It is six months since I rang my husband from my counsellor's office and said that our relationship was unhealthy and that I was leaving him. A month before that I had an epiphany when my friend and I went out for lunch. We were half way through when she excitedly said that her boyfriend would be moving in with her and her family in December and that they would be making the spare room into a baby room. The penny dropped - she was pregnant! She was eight weeks along. Instead of feeling happy for her and her partner I felt sick to my stomach. I lost all sense of appetite and sat the next hour in silence. Nodding my head and hoping that the smile didn't look as plastered on as it felt. In that moment, after five years of living with a violent man who dished out emotional abuse and manipulation day after day, I realised it was over.
In January 2014 I left him for the first time after he had an altercation with a man in the supermarket carpark. It wasn't any worse than any of the other episodes, it was just the final straw after months of seeing different counsellors, psychotherapists' and even a psychiatrist. None of this had seemed to help. This time, I had reached the end of myself. I couldn't do it anymore. I told the Police that I needed 24 hours break. I actually knew it would be longer than that but I didn't think he would have coped if I had told him that there and then. And so began the beginning of our 'trial separation.'
Initially, it seemed to be going well. But then old habits quickly kicked back in and before long I was picking up the pieces once more - zooming around the countryside after him. Helping him with assignments so that he got good grades that he never thanked me for, rationalising all of his verbal threats against my family and not speaking up when he said that violence in a movie made him feel 'excited' and not 'angry'....
So, when my friend said she was pregnant on that day in June while we sat eating McDonalds and McChicken Nuggets I just knew in the pit of my stomach that I needed to let him go. In a single moment my gut literally told me that I had gotten myself into a cycle of abuse that I needed to stop. Her pregnancy brought to light my own desire for a child. 2014 was meant to be the year that we would start to try for a baby. My sister had warned me that she felt it was best to start when he was well. I waited for that day through 2 and 1/2 years of marriage. On that day I realised that he was never going to change and that my dreams were never going to be fulfilled through him. It was an awful realisation and it happened in a heartbeat. For the first time in months I knew what I needed to. So I told him it was over.
Initially it was hell. I missed him terribly. I had done so much for him and he took up such a big space in my life and my thoughts and feelings that my life felt empty and void of meaning. I was also living by myself and I had nightmares and I couldn't sleep at night.
But through counselling and self-reflection I am getting there. It is taking time, but step by step I am stepping through the mire and heading towards the waters of healing.
Slowly God is repairing me piece by piece. He is rebuilding me into the woman I was made to be, His Woman.
He is making my feet beautiful. He is changing me from ashes into something new, something glorious. And he can do the same for you too!
No comments:
Post a Comment