Husband and I "celebrated" our anniversary last month.
Last year on our 5th anniversary I felt like I had exactly nothing to celebrate. We were two people living together who positively couldn't stand each other. I cried all the time because I couldn't believe my life was such a sham. But I had no idea what to do. I had an almost-two-year-old son and another on the way. I had married Husband fully believing that our life together was worth living. But somehow everything had gone horribly wrong and on our 5th anniversary I didn't know if we'd last even one more week, let alone another year.
Before we were married we played the "where will we be in 5 years" game often. Usually our answers were things like a house, kids, done with school, a real live job!, living somewhere new and exciting but on our 5th anniversary we were sitting in our therapists office wondering if we'd stay together or separate.
As our anniversary approached this year (6 years) I started to feel some hope. Maybe this year we'll celebrate for real. We'll have something worth celebrating. And although we're still very much in the thick of it, I finally felt like we had accomplished something by making it this far no matter what the future holds.
But on our 6th anniversary we wandered the local mall fighting and weeping and feeling nothing but hopelessness and anger.
I asked Husband if he wanted in or out because I've been second guessing where we'd be for far too long. He gave me his typical answer.
"I don't know, if we can be happy I want us to be together. If not I don't see the point."
The same thing I think about much too often.
So I told him I needed some kind of commitment.
He told me that we may as well separate then. Because he just didn't know.
After some further discussion we both decided that we could commit to a short period of time during which our separation would not be an option.
So for 6 months, beginning on our anniversary (in July) separation is not an option. We're in. No matter what.
This was hard for me to commit to. Because I'm afraid of what might happen. I don't know if I'm really in "no matter what". I feel like we've been teetering for so long that it wouldn't take much for me to throw in the towel. But for the next 6 months at least we'll be together. Here's hoping that 6 months doubles and our 7th anniversary is something worth celebrating.
What do you think - stupid? Unreasonable? Sad?
Sad. Truth be told, I want to cry. (My tear ducts are all dried up from the winter though). I just want so badly to say you can do it! You can both do it!! But I know the horror and dread when one party gives up commitment. I would say for these next 6 months, put more heart in to it than you ever have before!! Serve him and love him until he's completely inundated with your sexy and funny self. Put in 200% even if you get 0% in return. It will be exhausting (oh trust me, because I'm still recovering from that), but then you will know that YOU did all you could and more. I will be praying for you, because I am rooting for the Mrs. AND Mr. A team. :) I love you so much! You are amazing!!! I know it's going to be hard, but we are all right here!
ReplyDeleteI second Chantel -- go ALL in -- treat him exactly how you would if he was a perfect husband in every single way, find all the good about him and just gush over it. Best case scenario, he starts to rebuild his self worth that's probably pretty shattered from putting himself and his family in the position he has and things turn around for both of you, and worst case scenario, like Chantel said, you will always know you gave it everything you have. I totally think that a year from now, you'll be writing awesome blog posts about how to completely turn around a marriage and come back from a dark place to somewhere completely amazing!!
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