Our Marriage Journey, Part 8
JESSICA: We started a somewhat formal reunification relationship with each other. Deep down our hearts were still bonded from before, but we needed a new narrative to know it was safe to trust again. We started going on dates. Sometimes we laughed until we cried and sometimes we mostly cried. It was a time of intentionally creating a new way of relating with each other. As I began to feel affection and admiration for him, the emotional awakening brought so much grief along with it. We grieved the same things together that we had grieved separately.
Late summer and early fall days we hung out at the creek with the kids. We started eating meals together. At night when the kids went to bed, he would kiss them goodnight and leave to honor our curfew time. I started secretly wishing he could stay longer.
It wasn’t a romanticized kind of rebuilding. It was actually mostly hard. We didn’t distract ourselves with each other or alternative methods of avoiding the hard, but stayed committed to the process of growth.
Christmas season came. We put up the tree together with the lights and watched a Christmas movie. I remember when he left that night, I imagined how it must have felt for him to back out the driveway and see the flickering lights through the window, then turning to drive away to a quiet and cold little cabin in the boonies. He had told me that he wanted six months of healthy consistency before thinking about moving back home. That felt safe to me.
Several days before Christmas the owner of the cabin let Brock know that it would not be available anymore, and we had a very short amount of time to find him another place to stay. Brock checked into several different options but nothing worked out. It was a time of intense fear for both of us. We didn’t have time to prepare emotionally for the only feasible option of Brock moving back home into the spare room. He moved in Christmas eve.
At first I felt panicky with fears of relapse and instability. I had an internal line graph in my head. Time showed that with all the ups and downs, we had slowly gone upwards to where we presently were. That line graph stayed in my mind and I looked at it every night as I lay in bed. It helped me not to freak out at a sudden dip of conflict. It helped me recognize the up and down reality of growth and be aware of us slowly moving towards calm places of rest for longer periods of time in between the hard.
We truly started all over from the ground up. The therapeutic separation didn’t mean we were exempt from the difficult and intentional growth process.
I had a hard time being open and direct with him when I had concerns. I didn’t want to be a nag or controlling, which was such a fear based way of living. When I ignored my intuition and feelings, assumptions and hyper vigilance would take over. This was another old survival method I needed to unravel. It was incredibly hard to speak up and he didn’t always take it well, but it took away so much unrest and assumptive reactions.
We have been back together for two years now, and we are nearing our ninth anniversary next week. I am so thankful and honored to celebrate it with Brock. Unity in soul and spirit beyond a physical aspect is a gift I am still learning to receive. Words cannot convey how grateful I am for a marriage that encompasses honesty, equality, empathy and genuine love. I admire his courage and tenacity as he continues to show up for himself and his family.
We have come through stormy weather but with every choice to choose wellness, it has brought us brighter skies. It took both of us putting in the same amount of effort for our own individual health. It took the kind of dedication and intentionality we can’t second guess. Sometimes when I hear the wind howling with pain and heartache in the world outside, I look at him and think how wonderful it is to be comfortable and at peace inside our own home. I pray I never take that for granted.
We continue to prioritize our individual emotional health by receiving ongoing therapy, and we probably always will. The present world is a harsh place and coupled with past trauma it can be completely overwhelming. Wise counsel from informed perspectives is something we both value highly.
We check in with each other and our support system regularly. But more importantly, we also check in with our own selves and attend to our own needs instead of avoiding and neglecting them. We prioritize the things that matter most like our faith, time , family, and relationships.
It’s so easy to overcomplicate difficult situations by producing our idea of the way it should look in the end and manipulating the present to make that ending happen. Of course Brock and I wished to be happy together one day. However, true change required us to make decisions that brought health and safety to our present instead of comfort and familiarity. It required a break in our toxic marriage cycle. It meant turning inward and letting go of our reputation and what seemed easiest. Sometimes it felt like we were going backwards and sometimes we thought we might not make it through. But the whole time, it was changing us. It was creating compatibility and stability for a flourishing marriage because we didn’t stop making our own choices to pursue health.
We are not fearless, but we have confidence in the results of engaging in wholeness. Two wholesome individuals equals a wholesome marriage.
We are not blissfully unaware, but we sure are enjoying what we have now. It’s the beginning of a lifetime of growth.
Dr Henry Cloud says, “Building a whole self requires investing in all aspects of our being, taking ownership of our growth, and setting limits that protect our autonomy. Taking ownership of our growth involves understanding what we need to thrive and actively pursuing it.”
