Today, I thank God for my husband

Warning: Very slight TMI

He gave me a wonderful gift last night. He told me it was okay to express my emotion however I needed to.

I went to bed upset and feeling inadequate, and past hurts were raw in my heart. He came to bed with me, held me for a little while, and tried to show his love for me in the purest way possible. And that's when I remembered something.

That's what it's all about: expression of love.

Not everyone can express their feelings well. Not everyone can say how they feel, or put it into words or actions, or buy gifts to express themselves.

Since my daughter was born I've had all kinds of little medical issues crop up. Some of them are bigger, like the arthritis and insulin problems, and are more obvious to people I'm around. Other problems just aren't the kinds of things you make public, and if you talk about them, it's only to the people you're closest to. Oftentimes those are the problems that drive wedges between people and leave the neighbors wondering what happened to the nice couple next door when they hear about a divorce being finalized.

And I've had my share of those problems since Sweet'ums got here.

Every time one of those little problems popped up, I distanced myself a little more emotionally from the situation. If I cared at all, I would end up frustrated and hurt inside, and the fun would drain out of the quiet moments with him and I'd eventually end up resenting him for something he couldn't help. So if I just didn't care, then the fun would still be gone but at least I wouldn't blame him for something neither of us could control.

Somewhere along the way, I took from him one of the few and most special ways he has to express his love for me. And at the same time, I took away from myself the only truly "safe" place I had to feel however I needed to feel, in whatever way I needed to feel it, with the one person who would never condemn me for it.

At some point it became "getting through it" instead of treasuring a moment of emotional intimacy. I started hating "the deed" instead of loving my husband.

So when he told me it was okay, to just go ahead and let out however I felt, that he just wanted to love me, it just clicked inside my head. In that moment my heart broke and healed all at once.

I realized what I had been doing wrong and how it hurt him and our marriage. I'm blessed with an incredibly patient man who knew I wasn't doing anything intentionally, so he isn't resentful, and our marriage wasn't damaged in a way that can't be fixed, but it's definitely something that needs to be worked on. I need to work on meeting in the middle--in so much of our life I put out so much effort, except for in the one place where we both need it most.

I thank God for my husband. He's probably the only person on earth who really understands me and who is willing to let me be as weird and quirky and dorky as I need to be and who is happy to be just as weird right along with me. He tolerated so much out of me for so long, and still put his needs aside and found just the right words to say, when I needed to hear them most, to help mend what was broken.

Funny... God has a tendency to be the same way.


I apologize if this post was too "TMI" but it was such an overwhelming realization for me, and I wanted to share but couldn't really without treading into personal territory.