Fighting off the past

I came across one of my old journals which had to be from one of the darkest times of my life. As I was reading, I was fighting back tears remembering that time in my life when I spent so much time crying.

It was the year that I was pregnant with Cam. 3 years into my marriage and I must say, it was challenging to say the least. Page after page I read and remembered how all I wanted in the world was for my husband to love me, to show some love for me, to acknowledge that he cared. Page after page I read about how I felt ignored, unloved, untouched. I felt like I disgusted him and blamed the fact that he didn't want to touch me on the weight I'd gained from the kids. (Really, I couldn't have been more that 130 at the time.)

It was a hard time. Our marriage has been a rocky one. We didn't start off the way we should have. We rushed into the marriage because he was being transferred to Germany and neither of us wanted to lose the other.

The problem was, I think we didn't "look deep before we leaped" into our vows and we didn't take time to really evaluate what was important in a marriage first.

I spent a lot of time alone. He worked long hours leaving CJ and I at home alone every day and every evening. I wasn't working, so it was always about the kid for me. I wanted him to come home and kiss me hello or ask me how my day was, but when he did come home, he either left back out for the gym or went out on the weekends. He barely spoke to me. I remember that time as being so lonely. I would beg him to stay home to no avail. It was when I learned to be independent, to do things for myself, to hold everything in and to put on a game face so that no one else could see my misery.

So after infidelity on both parts and having a kids too soon, I felt alone and miserable. I fought back the tears as I read how much I wanted my marriage to work, but feared it wouldn't. Then I found out I was pregnant. I wasn't happy about the pregnancy. We were going to abort.

I remember that day. We drove 3 hours to the clinic because there wasn't one where we lived. It was quiet most of the way there as I cried silently most of the way. When we got close we started talking about why we were doing it and how it had to be better. I believed that the marriage was too rocky and chaotic to add another kid. It was already bad enough to have CJ in such a mess. When we got there, he told me that he thought I shouldn't go through with it. I went inside alone because he couldn't come inside with a child, so he waited in the car with CJ. After sitting for a while, I got up and walked out. I couldn't go through with it.

I wrote later that I still wasn't sure that it was the best choice.

It was.

I remained unhappy for a long time and never saw happiness for the duration of that journal.

I look at my life now and see myself in such a different place. Our marriage still isn't perfect. As a matter of fact it's far from it. The thing is, now he wants to talk about things, whereas before we hardly ever spoke. He is a different person.

The problem is, so am I. It's almost like we've switched roles and I'm the one who is distant and difficult. I spent so much time being alone that that's all I know how to be now and not talking doesn't bother me anymore. I think that I have put up such a wall from all the pain that I felt that it is hard for me to love Hubs the way that I should. I don't ever wanna feel that way again. This has become a classic case of how my past has effected who I am in the present. I'm just hoping that now, I can change that outer exterior, soften it up, before it devastates our future.