The Wait

So I’m a few weeks away I think from the option to divorce legally now. Waiting is not good though because forgive and forget is a great strength of mine. I can feel the negativity finally starting to die down a little bit and the thought of going home is annoyingly easy to contemplate. All the negative from this relationship is starting to fade and I’m left with the good parts of it. My nice home, my dogs, the fishing, cooking in my own kitchen, watching movies together and just personal touch. I’m starting to feel legitimately lonely and that is not good at all.

The worst part about it is that he’s incredibly nice now. I’ve only talked to him a few times other than the emails but he’s been so apologetic. He’s cleaned out the garage, starting working out, built himself a workbench, he’s taking care of the animals and the garden, all things that I’ve always wanted him to do. He’s not shutting down anymore and he’s going to therapy and reading all of these books and even explains how exposed and raw he feels when he doesn’t let himself shutdown. He’s emotional almost and trying to be open about the shame that he felt from his childhood and the steps he’s taking to change himself. He says that change for him is the only way forward because he owes me a better life. He knows that he neglected me emotionally and that he focused on stupid things just like his dad did instead of paying attention to what’s important in life and he wants to make it up to me.

He’s letting me draw boundaries and appears to be respecting them without getting angry. He definitely still has trouble with the whole boundary thing though- I’ll let him in a little bit and the next thing I know, he’s texting me all day long and wants to talk on the phone. I start acting like things are going well for us and he starts talking about the future together. I come to see the dogs and he wants to go to dinner, I go to dinner and he wants me to stay the night (which I did not do). Now I’m starting to feel like this terrible person though because I feel like I’m leading him on but he’s so sneaky and I don’t even realize what’s happening until I think about it afterwards. Then I start thinking that maybe he could change… he seems so genuine about wanting to and I honestly feel like he does know that he hurt me and that he does want to change. He’s constantly apologizes to me and he’s catching himself when he says something pushy or controlling and immediately apologizes.

I mean I was expecting a fight to the death not him crying and holding me when he saw me for the first time in a while. Then I starting thinking these crazy thoughts like maybe I’m the manipulative one, maybe I am actually the narcissist, maybe I got so caught up on the stuff online and made up this story that he could never change, maybe it’s my fault because I’m a people pleaser and I encourage him to take advantage. I’d like to say that these aren’t something that I think about often but I really do entertain those thoughts pretty regularly. He’s not even trying to make me feel crazy anymore and I still have those thoughts…. or maybe he is and that’s why I have these thoughts!

It’s insanity really because now I’m rethinking my entire life. Why am I nice to people? Why do I like to do things for people? Is it because I’m unintentionally manipulating people? Maybe deep down I know that if I’m a nice and helpful person, people will have to like me and do things for me. I’ve always been this way though and I thought that I did these things to actually help people and that makes me happy. I don’t ever expect anything in return but maybe I actually do. Then I start thinking that I don’t even know who I am anymore and how am I supposed to decipher who my husband is when I don’t even know myself?

Everyone keeps telling me that I know who he is deep down and I’ll know what to do but I don’t! I’m legitimately thinking of getting back into therapy because I feel so lost. I feel lonely, I feel betrayed by my own self, and worst of all I feel guilty. Everything kind of started to build up yesterday and I was down, like really down in the dumps. I went hiking more then two hours away yesterday just to get as far away as I could from everything and be alone. That just made it worse though because then I realized I WAS alone. All those depressing thoughts shot back into my head like a nightmare and thoughts of suicide flooded my head again.

I feel like I can’t win and that I am addicted to this emotional roller coaster that is my marriage and I can not get out of it. Both divorce and staying with my husband scare the ever living crap out of me and it’s like I’m faced with this impossible decision that leads to nothing good. Last week I felt at peace with my decision to leave and I really felt like God was telling me that it was ok. Now it’s like well crap, now that I feel like I can do that guilt free, I actually have to do something about it and that freaks me and is also a really unhealthy way to think. I want to make the right decision to please God not because I don’t want to feel guilty later.

This is seriously screwing with my head at this point. On my way back yesterday, I decided to listen to a podcast on embracing my true self, that is, dying to my old self and embracing my new self, my reborn self in Christ. It really helped a lot- I’ve been clinging on to my old self, the one that was supposed to die when I accepted Christ and I’m still letting that dead part of me control my life. Embracing my new self sounds great, I don’t really like the dead self, but how do you do that? It sounds great but where do I even start? I guess it all starts by paving new roads in my mind. My dead self has highways built to sin and negative thinking and I need to start building freeways to God’s way of thinking. When I catch myself thinking negatively about myself, I need to tell myself that I’m a child of God, when I’m tempted, I need to think about my new self in God and who I want to be in Him. It’s all about repetition and catching myself before I go down that long highway of toxic thoughts and switching directions towards God’s freeways.

This is super hard to do but I do believe that I’m not doing it alone and that I have help from God. I always believed that Christians were weak minded people because they had a crutch but faith is not for the weak minded, quite the opposite really. Putting your life into the hands of God and trusting that He will change you into His own creation is not an easy thing to do, especially if you are used to depending on yourself only. So yeah, I’m trusting that God will be with me no matter what but I’m just hoping that I can open my heart to Him and listen to his teachings and really learn to follow Him. I’ve been wandering the wilderness for a long time now and I’m ready to be lead out of it.

As a side note, I really wish I was not this way. That I would have just left in the beginning and not let my husband back in. I’m sure people reading this have a hard time understanding why I’m even entertaining the idea of going back or maybe that I’m cold hearted because I won’t support him while he’s trying to change. I’ve built my entire life with him and have been through so much with him. I wish I could pick a decision and stick to it but good lord, I don’t feel qualified to pick out my own clothes at this point. I’m trying to express my true thoughts in this blog though. I want people to understand the struggles that I have so others who are going through the same thing hopefully feel less alone. When you have very little self esteem, making a decision to change your entire life is very much like jumping into a bottomless pit. I am trying to give God the reigns but letting go like that is terrifying, I just hope that I learn to make that jump soon.