Posts Tagged ‘heart’

Back To School

Posted: June 16, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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There are always two or three days before the school year starts that the teachers have to report to “get ready for the year.”  What this really involves is huge amounts of wasted time and frustration.  The teachers want to work in their classrooms, but almost all of the contract time is scheduled with meetings, presentations, etc.  The overwhelming majority of the content of these meetings are 1) things that the teachers either already know, 2) don’t pertain to the entire staff, or 3) could have been communicated via email.

To say that I don’t look forward to these days would be quite an understatement.  This past year was different, however.  Not different from any of what I just mentioned above.  That didn’t change.  What was different was the fact that my wife and I work at the same school, and, after facing the possible dissolution of our marriage as the previous school year had come to a close, we were attending these meetings together and feeling like newlyweds.  Acting like it, too, I suppose.

There were a number of people on staff who knew nothing about our troubles.  Then there were others who were aware, on various levels, of what had taken place.  It was a very emotional experience for me to share the story of our split and reconciliation several times with different groups of people, and I really wanted everyone to see a difference in me as a person, as well as the changes in us as a couple.

I also really wanted everyone to be happy for us, and to share our joy.  Many did, but there were some who didn’t respond well.  I was even called in to the principal’s office later in the school year because there had been complaints about us being affectionate toward each other while at school.  I can only assume that the people who didn’t or couldn’t feel happiness for us were jealous or unhappy in their own lives.

For my part, I was utterly thrilled to have my wife by my side and to have our future looking bright and beautiful.  I enjoyed those days that usually drive me crazy.  One teacher, who is a friend of my wife, told her privately that she could see how much better things were, because I, “look at her like a goddess now.”  Another teacher called us, “the lovebirds.”  It was a very special time, especially after my fears of never reaching this point.

It was, after all, during such days, at the beginning of an earlier school year that I had still been in the middle of my confusion about who I wanted to be with and where my life was going.  It was from my classroom, during a brief respite between meetings, that I had made a phone call effectively choosing my wife and ending my ambiguity about where my affections were to be given.  That all seems so absurd now, and redeeming those days as part of the restoration tour was a joy that I won’t soon forget.

Just yesterday, my wife was hired for brand new position at the school; one that she should excel and be very happy in.  It was great to be able to celebrate her success, and see the result of her hard work and perseverance paying off.  It also means spending more of those in service days prior to the new school year together.  It doesn’t mean I will look forward to the meetings any more than I ever have, but the blessing of sharing life with the one I love will certainly take the frustration out of them.

Making “Her” Place “Ours”

Posted: June 15, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Going back to the apartment in Republic to get “my stuff” was very bittersweet.  I could tell that my wife was growing tense even while we were driving down those old familiar streets.  I asked her if it was bothering her to be going back and she admitted that it was.

I could have gone by myself to do this, but I wanted her to be a part of it.  I wanted her input on what to keep and what to get rid of, but more importantly, I wanted her there when I walked into and out of that place for the last time.  When we had moved there, I thought our marriage was going to get better.  After spending all those painful nights and days in that place, I didn’t want my last time going back to be without her.

In truth, most of “our” stuff was already at the loft.  We had picked the place out together with the hope that we would be able to work things out.  With an eye to that end, we had agreed to bring those things that we would both want to have there at the time my wife moved in.  The things that were at the old apartment were mostly my clothes and some basic survival stuff for the kitchen and bathroom.

It wasn’t the things that were important.  It was the idea of making the change permanent, and restoring some of the damage that the separation had done.  It was the idea that we were now together, and always would be, so this wasn’t something that I had to do alone.  It was a necessary step on the restoration tour, and we made it short, although it certainly wasn’t sweet.

A big part of me really didn’t want to live in the loft, because I associated it with us being split up, and her pursuing her own life without me.  I had always dreamed of having a loft, but in my dreams, it was never like this.  On the other hand, it was the place where my wife had grown and changed and was still becoming the person I was now more in love with than ever before. She had done a masterful job of organizing and decorating the place, and her personality and good taste were all over it.

One of the things I had vowed to myself when we got back together was that I would be there to give to her and not take from her.  Another was that I wouldn’t try to control or manipulate her.  Even without me saying much about it, she understood the need to make some changes.  She knew that my mental and emotional health would be improved if some things about the place could be made different.

It was great to rearrange the furniture, change some things about the decor and the atmosphere, and feel the support from my wife as we began to slowly make the loft “ours.”  I wasn’t going to demand that any changes be made, and she was more than willing to try to make me feel more comfortable about living there.  I’m a visual person, so being able to walk in and see something different from what I used to see while we were split up was important.

That’s really what’s at the heart of the entire restoration tour.  Changing negative associations into positive ones.  We can’t go back and undo what’s been done.  We can’t take magic wands and pull certain memories out of our heads.  Some part of us will always know things we wish we didn’t, and will always remember things that we wish had never happened.

Restoration isn’t about denial.  It’s about repairing, strengthening, and replacing.  You don’t try to hide what’s wrong with an old house that needs work, so that you can pretend the years haven’t taken a toll.  You identify everything that isn’t as it should be and you make it right.  So it is with our marriage.  We don’t try to pretend the damage never occurred, but we don’t accept that we have to live with it either.  Much like the prayer of the addict, we are hard at work on accepting the things we cannot change, and changing the things we can.

The Joy of Rediscovering

Posted: June 14, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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It’s amazing how you can know someone for so long, yet not know them nearly as well as you should for the time you’ve spent together.  As my wife and I began to take our first steps together on the restoration road, we got to experience what very few couples ever find.  We got to fall in love all over again.  We got to discover once more, what it was about this person, compared to all the billions on the earth, that made being together so right.

Every day was literally like living a dream.  I walked around with a dumb grin on my face and made statements like, “I am the luckiest and most blessed man on the planet,” for several weeks, at least.  It was even better than I had pictured things being while we were apart, and what I had pictured had been awfully good.  I’m sure some people got tired of it, but people were mostly happy for us, especially those who really knew what had been going on.

There was also a part of me that kept being afraid that it really was a dream and that waking up was inevitable.  I am well aware of the old saying that, “If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.”  I wanted it to be true, and I didn’t have any reason to believe that any of it was fake, but I was still nervous that somehow, it was all going to blow up in my face.  Even some of my friends, although they were happy that we were back together, kind of kept their distance and watched, as though they didn’t believe it was real, or they thought that at some point, some other shoe was going to drop.

As was so often the case, God used a song to speak to me.  I like to listen to Pandora while I’m working out, and I have several stations. Which one I choose on any given day depends on my mood.  I don’t always pay attention to the songs, but on one particular day, I found myself hearing lyrics that sounded like they were describing me.  The song was “So Far Away,” by Staind, and it says,

This is my life, it’s not what it was before
All these feelings I’ve shared
And these are my dreams
That I’d never lived before
Somebody shake me
‘Cause I, I must be sleeping

Now that we’re here, it’s so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
And all the mistakes one life contained
They all finally start to go away

These are my words
That I’ve never said before
I think I’m doing’ okay
And this is the smile
I’ve never shown before

Somebody shake me
‘Cause I, I must be sleeping
I’m so afraid of waking
Please don’t shake me

Now that we’re here, it’s so far away
All the struggle we thought was in vain
And all the mistakes one life contained
They all finally start to go away

And now that we’re here, it’s so far away
And I feel like I can face the day
And I can’t forget that I’m not ashamed
To be the person that I am today

So Far Away

The song inspired me to begin to let go of all the fears and the bad memories.  Instead of being afraid of waking and finding that it was only a dream, I could acknowledge all the changes and celebrate how different things were now.  Hope is always stronger than fear, just like joy is so much more powerful than sorrow.

I realized that we had a whole new world open to us, and we could make a brand new life of our own choosing.  We didn’t have to be bound to our past mistakes, and we weren’t doomed to repeat them.  We could move forward as a brand new couple.  We were familiar with each other, but we were now going to get to know each other on a much deeper level than ever before.

Finding A Church To Belong To

Posted: June 13, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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A few weeks before my wife and I got back together, I was at the gym one day working out.  I was thinking, “I’d really like to go to a church this week where I could just worship and not have to worry about what everyone’s thinking.”  Later that day, a friend of mine called me and asked, “Would you like to go to North Point with me this Sunday?”

North Point is a large, non-denominational church that plays rock and roll music and is very non-traditional.  I told him that yes, I would like to, as a matter of fact.  It was just another answered prayer on a minor level, but would turn out to be a major blessing as time went on.

We met in the parking lot on Sunday and went inside.  In the auditorium, it was much more like a concert than a church.  During the music, there were strobe and stage lights, fog, special effects, and five large video screens, making it difficult to focus on anything.  Add in the fact that I didn’t know any of the songs, and I mostly just stood there looking around.

I don’t remember much about the message because I was on sensory overload.  My friend asked me what I thought and I told him honestly that I didn’t know. I figured I’d have to go at least a second time, when I would know what to expect, to really decide whether I liked it.  I knew I was done going to my old church, and I would have to do something.  I just didn’t know if this church was it.

The next Sunday, I went back by myself.  It was a completely different experience.  Instead of looking around with curiosity, I found myself being drawn in.  By the third song, I began to break inside.  Tears streamed down my face, and I felt like God was right there with me, meeting me right where I was.  The rest of the service was just a time for Him and I to spend some quality time together.

I still wasn’t sure this would ever be my home church, but I was encouraged that it was a place where I could heal and be ministered to.  I was also impressed that people dressed and looked any way they wanted to, and some of the people in the worship band, as well as the pastor, sported tattoos.  I knew that if things ever worked out with my wife, she would be very uncomfortable going to a church that judged people by the way they look.

Once we had moved back in together and gotten things cleared up in our relationship, the next most obvious thing that needed to be fixed and restored was our spiritual life.  Amazingly, my wife, who was still angry with both God and His church, asked me if I wanted to go to North Point with her.  I told her that I had been a couple of times and that I wasn’t sure how she would like it, but one thing that was for sure is that they wouldn’t look down on her for having a tattoo or piercing.

I hoped that things would go really well, but they were a disaster.  They weren’t having regular church that Sunday.  It was more like a business meeting where they announced that they had bought a property and were opening a second location.  They told the history of the church, the state of their finances, and other such topics in a panel discussion format.  My wife was still angry when we left, calling it, “a waste of time.”

The next week, she unexpectedly announced that she was willing to go again.  We did, and this time, her experience was like mine had been the second time I attended.  She broke during the singing, and we both cried all through the message, which was about the prodigal coming home.  It was a beautiful experience, as if God had set it up just for her.  She gave her heart back to Him that day, and we’ve rarely missed a week since.

I still cry in church almost every week, and God continues to heal, minister, and bless.  We now belong to two small groups and lead a third in our home.  We volunteer, serve, and continue to grow as a couple and as individuals.  I am overwhelmed with gratitude and joy again and again as I stand in the congregation with my wife at my side.

Restoring The Medical Mile

Posted: June 12, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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My wife now has two silver medals from the Cox Health Medical Mile hanging on our “wall of fame.”  This is where we display all of our race bib numbers and medals from the various events we participate in.

Our "Wall of Fame"

Last year, after she ran the half-marathon that inspired me to get back in shape, I set my sights on running a 5K as a goal for myself.  The Medical Mile is an annual event in Springfield that benefits the Children’s Miracle Network.  Recently, they added a 5K run/walk, and I chose that event to be my first.  I used the C25K program and some trail running with my wife and our son to train, and I hoped to be able to run it in under 30 minutes.

At the event, they hold the mile run first, then the 5K follows after about a 30 minute break.  Some runners participate in both, and my wife was to be one of them.  I waited by the finish line to cheer her on in the mile, and she ran a faster time than she had in any of her training runs.  Unfortunately, she used up so much of her energy that she struggled through the 5K, battling the heat and developing a headache partway through.

I had no idea how to pace myself during the 5K, so I just tried to let my body tell me how to fast to go.  It was a hot, humid day, but I felt strong as I approached the finish line.  My lack of experience kicked in there and I didn’t even look at the clock to gauge my time.  I ended up missing my goal by one second, posting a 30:01.  I was a little disappointed, but I was glad to have completed my first race.

Afterward, we hung around for the award ceremony, mostly to see if we would win any of the random door prizes that are usually given away at these events.  Both of our mouths fell open in disbelief when the announcer called out my wife’s name during the medal presentations.  She had been training for 5K’s;  the mile was something of an afterthought, so we hadn’t even considered where she had finished.  It turned out, she placed second in her age group and eighth overall!

Our separation made it a bittersweet day.  It was great to be sharing this part of lives, but I would have given everything I had to have our marriage back.  I was proud of myself for running the 5K, and proud of my wife for her accomplishments, but there was a hole in my heart where she should have been.  I took a lot of pictures, bragged about her medal to everyone I could, and tried to make the moment last as long as possible.  In the end, though, we were going to go our separate ways.

For this year’s race, which was held last weekend, she moved up into the 40-49 age group, so we figured that gave her an even better chance, but you never know with these things.  She had also been spending more time enjoying our new life together and a lot less time training, so she didn’t even commit to running the mile until a week or two beforehand.  Her training runs weren’t very good, but I figured she’d pull out a better time when it was the real thing.

She didn’t run nearly as well this year as last year, but we tried not to be disappointed.  We were glad to be part of supporting a good cause and glad to be together.  That was the biggest difference.  Last year, there was all the stress of our marriage problems and the uncertainty of our future clouding everything we did.  We were working hard and training well, and we were both getting into really good physical condition. Mentally and emotionally, everything was marred by the fact that we weren’t together and things weren’t working out for us.

This year, we thought it must be a mistake when the same announcer again called my wife’s name as the second place winner in her division.  We didn’t think she had placed and had almost left before they even presented the awards.  This year’s Medical Mile and 5K would have been a successful stop on the restoration tour even without a medal to show for it.  Getting to bring one home and add it to the wall just made it that much more of a special memory.

Better Communication: Better Intimacy

Posted: June 11, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Intimacy implies so much more than sex, but that’s what most people think of when that word is used.  It’s the part of a relationship that should be reserved for marriage, but without emotional intimacy, a sexual relationship, even between spouses, can be hollow and dysfunctional.  Sexuality should be a loving product of the relationship, not the point, or the driving force to it.

Mort Fertel, who I’ve previously referenced in this blog, says the two most important keys to a good sex life are physical condition and emotional intimacy.  The physical part is a pretty easy fix.  If you’re not in shape, get to work, and you’ll get there.  Anyone who commits to physical fitness can achieve the results.

The emotional part can be more elusive.  One thing became painfully clear to me during our separation and it now seems so obvious, I don’t know how I missed it.  Two unhealthy people can’t have a healthy marriage.  It doesn’t even make sense.  If the people in the marriage are struggling with personal issues, those problems will be part of the relationship.

If these are significant issues, then each person will have to get well as an individual. This may mean therapy, as I needed, or being healed by God’s love and grace, which my wife experienced.  Whatever problems you have apart from the marriage, you will still have within the marriage.  Finding someone to love does not make these go away. It may temporarily take your mind off them, but they will still be there, and they will affect you.

For the small stuff, and, to dismiss another popular cliché, it’s not all small stuff, the secret is incredibly simple.  It’s communication.  You have to tell your partner what you think and feel.  He or she can’t read your mind, and it’s selfish and immature to assume that your spouse “should know.”

I used to keep everything inside, and resent my wife, who not only hadn’t done anything wrong, she didn’t even know there was anything wrong.  Then, at some point, I would blow up.  Whatever was going on at the time would usually have little or nothing to do with what I was upset about.  It just reached a certain point and I unloaded.  Nothing was accomplished except that my wife would get hurt, and I would feel bad.

During those first few days that my wife and I were back together,  and before we had talked everything out, the stress of the uncertainty about our relationship was affecting me in the bedroom.  I’ve never had issues there before, and it really caused me some anxiety, which only made it worse.  I decided to talk to my therapist about it.

He told me it was very common under the circumstances, and that it almost certainly wasn’t a physical problem, but an emotional one.  He said that we should take things slow and talk everything out, and that the problem would most likely go away on its own.  At my next appointment, I told him, “I took your advice about talking everything out, but didn’t follow the advice about taking things slow, and as far as that problem going away, oh yeah…it did!”

It was the open, honest communication that created the emotional intimacy.  That led to a new level of physical intimacy that wouldn’t have been possible without it.  We began applying that same communication to every area of our lives. If I had a question about something, I asked.  If something bothered me, I said so, instead of telling myself it wasn’t important, and my wife started doing the same.  We were careful to say it in loving, non-accusational ways, and it created a mutual trust and understanding that kept the air clear and brought us closer than we’d ever been.

As an example, my wife likes to play video games and I don’t.  For her, they are a way to “disconnect” for a time, especially when work has been stressful.  I used to see it as her disconnecting from me and I would resent the time she spent playing.  We had never talked about it.  Now, I willingly give her time to play because I know it blesses her, and she willingly limits her game time to make sure to give me the time and attention I need.  Additionally, we discovered that I do like to play kinect and we bought one so we can play together.

Just last night, my wife was talking about something and she stopped herself and said, “That’s the old way of thinking.”  I asked her what she meant and she said, “Hoping you’ll figure out that I don’t want to go instead of just saying so.”  It really is a new way of thinking, and it leads to a new way of acting.  We communicate openly about everything, and we’ve never been closer.

The Tour Begins

Posted: June 10, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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Waking up that first Saturday together was a miracle on so many fronts.  I have had more than one person tell me, both before and since, that they have never known a couple who has gone to the place we did and come out of it together.  There were times that my best friends made their doubts evident in things they said.  They stood by me and prayed for our marriage, but also said things like to be prepared, “just in case this thing goes badly.”

While the outward miracle of my wife and I moving back in together and re-committing to our marriage was in every sense spectacular, the things taking place on the inside of each of us were even more amazing.  I was literally living the final phrase of the famous “footprints” poem.  I was being carried by my Savior and I knew we were going to be all right.  There was going to be some work left to do, and more that we would need to heal from, but I knew that if He was carrying me, He would carry both of us. 

The most wonderful miracle for me, though, was what I saw in my wife’s eyes that next morning.  There was a transparent honesty, a release from some long-standing fears, and a vulnerability and openness that I hadn’t been sure that I would ever see.  It erased all my doubts about our reconciliation working out.  Her eyes have captivated me since the first time we met, but looking into them that morning, there was a depth and a newness that was more beautiful than I could have even imagined.

It was then that our “new” relationship truly began.  It reminds me of the very final stages in the restoration of a house.  The inside is never completely finished until after the outside is done.  There are always those details on the inside that put the finishing touches on the place and make it completely ready to be lived in. 

For the neighbors, and for people driving by, the outside being finished is the signal that it’s ready.  They see it looking done on the outside, and they want to see the inside, or they wonder why no one has moved in yet.  The people doing the restoration know that it isn’t finished, and they know what still needs to be done to make it just the way they want it. 

Some people live in the house during the restoration process.  Others move into temporary housing and then come back when it’s done and ready.  We always stayed in the houses while we worked on them, no matter how big the job was.  It was difficult and beyond inconvenient (think bathrooms and plumbing here) at times.  Often it was very tedious and seemed like little or no real progress was being made.  Other times, though, a lot came together at once and you could see the transformation happen. 

Once such moment is a favorite story of ours, when a friend, who generally didn’t knock, opened the front door and suddenly backed away.  She looked around in confusion, as though she’d gone to the wrong house and didn’t know where she was.  What had happened was she had stepped right into one of those moments where a lot had changed seemingly overnight.  It really didn’t happen that quickly, there was just a lot of work that had gone on unseen before the visible part appeared.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians contains the line, “I’m convinced that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it through to completion.”  The work in our marriage wasn’t finished, but the outcome was no longer in doubt.  My wife and I were both being transformed on the inside, and those changes were going to make our future so much different from our past. 

The plan for the restoration tour began to form in my mind almost immediately.  Nothing could be done about missing the bike ride, but I knew that it was an annual event and, much like I had set the Tiger Triathlon in my mind as the time that we would get back together, so I began to envision a year of restoration leading up to the next Tour De Cox.  We had a year to heal, to grow, and to repair our past mistakes.  Where I had been working on restoring our marriage alone, we would now spend a year of restoring together, ending with our renewal ceremony after the 2011 Tour De Cox.

Moving In… and Moving Forward

Posted: June 9, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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I have to confess.  When I left Macy’s the following Monday, my thoughts were running wild with the reception I would receive on my first night “home.”  I imagined my wife waiting for me, breathless with anticipation.  I pictured her taking hold of my tie, pulling me close, and leading me upstairs.  Even though we had been together for more than 15 years,  I was as nervous as a new boyfriend. 

When I got to the loft, absolutely nothing happened.  No joyful reunion.  No passionate encounter.  Nothing that suggested that this was anything other than the most ordinary night in the most ordinary of marriages.  I was confused and let down.  It was all very surreal after Saturday morning.  I had no idea what to think, but it was infinitely better than being separated, so I decided to take it as it came and let it develop.

As the week went on, things became increasingly awkward between us.  There wasn’t nearly enough communication, and we were tiptoeing around each other, unsure what to say or do, or what our roles were to be.  We took some bike rides together and went to the gym, and we were getting along well, but there was an uncomfortable feeling to it all.  It was as if we just stepped from one life into another with no transition or adjustment period.

For me, there was the obvious adjustment of moving “my stuff” into “her place” and trying to not completely disrupt everything that she had worked so hard to accomplish.  I wasn’t sure what the boundaries were.  She would casually say, “It’s our place now,” as if it was all completely natural and expected, and for her, it may have been.  I wanted to make sure that my moving in would be a blessing to her and not a major disruption. 

For her, the issues were less clear, but I could tell she was dealing with some fallout from the separation.  I didn’t want to push her to talk about things she didn’t want to, and I kept trying to reassure her that we were going forward into our future, not back into the past.  We both had some fears and doubts after what we had been through, but I had no intention of letting anything stand in our way now that we were living together and committed to one another again.

The Tour De Cox, a 62 mile annual bike ride, was scheduled for the upcoming Saturday and we were planning to participate.  It was to be the first organized cycling event that we would ride in as a couple.  By Friday, the tension was nearly unbearable for me.  I had moved in and there were way too many elephants in the room to ignore for much longer.  At some point, we needed to talk.

I prayed a lot throughout the day that Friday, asking God what was going on and what to do.  I wasn’t getting any answer, so I figured I must already know. I was listening to Flyleaf’s second CD and the song that was playing contained the line, “We’ll cry tonight, but in the morning we are new,” and I took it as a sign.  When I got home, my wife was sick to her stomach.  I almost changed my mind and decided to let it go, but I had resolved that we needed to get this taken care of, so I told her we needed to talk. 

I told her that I needed to know why she had called me and asked me to move back in.  I needed to know what had happened and why she had left me and now had come back to me.  I needed to know what was going on in her head and her heart and her life.  We simply had never talked it through and we needed to.  I felt really bad because she was feeling so sick and I suspected that this would keep us up for too much of the night to be able to make the bike ride in the morning, but once I asked the questions, there was no backing out.

We talked everything out, and we did cry together, just like the song said, over the pain we had caused each other and the choices we wished we could take back.  After a time, my wife was able to fall asleep.  I held her for a while, then went downstairs and sat by the window.  I spent some time praying and meditating and looking ahead to the future that I could foresee.  I finally came to bed for good around 3AM, knowing that the bike ride was out, but that we had needed to do this.

In the morning (also just like the song said), it was if we had somehow hit a “reset” button during the night.  The air was clear and everything looked new and beautiful, like it was the first day of a brand new marriage.  It was then that the restoration tour truly began.

After the Phone Call… Now What?

Posted: June 8, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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The day of “the phone call” was July 31st, so school was out, and it was a Saturday, but I did have to work at Macy’s later that day.  I didn’t expect to see my wife, but she showed up with our oldest daughter soon after my shift began.  Her face was flushed with excitement, and she had been sharing the good news with our daughter, who had stood strong for us throughout the entire ordeal.

There are two moments in my life that I will never forget.  They are forever etched in my memory like living photographs.  One is our wedding, when I first saw my wife at the back of the church.  At the risk of sounding cynical, I’ve never bought into people saying someone was the most beautiful bride ever, but that moment is permanently frozen in my mind, and I’ve never seen anyone or anything so beautiful. 

The second moment was that afternoon at Macy’s, when my wife got me away to where it was just the two of us, looked me in the eye, and told me that she loved me.  She repeated it, as if to make sure that I understood what she was trying to say, and she looked at me with eyes that melted me completely.  If you’ve ever seen the movie, Notting Hill, you know the scene near the end when Julia Roberts says she’s “just a girl, standing in front of just a boy, asking him to love her.”  In my wife’s eyes was both a statement and a question as she repeated an almost pleading, “I love you.”  The statement was clear. “I didn’t mean what I said before.  I do love you.”  The question was equally obvious.  “Will you love me back?  Will you please love me back?”

She told me that she had been wrong and had made some mistakes.  She said that she had done some things she wasn’t proud of.  I told her that it didn’t matter and that if I had been the man that she needed me to be, and the man that she believed she had married, she would never have been put in a position for any of this to happen.  I told her that I took full responsibility for the entire mess and that I would never again allow her to ever be in that type of situation.

She said she needed a little bit of time to clear her head and get things ready, and she asked if it would be all right if we waited until Monday evening, when I got off work, for me to move in.  I told her that was fine and to do whatever she needed to do.  We kissed right there in the store and I didn’t care if I got in trouble (I didn’t).  I don’t really remember much of anything about the rest of that day or the next two days.  Monday evening just couldn’t come fast enough. 

On Monday, August 2, 2010, my Facebook status was the famous quote from Al Michaels, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”  This was no hockey game, though.  This was a marriage pulled from the wreckage and rubble, being rebuilt, restored, and made new again.  This was the result of countless tears, unmeasured anguish, hours and days of prayer and faith, and work.  Work like there was no alternative but to do this, no matter how long, how hard, or how insurmountable it may have seemed at any given moment.

If you are reading this, and either you are struggling in your marriage, or you know someone who is, let me be very clear.  It is never too late.  It is never beyond hope.  If the two of you loved each other enough at one time to marry, that love can be rebuilt.  That’s what it takes.  Building love by your actions and not getting stuck in the past or the what-if’s.   Just like you’ll never get fit unless you start working out, the feelings of love won’t come back until you start building the love back up in your relationship.

The Phone Call

Posted: June 7, 2011 in Love and Marriage
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July 31, 2010 is a day that will be forever known to us as, “the phone call.”  It was also the day of the mock tri; a practice run with my training group for the upcoming triathlon in Republic.  Let me back up…

In March of 2010, my wife ran a half marathon (13.1 miles), her first ever.  There’s been a lot of debate about whether my derailment and/or hers was the result of the dreaded “mid-life crisis.”  She insisted that a year or two prior, I had been going through such a state and that explained some of my behavior.  She was now approaching 39 and her stated objective was to prove that she wasn’t getting old. 

Whatever the side stories may have been, I came to support her and was blown away and inspired by what I saw that day.  Remember, I was a former fitness instructor; that was how we had gotten to know each other while we were in college.  Call it laziness or life getting in the way, but I hadn’t done anything to keep fit for a long time.  There had been some half-hearted attempts from time to time, but I had just gone through the motions.

That day, at the half marathon, I saw people of every category.  Children, elderly, men, women, fat, thin, you name it, they were there.  And they were all doing it.  That was what struck me.  All these people were out there on a cold, miserable day to run/walk 13.1 miles and I was doing absolutely nothing.  When I saw my wife cross the finish line, I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of another person in my entire life. 

I vowed that day that I was going to change and get back in shape.  I never, in the farthest reaches of my imagination, could have fathomed that it would only be a little over 2 weeks before my marriage as I knew it would essentially be over (or at least suspended).  That was part of the irony of it all.  The very time that I was getting ready to get at least parts of my life back on track, she was turning me out of her heart.

I started a running program called “couch to 5K” or C25K for short.  It’s designed to get a person who has been doing nothing to be able to run a 5K race in about 2 months time. My wife had done it years before, and now it was available as an app on my phone.  I followed the program to the letter and got back to the gym in earnest.  When my wife unexpectedly went cold at the end of March, I desperately held on to the one part of relationship that was still intact; us running together and being workout partners.

Our fitness center was offering a class to train people who had never done a triathlon before.  It was to run from late spring until the “Tiger Tri,” the annual triathlon held in the town where we were living at the time.  My wife only went once, then dropped out as we separated.  Somehow, I fixed it in my mind that I was going to complete that triathlon, and that in so doing, I was going to get my wife back.  I had no reason to believe that one would lead to the other, but I did believe with all my heart that when I crossed that finish line, it would be the culminating event in bringing us back together. 

Two Saturdays before the actual triathlon, our coach had us do a mock tri.  We would swim, bike, and run the entire actual course so that we would know that we could do it, and be prepared for the rigor of the event.  Throughout the mock tri, and especially during the run, I prayed and spoke my wife’s name to keep me going.  I was determined that I was going to finish, and that I was going to run every step. 

When I got done, I felt a sense of accomplishment, but was still focused on the real event that was two weeks away.  I had literally only been home about 15 minutes when my phone rang and it was my wife.  She said, “I’m calling to ask you if you’re ready to give your landlord your notice and come live with me.”  I don’t know how or why the timing went that way, I only know that after I hung up I laid on my bed and cried for about 30 minutes straight.  Joe called about then and asked how I was doing.  I told him, “I’m crying this morning, but it’s tears of joy today.”

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