A Mommy Story

While talking with two friends over ice cream the other night, one said, “You’re like an open book, so when you didn’t talk about what was bothering you on your blog, I knew it had to be bad.” I think the only way I’m going to get past this mental block in my writing is by confronting the issue that’s bugging me so much. And so I’m going to put it out there, or at least as much as I feel comfortable sharing.

As you may know, this has so far been kind of a sucky year for us. Aaron was laid off in June, and had trouble finding employment until just recently, and this job is only a limited-time contract job. We had to go on food stamps for awhile, and drained our savings. I had a relapse of depression. When the job went away, so did health insurance, which means of course we all got sick as soon as our insurance ended. Aaron and I still don’t have insurance. We have one daughter on the autism spectrum who is often difficult to handle, and another with a possible speech delay.

You can imagine how all of this is affecting Aaron and I. We’re stressed, and as a result we’re often short with each other, acting out against each other, and simply disconnected. Most nights were spent sitting on opposite ends of the living room, each lost in a laptop until bedtime. It’s put a strain on our marriage to the point that we nearly lost everything. Details aren’t important, but a lot of hurt has been hurled and the emotional cuts are deep. After the blow up, the big D word has been hanging over our heads for the past couple of weeks.

I don’t think either of us wants a divorce. We both remember why we married in the first place: we’re good together. We compliment each other well – his weaknesses are my strengths, and vice versa. We’ve been together for over ten years now and have weathered a lot of ups and downs. We also both realize that we’re holding onto a lot of bad behavior patterns that probably date back to childhood experiences. (Freud, anyone?)

We’ve discussed these issues with close friends and family – people who know us well and can provide the support we need. We’ve made the decision that we want to keep our marriage, and we’ll enlist the help of a therapist to guide us back to open communication and help us heal our wounds. There’s still a lot of hurt to work through – I know I occasionally feel the urge to throw something at his head – but we both are committed to working on it. It’s not just for the kids, either. While our daughters certainly forced me to think harder about everything, it’s still my decision, and I am considering my own feelings in this decision.

I can’t predict what the future holds for us. I hope he’ll fix whatever it is that has screwed him up, I’ll address my issues, and together we’ll mend the rift in our relationship. It’ll be a long road ahead to regain trust and I can only hope we’re both up for that journey.

This isn’t eloquent at all, and someday I’ll probably look back at this and cringe, but I wanted to get it out in the open. And while I may sound all strong and brave about this, I can tell you I’ve been angry and scared and sad and revengeful, too, along with 1,000 other variants of negative emotions. But around my children and in public I’ve tried to hold it together, telling myself that I’m better than some of those dark emotions and therefore won’t let them get to me.

There’s no shame in admitting a marriage isn’t perfect, and in talking with several friends, both online and in person, I’ve found that I’m certainly not the first person to endure these kinds of problems, and many shared that they have repaired the damage and moved past these bumps in the road. I can only hope for the same results.

But I will now confirm that this has been in many ways the suckiest year yet for me. I hate sounding all “poor me” because I know that there are those going through so much more, and honestly, the martyr role just doesn’t suit me. But this is probably the worst I’ve gone through yet. I’m hoping I’m at my personal rock bottom – can only go up from there, right?