LOSING MYSELF, FINDING PEACE POST 10 LOVE STORY

My wife is one of the most laid-back people you could ever meet. She can come home, find me with a knife in my hand, threatening to kill myself and respond, “Honey, put the knife down. Would you like chicken or beef for dinner?” Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration but, seriously, only slight. She meets every dramatic crisis I face with a calm sense of, “It’ll be alright”.

She approaches life with abandon, possessing an unshakable faith that things will work out regardless of what life throws at her. I learned to say to her, “Brittany, tell me everything will be ok.” And she would respond, “Yes, honey, everything will be ok.” Just those words would be enough to calm me, to soothe me. As long as she said everything would be okay, I knew it would be.

I am very blessed to have such an understanding spouse. We met when I was 13, got married at 18. She’s been through everything with me. I barely remember a time when she wasn’t around. I’m fortunate that she’s laid-back. I am fortunate to have her because that’s what I need. During those long years when life was such a challenge, she didn’t judge me for my mistakes; she just loved me through them.

My wife stood by me through the mental illness diagnoses and all the other things life threw at me. She dealt with my insanity without judgment, reassuring me I was worthwhile and loveable. It was so hard to remember that very simple truth and instead of being reassured of her love, my reliance on her filled me with fear. I lived in terror at the thought of losing her. She is my rock, my everything.

She always knew I was trying my best. It may not have seemed like it, but I was. She was able to see the direction I was headed in and not just the milestone I had reached. It can be hard when you look only at the external results rather than trying to understand the internal struggle. She will never completely understand my battles or even what I’m going through. Some people may come close, but no one can completely understand the battle or the choices that come into play, just as we will never completely understand them. We may never realize how other people’s hearts break to see us in pain. How they want more for us and just don’t understand why we SEEM to not want it for ourselves.

It wasn’t all rainbows and butterflies. There were times in our marriage when things were really good between us and times when things were hard. She loves me, but those difficult years nearly destroyed us. During the bad years, we coexisted. I was a mess, so she took care of me, but we were angry at our situation. Neither of us liked our lives and it was easy to blame each other for our unhappiness. Frustrations thus got taken out on the other person.

We finally sat down and really looked at our marriage and how unhappy we were. We were in our living room, the kids upstairs asleep. I asked her, “Do you want to get a divorce?” We both got very quiet at that, each of us looking hard at our relationship, doing the math in our heads. I had no income and no education. At the time I had only a GED. There was no question I would take the kids, which would mean child support and spousal support from her. We lived in a nice home in a nice neighborhood. That would change if we split up. No, we didn’t want to divorce, at least not yet. So, what were we going to do? We didn’t want to stay miserable, but we weren’t sure how to fix it.

It was our decision to stay married despite our disagreements that freed us. We went to a marriage conference where one exercise changed our relationship forever. She was simply told to look at me and gasp. Such a simple act that changed us from two unhappy people resenting each other to two people cherishing each other. We learned to appreciate each other. To look at one another with love and wonder. It stopped being about my meeting my needs and her meeting her needs and instead, we met each other’s needs. We became a devoted couple, instead of being on the brink of a divorce. We reached the same conclusion: we were in this marriage together and committed to making our marriage work. We weren’t sure we knew how to do that, but we were and are committed to each other and our family.

She has been in my life for so long and she remains my closest friend and biggest supporter. We have a solid relationship. We have been married for 38 years. We’ve been told by friends that we have the relationship that they aspire to. It hasn’t been easy, and it didn’t happen overnight. We’ve been through a lot.  She’s taken knives out of my hands when I threatened to cut or kill myself. I cannot tell you the number of times she calmed me down and comforted me when the voices got too loud.

I’m very lucky to have such a wonderful – not perfect – marriage. Since I’m prone to fear, rather than trusting, I worry about my relationship with her. I shower her with love, acceptance, and attention. We don’t have a good marriage because we don’t fight or disagree but because we have such a firm foundation. I fundamentally love her so much and want her to be happy more than anything and she wants the same for me.

If you find my writing thought provoking, consider subscribing to my blog on Substack: https://jasmineraysymms.substack.com/ 

All previous posts are available on Substack and my website.

Photo by Luigi Pozzoli on Unsplash