Saturday, February 25, 2012

An Update in the Marriage Department

Some of you have been kept up to date on the happenings in my marriage, but some of you haven't, and are curious, so I'll give you the update to this point. In December, things were continuing to spiral out of control - fight, unproductive discussion, more fighting, kind of make up, more fighting, more unproductive discussions, etc. etc. So, since this fighting is clearly harmful to the marriage in general, I told him that I needed a break for him to go to counseling on his own to work out his anger issues, and for me to get some space and separation so that I could deal with my thoughts and feelings on everything. Although I told him, more than once, that I wanted total separation, he chose to text or email me at least 3-4 times a week. Each communication just communicated disrespect to me, and about 3 weeks ago I began thinking that I was done with the relationship altogether. After some good discussions with my parents, my pastor and his wife, and with God, I decided to go to his counselor with him and just tell him, with no holds barred, how I was feeling about all this. Not to end the relationship, but to put my feelings out there. Today was the day. I woke up early, since I've done nothing for the past week except rehash an imaginary conversation in my head. I decided to see what God had to say in His letter to me, and to my surprise I opened my Bible to Psalms 23. It was an amazing reminder to me from the One who loves me more than anyone else. I cried and prayed and felt pretty good about the whole day. I texted some people to ask them to pray, hugged J and asked her to pray, and headed to the session. I admit that I sat in my car outside the counseling center for a couple minutes, unwilling to go in to face him, but then I remembered, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me." So I headed inside, said hi to him and then the counselor came in and we began.
I wasn't sure how the whole session was going to go, but it ended up being really cathartic for me. I was finally able to say everything I wanted to say because, frankly, I didn't care if it ended my marriage or not. I did not say that I wanted a divorce, but I did say I don't trust him, don't feel loved by him, and don't feel respected by him and gave a lot of reasons for that. The counselor asked him questions about how he felt, what he wanted to say to me, and whether he was willing to work on this still. He said he was, so the counselor suggested that we try the total separation again - no texting or emailing for an indefinite period of time until I felt comfortable to meet up with him and the counselor again. I was comfortable with that, he was comfortable with that, and we parted.
Then, about an hour ago I got an email from him.
Surprise, surprise.
Sigh.

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