You're Not The Man I Married (or, I Don't Even Know You Anymore)

When Mark and I were dating, we were different people.  Not just different from each other, but different from who we are now.  I think this is probably the way it most commonly happens.  The frustration is thinking that it SHOULDN'T happen.  How many times have you, or someone you know, said, "My husband is just not the same as when we got married."  What about, "I don't really know him anymore."  And my LEAST favorite, "We're just not in love anymore."

I am so sorry no one prepared you for this.  I am so sorry that you were allowed to commit yourself in marriage with the belief that you were playing in some Disney movie or Harlequin romance.  I don't think it's everyone else's responsibility to clue you in on this, but it does help if they do.  In case they didn't and you find yourself now faced with a marriage relationship that not only falls short of your dreams, but also leaves you feeling claustrophobic and itching for the door, I just want to assure you that you're normal.  This is a phase.  It WILL pass.  It will.  The question is not whether or not it will pass, it is whether or not you will hang in there until it does.  I hope you do.

Let me get back to Mark and me.  When Mark and I were dating, I had a strange way of being emotionally strong.  If Mark had doubts about our relationship, I would smile, assure I him I had no doubts, and say, "If you want to break up with me, then that's fine.  Call me when you change your mind."  He was always immediately comforted and we would stay together or be back together in no time.

After we were married, this was not the case.  For some reason unknown to the both of us, I became an emotional wreck!  In fact it was on our honeymoon that I first showed signs of emotional weakness.  I threw a fit (a tantrum!) for some reason I can't even remember now and I remember the look on Mark's face...it clearly said, "What in the WORLD have I gotten myself into?!"  I remember this lasting for a few weeks until we took action.  I saw a doctor and was prescribed anti-anxiety medication.

Now those of you who follow my soap-opera-life know that I am a survivor of childhood trauma.  What was happening in those early weeks of marriage was my coping skills in action; I had encountered a trigger and was losing my cool.  I didn't know this at the time, however, and was so confused as to what in the world was wrong with me.  I got mad at every little thing and even at things that didn't exist!

This went on for the next five years.  Several different medications, two children, three surgeries, and five houses later, things started mellowing out.  Yes.  It went on for that long.  And Mark hung in there.  Ladies and gentlemen, although this does not describe my shining moment in this marriage (I'm still waiting for that moment to happen), it is the truth.  I believe in truth as a healing factor in all our lives so I'm sharing this WITH you, FOR you.

During my bouts with anxiety, depression, anger, and all-around ickiness, I called Mark names, yelled for no reason, left (never was gone for more than 10 minutes), yelled some more, blamed, accused, embarrassed, ignored, and sorely hurt my husband.  There were happy moments but they were short lived.  In all honesty I don't remember a lot of what went on.  It was a cloudy, gray, low time for me.  It was even more awful for Mark I'm sure.  He had married me.  He was stuck with me.

In today's society, people have divorced for much less than a depressed and angry spouse.  Mark would've been accepted and even pat on the back for leaving me, I'm sure.  And I deserved to be left.  I deserved to be committed to an institution.  He stayed anyway.

But, listen to this...he more than stayed.  I'm going to say that again.  He more than stayed.  He loved me.  He may not have FELT loving toward me, but he loved me.  He decided every morning to remain committed to the promise he'd made to me before God to love me in sickness and in health, for better or worse.  This was surely sick and worse.  When I say he loved me, I don't mean he spoke lovingly to me, held me, told me it was all okay....that came, but much later.

The first thing he did by loving me was to remain my husband.  He never once threatened to leave me.  In fact, in the middle of one of my tirades, I remember him saying, "I'M NOT LEAVING YOU!"  I realize now that he wasn't talking to me really.  I believe he was yelling this for his own benefit.  He was re-committing.  Because sometimes we have to do that...re-commit.  He was telling himself that he wasn't leaving because perhaps he'd just needed to re-decide that at that moment.  It ALWAYS helped me.  Always.  Even if I yelled back, "WHY NOT?!  I WANT YOU TO!" (which I probably did) He wouldn't leave.

The second thing he did by loving me was to pray for me.  He prayed for himself, probably minute by minute, but I know for a fact he prayed for me.  I remember once waking to the sound of his voice.  We'd had a nasty argument (well, is it an argument if only one person is screaming and the other is just sitting silently?) and I'd stomped off to bed.  Anyway, I woke up to Mark's whispering in my ear.  He hadn't intended to wake me and I never told him he did.  He was saying, "And, Lord, please ease her pain.  Please give her peace.  Please heal her.  Please let her know she is loved."  !!!!  This also helped me.  He may not have seen a difference in me right away, but I committed that night, that moment, to get well.  And I began actively working on it....whether he knew it at that time or not.

The third thing Mark did by loving me was to let things go.  Mark did not throw the past up in my face.  He had the wisdom to know that it would have made things worse, not better, if he had done so.  Instead, he welcomed me with open arms every time, EVERY TIME, I was "over myself" and ready for a hug.  EVERY TIME I apologized to him, he forgave me.  He didn't lord it over me.  He didn't act as if he deserved the apology.  He didn't punish me.  He forgave me.  He would ALWAYS hug me.  He would ALWAYS smile.  And he was ALWAYS up for whatever I felt like doing whether he had the time or not.  To say this helped me is an understatement.  If he had not been so full of grace and forgiveness, I would've stopped apologizing.  Instead, I worked even harder to heal the anger inside me.

The fourth thing Mark did by loving me was remaining faithful to God.  He couldn't have known how much this helped me.  There were intense moments where I didn't want to go to church or even be around my church friends.  I stopped reading my Bible for a time and didn't even want to pray.  Mark, however, never stopped.  And on top of that, he NEVER made me feel guilty for this.  He simply asked me, "Do you feel up to going to church with the kids and me this morning?"  If I said no, he would kiss my forehead and say, "Okay.  No worries.  We'll miss you but I hope you can get some rest."  People, this took the burden of "churching" my children off my shoulders and let me have this time to do battle.  I needed to know that Mark and the kids had their spiritual lives in hand so that I could wrangle mine back from the Evil One.  I don't believe I would ever have been able to do it if his spiritual life had fallen away as well. 

Mark never preached to me or pointed out happy couples to me or told me how he wished I would change.  Because of his patience, kindness, love, forgiveness, joy, peace, self-control, goodness, thankfulness, and gentleness, my journey into darkness was short-lived.  Oh, it didn't seem so short at the time.  It seemed relentless and never-ending.  But it wasn't.  And God wasn't patiently waiting at the end, like Mark was.  Mark was at the end of the tunnel waiting for me to dig my way out to him.  God, however, was digging right beside me, and sometimes FOR me, during the entire pilgrimage.  God never gave up on me.  He never will.

I don't deserve God's patience and grace and love.  But He gives it to me without limit.  In being Christ to me, Mark has given me the same.  Mark didn't deserve how I treated him.  He could've walked away so many times (and to this day I'm sure he thought seriously about it!).  But he had promised to stay.  That promise encompassed all that kept him with me.  Endurance.  Faith.  Perseverance.  Faith.  Faith.  Faith.  Love.  Grace.  Did I mention faith?    When Mark promised to stay with me, he wasn't promising me.  He was promising God.

I'm happy to tell you that, several medications, doctors, therapy, and prayers later, I'm no longer prone to anger.  Mark and I are happy...no...we're better than that.  We're content.  We are at peace.  We love each other and the beauty of that love is knowing that we will love each other no matter what.

It is not a question of whether or not hard times will come, it is a matter of your commitment when they do.  When you take your vows and say that you will love each other in sickness and in health, you are not saying "If you get sick, I'll love you".  You're saying, "WHEN you get sick I'll love you."  Love is a choice.  It is a commitment.  It is not a mushy-gushy feeling.

{I am not preaching to anyone here.  I have friends who are divorced and/or going through divorce.  I have friends in seemingly loveless marriages.  This was mine and Mark's journey and, as you surely know by now, I see my life as a ministry and only share it to help where it can help.}