This story is told from the perspective of our sister, A. It is related to teen pregnancy, depression, separation, and marriage struggles.
March, 2017
There are a lot of resources out there but here are a few
books that helped us connect:
March, 2017
My husband and I started dating at 15 years old (1994), when
we were sophomores in high school. When
we met we were going to the same high school but just after one month of
dating, I moved 3 hours away for the remainder of my high school days. This was back before cell phones. We would get in trouble month after month
when our parents would get $600 long distance phone bill in the mail. We would record cassette tapes and send them
to each other and we would drive to see each other MOST weekends, as much as
our parents would allow. This time was
hard but in certain ways it made us very strong in our relationship. We had to learn to communicate and trust each
other during our young, drama-filled high school days. He proposed during our junior year, we knew
we wanted to spend our life together. We
were not in a hurry to get married but we wanted to show our commitment to each
other. We were planning on getting
married during the summer after we graduated high school. I found out I was pregnant Memorial Day weekend
of my junior year, and the baby was due mid-January of my senior year. We never doubted what that meant for us and
we knew it would be hard but we were truly excited to be parents. Fast forward, we had a baby girl January 30th
of our senior year, we were still engaged, living 3 hours away from each other;
it was so hard but amazing all at the same time. We decided to go to the JP during spring
break to get married (1997), still lived 3 hours apart, LOL. We were determined (along with our parents)
to graduate high school. Married with
one baby, we both graduated high school and we finally got to live together in
his parents’ house, starting out as a family.
I will fast forward the next few years.
We had our second baby at the age of 20 and ended up getting our own
place at 21.
As our kids got older, we struggled with where to go to
church. My husband was raised Catholic
and I was raised Baptist. Even though I
was not a faithful church attender, I was not sure about the Catholic religion. My husband was a faithful church attender
(not always on his free will), but still did not want to change. We tried a few non-denominational churches
and that was not a good experience, which left us back at the Catholic
church. I ended up going through RCIA to
“become” Catholic and even though I did not agree with some of their beliefs, I
thought I was doing what was best for the kids.
I knew they needed a solid foundation in Christ and we needed that
foundation as a family as well. We
attended church for several years but once it was time for my kids to start
going through requirements of the church, we stopped attending due to different
beliefs.
As time went on and the kids grew up, our schedules got
busier with extracurricular events and career goals. My husband would take courses down at the
local community college, he would volunteer at the fire department, our daughter
was in travel softball, and our son was in either football or baseball
throughout the year. Plus we both had
full-time jobs. Life was busy! The busier we got the more I felt alone and
disconnected from my husband. I would
try to talk to him but he didn’t know what I needed or how to fix how I was
feeling. He would get frustrated so I
would shut down and I just started holding everything inside, bottled up. I felt like everything and everyone in our
lives was more important than me. I
tried to fill the void with materialistic things or just pretending everything
was ok. I went through the motions… a
lot. For so long I poured everything I
had into my kids, day in and day out, which is not a good place for a marriage
to succeed.
I went through years of depression and feeling so
alone. I went to counseling that just
wanted to bring up my childhood and start at the beginning. That was not what I wanted so I quit
going. The doctor put me on
anti-depressants and that helped for a little while. It helped when I needed it most but it made
me feel very numb; I was not myself. I
took myself off the medicine and so I just thought something was just wrong
with me and that my husband and kids would be better off without me.
I started flirting and having conversations through
instant message with a guy at work that showed me attention I was missing at
home. Emotional affairs are just as
destructive, if not more, as the physical ones.
Emotional affairs put feelings and thoughts in your head that shouldn’t
be there. I began to think that I didn’t
want to be married; I thought that I wanted to be alone. I thought that I just needed space to find
out who I was and what I wanted. Maybe I
got married too young and I didn’t know who I was outside of my husband and the
kids. The emotional affair drew me
further away from my husband; it put a huge wedge that left me broken from the
inside out. I lost all hope in my
marriage. I felt guilty and ashamed of
the conversations that should have never happened and the thoughts that had
manifested and snowballed in my head.
Sin starts in the head, moves to the heart and ends up in actions that
you look back on wondering how in the world you got to that dark place.
A few times through the years, friends had invited us to
a church, and that was good but a little overwhelming. We had enjoyed it, but at the time it just
was not for us. I knew I needed
something to change and I didn’t know where else to turn, so I went to church. Most of the sermons left me more and more
sad. I wanted to have what the Pastor
talked about, a lasting spiritual relationship.
I wanted to feel emotionally connected with someone. I would go home and felt more and more alone. I started to think that God wanted me to be
happy and if I wasn’t happy with my husband then I should leave him. God would put someone else in my life that
would understand me and that would make me happy. I went to church but I still didn’t have that
personal relationship with God. If my
husband didn’t want to talk then why would God want to talk? Don’t get me wrong, I loved my husband, I
loved my kids, I loved my life so something had to be wrong with me! Emotionally and spiritually I was empty. I
was lost.
After 15 years, I decided had enough. I asked my husband for
a separation. He said no, and he told me
it was either married or divorce, no in between. I didn’t want a divorce, but I knew I wasn’t
happy continuing life the way it was. I
was not good at expressing my feelings, I had kept them bottled up for so
long. My husband told me that if I
didn’t know how he felt about me by this time in our marriage then I never
would. His response didn’t surprise me,
though, because all through our marriage he made the rules. He decided where we lived, how we spent our
money, what we did and how we did it. I
cried, he cried, neither one of us wanted a divorce but we didn’t know what else
to do. We decided to give it one last
chance and to go to counseling. My
husband was so scared that things were over between us that he got on his knees
for the first time and prayed a sincere heartfelt prayer to God and he decided
to come to church with me.
Honestly the only thing that we got out of counseling was
how to communicate about anything and everything. Instead of my husband telling me that I
shouldn’t feel a certain way, he would say I am so sorry I made you feel that
way, I never meant it that way. WOW what
a difference that statement made to me!!!
When decisions came up in the house, he asked me for my opinion and we
talked until we reached a mutual agreement, it was amazing. I felt like we were connecting again and we
were on the same team. I was no longer
scared to share my feelings with him. I
felt important and that I mattered to him.
We started praying together, we started volunteering at church, the kids
got involved at church. Our lives
started changing. God waited for us to
surrender to Him, to fall on our knees begging for Him to fix what we let Satan
destroy, what we helped Satan destroy.
When we humble ourselves and hand our lives over to God, only then can
He work the miracle that we all long for.
Once I surrendered my life to Christ, I no longer had a
void in my life. For so long I looked to
my husband to satisfy my every need and I had expectations that he could not
live up to. I would feel disappointed in
him and he would feel like he never measured up as a husband. God is the only one that can feel that need
in our hearts. We learned that we will
let each other down but we don’t mean to, we are human. We love each other and should always assume
the best in each other and not jump to the worst thoughts of each other.
There were a lot of long talks, forgiveness, praying
together, praying separately and learning how to love each other again. It took time and a lot of work. It took patience and when we would find
ourselves mad and pulling away from each other, we had to hold each other
accountable and admit when we were wrong.
My husband had to learn how to trust me again. We had to learn how to turn away from the bad
habits and put into practice the communication strategies that we learned in
counseling. It was all very intentional
and did not come easy at all. It went
against everything that felt natural to us.
As we go through life, we get training in our jobs, we study for school,
and we practice for sports…why wouldn’t we get training, education and practice
communicating correctly in our marriage!!
We have talked about how we wished we would have come to
have that personal relationship with Christ so much sooner but it is all in
God’s plan. I don’t know what that plan
is but I do trust God completely with my life, my marriage, my children, my
finances, my career, everything in my life.
There is nothing that I don’t seek God for every day. I know that most of us are stubborn, it is in
our human nature to want to control everything.
But if I pray first instead of as a last resort, I am filled with hope,
peace and a love that surpasses any earthly understanding. We are learning that the closer we get to God
the more Satan tries to intervene. He
continues to tell us that we have failed, we are not worthy of God’s love and
that we will never measure up to be the people God wants us to be. Satan is the father of all lies. The more we read God’s word the more we are
be able to recognize when Satan is attacking us. I learned how to take control of my thoughts!
I am so thankful that our God is greater and that He
always brings triumph out of a trial. I
pray that this will help anyone that feels alone and has lost all hope. I am here to tell you that God specializes at
bringing the dead to life, so if you feel that your marriage is dead, hand it
over to God and let him breathe life into it.
I can now tell you that we just celebrated our 20th wedding
anniversary and neither one of us ever thought we could be so happy. We still get on each other’s nerves, we still
get irritated, we still have arguments but we know that our intentions are good
(we are on the same team with God as our Head Coach). We also know that neither one of us is going
anywhere. We love each other so much and
we know that we do not want to hurt each other but we are human and have
realistic expectations now. I know that
Jesus is the only one that can fill that void in my heart that I have searched
to fill with so many other things in this broken world.
My suggestions for you:
Pray – make it your top priority, if you don’t know what
to say, pick a scripture and read it over and over, ask God to reveal to you
the meaning and stay quiet for a minute or so, meditate and let God work in
your heart. One of my favorite apps for scripture
is called “Bible Promises”. It will give
you different subjects, click on the one that is weighing on your heart and
there will be several scriptures to help you seek God in his word. I realized that my heart is what needed to
change, if I wanted my life to change it had to begin in myself and not in my
husband. I had to take responsibility
and hold myself accountable for my thoughts and actions.
Small Group Bible Study – find a church home and get
involved in a bible study. There are
some online that you can even get involved in as well. It is so important to read and know God’s
word first hand and not by a preacher saying scripture in a sermon. I highly recommend the Books of the Bible by
Biblica. It separates the bible into
sections and lays it out in a novel base format so that it is easier to
read. We struggled with reading the
bible and have now read the whole bible using this format. Being a part of a small group gives you a
foundation to walk through life with other Christians, imperfect people that
are wanting to grow closer to God.
Two Hearts Praying as One by: Dennis and Barbara Rainey
The Five Love Languages by: Gary Chapman
Love and Respect by: Dr. Emerson Eggerichs
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