This weekend my husband and I had a painful, gut wrenching discussion about our relationship. It was one of the hardest talks we’ve had. All of this leading up from six months of hell. Ok, that’s a bit dramatic considering the state of the world, but to our little family, it felt like the longest, toughest, most disconnected six months of our lives.
You see, my dear husband works for a car part manufacturer and they’ve had two model changes this year, which means, all new machines to make all new parts. To prepare for this exciting adventure, he had to travel to Canada several times starting in December of 2015, to check on the machines that were being build to make sure they were up to standard. He traveled many times over the months of January to May. Then the shit hit the fan when the model change happened in July. He’s worked 12-16 hour days since then, including Saturdays. It’s gotten so bad that one Sunday as we were leaving for church, my oldest said “hey, dad’s home, what are you doing here?”. (No joke I just got a text saying he won’t be home until 7:30pm tonight). So needless to say, it’s been hard to stay connected. Not to mention all the years previous he had worked late and left me with three small children to take care of which drove me, literally, crazy, but more on that another time.
We’ve had several discussions about how this isn’t working, neither of us are happy, it’s just a phase and will be over soon. Through it all, it NEVER felt like a phase, it felt like a blatant disregard for our family. I would NEVER choose a job over my family. And for the first time in our 13 year marriage, I wondered if we would make it. I was beyond angry, I was hurt, I was broken. Despair was a recurring feeling over several months. During our discussions, he would say “there’s nothing I can do about it” and this would leave me even more frustrated than when we started our discussion. 
The worst of it came when we had the rare day to ourselves, without the kids, and we ended up in a screaming match on the way home from church and I yelled “I FUCKING HATE YOUR JOB!!!! I HATE IT!!!!” through tears and heartbreak. There were more screams between us that I can’t even remember. When we got home, I went upstairs to our closet…fell to my knees…melting into the floor, then face onto the carpet and I just sobbed. “How could our life be like this?” I kept asking myself. How did we let it get this far? We used to be so happy, I never questioned whether we’d make it, I have always been so grateful of our bond, but now, where was it? I finally sat up and leaned against the wall under my hanging clothes with the blank stare of emptiness in my eyes. I did not see how it was going to get better. How could it, this was the stuff divorce was made of. After about 10 minutes of staring into nothingness, I asked myself “what is the lesson I’m supposed to learn from this?” I will not let this break me, what can I learn from this. Even if it’s no the path I was hoping for, what is the lesson?
Over the next few months, I finally got the lesson. I learned that I rely on my husband for sooo many things.
To help make decisions, to help me start the decision process, to feel whole, to live, to make plans, to ok the plans, to be there while I started dinner, the list goes on… Our whole marriage, I have been waiting for him. When he played softball, I would be angry he didn’t want to spend time with me. When he would come home late, I would be angry because he obviously didn’t love me enough to leave work. I’m embarrassed to admit these things, but that is the way it was. I learned that I rely on him to make me happy. And that just doesn’t work. The happiness HAS to come from me. I have learned over the last few months that happiness is within myself. I have the choice to make myself happy. If I rely on someone else for that, I will always be disappointed. I am so much stronger than I ever thought I was. I mean, I used to be so strong when I was growing up, but then when my husband came along, I didn’t HAVE to be. So I let him be the strong one. And I forgot what it was like to live in that strength.
A couple of weeks ago I attended an event that strengthened my belief in this. The Believe Event show me that strength and love are within me, I just have to access it, and I had forgotten how to do that. After I got back, my husband and I had a dis-argument about the state of our marriage. In these previous discussions, I would get super-defensive and emotional, throwing everything back in his face and never trying to find a solution (unless it benefited me somehow). But this time, I was able to stay present, un-emotional and level-headed. It.was.amazing. The conversation was.not.amazing, but the strength and space I was able to hold was like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I was able to stand in my truth and honor his and my feelings. Breakthrough…. I was able to pinpoint some issues that have plagued our marriage since the beginning. (These things to come at a later date.) This was huge for me. Even though my husband couldn’t see it at the time, it was huge. We were both hurt by the truths that came out because we were both in the wrong on so many things, but we were able to get it out.
A week went by before we could talk about this conversation. My husband was mad at me for something, but he wouldn’t talk to me about it because my past record (stated above) with communication. I told him that I would listen without judgement or backlash. I was able to hold that space for him. I felt what it was like to hold space for someone other than myself.
We were both able to talk about our issues in a new way because I showed up in a different way. I was able to step out of my own mind and into the present. We were able to talk kindly to one another and at the same time, share our deepest fears that truly cut to the core of each of us. It was the most honest, productive conversation we’ve ever had. And even though all things were not solved in that conversation, we have been able to show up for one another in a different way.
We are making goals together, which we have never done. We are committing to a new way of communicating. I am proud of us, I feel like we grew up a little bit in that conversation.
I am grateful for the lesson that we have had to learn over the past year. I am confident that, even though the next few months are still going to be hard, the next year is going to be amazing.