One Year Later

It's been a year since our wedding was called off. 

Well, a year and approximately 3 days.

It's been a long, hard year. 

I'd love to tell you that we've worked through our feelings and clung to Jesus and found healing and hope and we are ten times better than we were. 

But this is real life so I'm not going to. 

I don't think we've moved into a space of growth yet. We are still very much in the midst of the feelings of that event. 

We are still wading through the muck.

About a week ago, we got into a pretty ugly argument. A dumb thing just set all those feelings in motion and I just lost it. Yelled, cried, and wasn't really the best version of myself. All the frustration, anger and hurt of the past twelve months just surfaced into something ugly.

I don't like holding things in. I don't like not telling someone how I feel and hoping it will change. It bothers me to keep stuff in. I have been physically ill when I've tried to keep a secret before. It's just not me. I can't pretend and I can't fake it. 

I tried really hard to let things go (when I wasn't ready) and be understanding and patient (when I didn't get it and wanted answers) and it landed me here. I think avoiding those hard conversations and hoping things would change just allowed those hurt feelings to fester. 

That tactic doesn't ever really work. 

At least not in my experience. 

None of this means we haven't had good times or that I haven't seen glimpses of renewal and restoration in our day to day. We've definitely enjoyed some good stretches of time together and I've had days/weeks/months where it felt like maybe, just maybe we could pull out of it. But, what really has been going on is we've taken 3 steps forward and 5 steps back in a seemingly never-ending dance. 

Frankly, it's exhausting. 

I'm just tired. 

So, last week, after a blowout that I'm pretty sure woke the neighborhood followed up by two days of barely speaking, we collectively made the hard decision to take a break from each other. 

No contact for 2 weeks. No texting, no calls, no hanging out, no dating each other or anyone else. Just two weeks for us each to get our bearings, give us a chance to think and figure out if this is something worth trying for. 

We made it about 5 days before one of us broke and called the other. 

The verdict came in.

Nobody wants to give up just yet. 

Despite the current state of us in this relationship, there is a lot of love here. 

This past year we did some counseling but didn't stick with it or really engage in the things they asked us to do. When we decided it wasn't helping us and we didn't care for our counselor we stopped going. We didn't seek out our pastor or any other spiritual guidance. We didn't take a break right when it happened to give us a chance to grieve and heal. I feel like we both just clung to this life raft of ideals- who we thought we were going to be, what our life was going to be like- and continued to be rocked and occasionally submerged beneath the waves. 

We both have made a lot of assumptions about how the other person feels. Some of those assumptions led to actions, or lack thereof in most cases, that continued to dismember our relationship. 

Looking back now, I can clearly see where we went wrong in some places. 

I can also see where we have both been at fault. 

A few things this past year has taught me:

• People who have the capacity to love in a big way also have the capacity to hurt in a big way. It hurts because love exists. It doesn't make it good or bad, it just means that having big love for someone means being vulnerable enough to get hurt too. 
• Sometimes you can say you've forgiven someone but you haven't really 100%. And you might not even realize or understand it. 
• Trust is a very important and very tricky thing in a relationship. It can be there without even trying but the minute it is compromised, it takes everything you have to build it back up.
• Just like a house, you can't fix a cracked foundation with a patch and hope it stays forever. You have to jack the house up and dig up the old foundation to lay a fresh new one. You may have been certain people before but that doesn't mean you are going to exactly be those same people after.
• Just because a love story isn't easy doesn't mean it's not worth it. Don't give up unless you are sure you won't regret it. 

I don't know what will happen with T and I. 

I'd love to predict that a year from now I'll be writing a happy post about marriages and moving in together and starting a life. 

But maybe I won't. 

I hope and pray that with this new month and this new season we can learn to shed the old ways we did things, the old things we said and did, the old hurts we experienced and move on into a relationship that is fresh and new. 

I was talking with a couple of dear friends about the break and the circumstances of what happened and how I just don't get it. How I keep going over everything in my mind and I can't pinpoint what changed. We were so happy. We were so in love. How could it go so wrong?

They looked at me and said that what T and I really need is Jesus. 

We need to stop letting each other be our salvation and look to the only one that can give that to us. Only through that will we learn to be restored within ourselves. I pray that we can cling tight to that hope for restoration.

I pray that we can stop looking to each other as a life raft. 

Rather, look at each other as passengers on the same boat. 

Forget the former things, 

DO NOT DWELL ON THE PAST. 

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 

Isaiah 43:18-19

 

P.S. 

Why share this sad story you ask?

Well, I'm not exactly sure.
I sat down to start writing for BlogHer's NaBloPoMo this month because I saw the word of the month is 'Healing' and I thought it would be fitting for current circumstances. Then I saw all the prompts were about Ferguson and I do not even want to touch that topic, so I'll just stick to what I know. This life of mine.