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I am a Child of God, Wife, and Mother. This is my story.

Saturday 19 October 2013

When I Have No Strength Left



I pulled myself up from the floor. I could feel the carpet lines molded to my knees, and the red spot on my forehead where I had rested it on my hands.
My eyes were misty and I felt numb as I forced my way back to reality.

It had been one of those days, where I was so sore and so broken that I just could no longer stand.

I fell to my knees, lowered my head gently to the ground and just cried before my Father's throne. 
I had no strength left; and so I crumpled before my Savior and once again asked for the strength to just keep going. 

I love my Husband so very much, and he is worthy of my love and respect but this..boulder of resentment that he keeps chained around his neck chokes every good thing from our marriage.
I see how painful it is for him to drag around, I watch him wrestle with the demon regularly and weep for his suffering.

I have to be both his cheerleader and the one whom he hurts most. I must bear the pain of his resentment, the complete lack of intimacy or desire from him, I have to hold him when he hurts, and ignore my own pain. I have to smile and help him to keep going, while I rage on the inside, and act loving when I want to hurt him, just as much as he has hurt me. 

The part that grieves me the most is the fact that I cannot understand.

God knows I have tried; I have tried for years to just understand, so then at least I could be of some use.
But how can I understand that he loves me, yet has no desire for intimacy with me? How can I understand that he wants our marriage to work and be together, yet he refuses the one thing I ask? How can I understand that he is terrified of me walking out on him, and yet my emotional needs are still not made a priority?

He is either lying, and Lord please, do not let that be so.
Or I am not capable of understanding what he is going through.  

The last few days have been so hard, and one large nasty fight got the better of both of us, and though we forgave each other, the pain always lingers for a couple of days.
When I am hurting, I withdraw and become quiet. An odd trait, and extremely obvious for me, as "quiet" is not my personality.
Husband noticed, asked me if I was "alright." To which I responded: "I'm fine." (not maliciously or with any other intent, just that I wasn't "good", but I wasn't "awful", so I settled on 'fine')

Finally, the baby was asleep and he had to leave to head off to work. I was working on my schedule for the next couple of days and he stood before me.
The first thing I noticed was his eyes. Even when we were dating, it was his eyes and his smile that I fell in love with first.
But these eyes; they were sad, but more that that, they were mourning.

"I'm sorry" he said.

"What about?" I asked setting my schedule aside.

"For how shitty everything is..." He responded quietly.

I fell back to my old response of: "This isn't your fault, I know you're not hurting me intentionally, you can't apologize for something you cannot control, etc."

But this time he stopped me.

"No, this is my problem. Everything in our marriage could be wonderful, but if we cannot remove this thorn, then that's all we'll feel.
I have reason to worry you're going to leave if I can't get over this and I can't expect you to be ok with this, forever.  I am trying, but I'm going to try harder, I just feel hopeless sometimes, but to feel like it's hopeless is to admit defeat." His voice was low and sad, this was obviously something he'd been thinking about for a while.

I stood before him and put my hand on his arm: "I love you....so there's hope. We're both still here, so there's hope. There's always hope." I told him this, just as much as I told myself. 

After that, he left.

I closed the door, walked to the family room and fell to my knees.

I had done it, I had been strong for him, I said what I could and tried to leave him feeling somewhat encouraged, but it had taken everything in me.

I was empty, and the only place I could find more strength, I had to come to on my knees.

"The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him and I was helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him."
~ Psalm 28:7
~ The Good Wife

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