Knocked Down by Reality

After confiding and sharing my feelings of unhappiness and my desire to go to couples counseling with my husband, and after receiving his feedback and feeling a lack of understanding, my initial emotions of feeling unheard, alone and lost lasted for quite a while. I knew that I did not want to feel the emptiness, unhappiness and misery that I had felt for far too long. In fact, I vowed to myself that I was going to feel better and improve my situation. However, I did not know where to go. I was lost. I was alone. I felt like I could not give up on my marriage, as I felt that it would reflect on me as a failure - something that I have always really struggled with.

We had recently purchased a new house and moved into the home, after living with my family for an extended period of time, so I felt that maybe this was just an adjustment period to a new normal and that I would start feeling better soon enough. So, I fell back into my "normal" role of wife, mom, professional, and everything for everyone - the giver of myself. I wanted to return to feeling "normal", but did I even know what that was any more? As I thought about what that may look like, I worked to encouraged and support more social interaction with friends. This was an area that I had lacked in for several years as a new-ish mom. My husband was the social one of the two of us and needed that ongoing social interaction. I did not require it as much, and since having children, really did not do much of it, since I put everyone else before myself and viewed things like being social as an extra or even a stressor if it took away from responsibilities and/or sleep. However, I thought maybe this was what I needed. So, I pushed for more social engagements and also supported his desire to turn the new home garage into a bar, which resulted in a place that we would eventually host many social gatherings from football and sporting events and other parties.

After a while in the new home, I was feeling a little better - we celebrated my birthday with friends and prepared for the holidays. We spent our first Christmas in the new house and the girls loved the new space and the celebration of the holidays in our own home. Maybe this change of scenery and pace of life was what I needed all along. Maybe things were getting better, even without truly addressing any of the underlying marital issues. Could we really just ignore them and they just disappear? I was feeling hopeful.

After the holidays and the new year passed, we prepared to getaway to Mexico for a friend's wedding. We had not been away on a trip without the girls and I was so excited for my time away to relax. The trip was short, but was truly the most relaxing time I had had since before children. I felt free, unbothered, unstressed, and like myself, finally. For the first time in a long time, I could breathe. I could relax. I could just be. As a mom, wife and professional, I had been running on empty for so long, and this was just what I needed. I had such a nice time in Mexico and had fun, REAL fun, for the first time in a long time.

As we landed back in town, my husband told me "I am not feeling so well." I looked at him and rolled my eyes a bit, thinking about everything we had to do when we got off the plane - drop our bags at the house, get the kids from my parents, pick up the dog from his parents (on the opposite side of town from my parents), and unload/unpack everything. We got our luggage and headed home, as we pulled into the driveway of our house to drop our luggage my husband again reminded me that he was not feeling well and proclaimed that he was just going to go inside and go to bed. He was convinced that he was sick and starting to get a fever. I pushed back, thinking about all that still needed to be done and requested his help in accomplishing the to-do items prior to him taking a rest. It was clear, though, that his only care was himself in that moment and that he was going to put himself first and rest. He then got out of the car, went into the house, and that was it. I was left to unpack all of our stuff from the car and then complete the rest of the to-dos that evening, alone. Over 2 hours later, I was back at the house, with kids, the dog, and all of their stuff. I unloaded everyone and everything and got everyone situated for the evening. After getting everyone settled, I went upstairs to find my husband sleeping soundly. It was in that moment that I felt I was slapped back into my miserable reality. I felt resentment, bitterness and sadness. It was that evening that I was reminded that this was my life, this was my situation, and I felt the weight of that reality weigh heavily on my shoulders.

While I had started the reflection on my life months prior, and felt the need for something to change, I had hoped that things were only in a transition and that I just needed to get through that. However, after the Mexico trip and feeling such freedom, relaxation, life and fun, I was quickly reminded of the actual reality of my life and also reminded that it was time for real change. That evening became my impetus to make a change, a real change, to my situation and life. I felt knocked down, but I decided that I was no longer going to accept what was, but rather, I was going to get up and create the life that I wanted and finally start living again. How I was going to do this was the next challenge.