally towards me. We were broken.
We were so lucky when God decided he wasn’t ready for this
marriage to be over. He worked diligently to build our relationship back up. He
helped us find our church home now, and brought people into our lives that we
know were Godsends.
I know that Justin’s love language is “physical touch” and he
knows that my love language is “words of affirmation”. But why is it so hard
for us to speak it to each other? We both have excuses, “Maybe I would show you
more physical affection if you would speak nicer to me” and “Maybe I’d speak
nicer to you if I wasn’t so grouchy from not getting any attention from you.”
Right now I am 7 months pregnant with our 4th
child, and while I feel great the majority of the time, I am exhausted by the end
of the day. I know what I need to do to make this marriage work and I know that
I need to be the one to make changes. But sometimes it feels like a chore. I
want to be the wife my husband needs, so why is it so hard?
I know that God will get us through this and that this is only going to feel like a small moment in time in the grand scheme of things.
I don’t know how
long this “phase” is going to last, but I am really ready for it to be over.
