A Husband's Suffering
Up until a few days ago, I thought that I knew everything there was to know about love, particularly, about my love life. As it turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. I think that we as human beings have plenty of notions about how other people should live their lives but we seem to have blinders on when it comes to living our own lives. My life has been in shambles for years and I didn't even have a clue. Here I was just living and then my husband wanted to have a candid conversation with me. Needless to say, I came out on the other side of this conversation with a new insight on myself.
Freddrick and I have known each other since December 2014. We dated for a few months and decided to get married. Everything seemed to be going just as planned but there was something that I didn't notice about my own behavior. I was carrying baggage from my last relationship and it had been this way from the start of our relationship. Thinking that somehow all of this would change, my now husband, decided to just let it go for then but as he so boldly stated last night, "You've been punishing me for what that guy did to you." I was shocked. I'm thinking that this guy has gone nuts.
He broke down everything. You know how it is when you start a new relationship or even start dating someone new, questions like "Why are you single?" or "What happened with your ex?" come up. Well, Freddrick and I talked a lot about our past relationships. When I say a lot, I really mean it. We talked for hours on end. It seemed to bring us closer to getting hurt feelings and experiences off our cheats. It was invigorating, to say the least.
My Ex
I'll call him Mathew for the article's sake. This man was the center of my universe. We had been planning a life together for years. But things just always got in the way. When we first got together, I honestly didn't like him that much. I looked at him and decided that if he wasn't someone that I couldn't imagine kissing, then I couldn't be with him. But as time went on, he grew on me and I fell in love with him. This was one relationship that I put my all into. I was a tech specialist and making a lot of money. He didn't have a permanent job. Basically, he had been a long time employee of a temp agency. He worked every day but he hadn't been hired on by any company permanently. He was making an okay living. Basically, I was making more money and I wasn't the type to clinch on to every dime. When we started dating, he insisted on paying for everything. That was fine with me for a while but I started to feel guilty. I knew that he was sort of living paycheck to paycheck, so I offered to start helping out with our expenses. This was something that would come back to haunt me. As we got closer, we started spending more time together and planning long lazy weekends. I have to admit, life was good. But something was brewing under the surface.
He had a child from a previous marriage and he was obsessed with her.I don't think obsessed is a strong enough word but I'll stick with it. It's a blessing to have children for anyone. But there is such a thing as crossing the line between loving your child in a parental way to a romantic way. I won't go any further into that. I'll leave that for another installment but I witnessed things that I shouldn't have. Even years later, I know that I could have done something but I didn't.
We decided that we would take turns paying for things during our weekends. I would pay for food then he would pay for our room or vice versa. This went well for a few months but I started to notice a pattern. If it was my turn to pay for the room, he would want to stay at the most expensive places and he would insist on staying for a three-night weekend. But when it was his turn to pay for the room, he would always pick out cheap places and we'd sometimes only stay one night. The same would happen would it came to him paying for food. Everything was becoming very one-sided. When holidays came up, he would pick fights with me and we would end up apart. When birthdays would come around I would always get him nice gifts but he would act strangely and want to take a little time apart. Conveniently, he'd want to get back together a week or two after my birthday and Valentine's day, which only happen to be three days apart. So much happened with this man until I just couldn't take it anymore. We'd break up and get back together and the whole cycle would start over. I gave my heart and soul to this man, but I would never have a special place in his heart. All the planning that we'd done was just wishful thinking and a waste of time. Never did I think that the relationship would change me into a person that I would no longer recognize when I looked in the mirror.
Self-Reflection
I became selfish and suspicious of others. I was no longer giving and free-hearted. I always had the fear that I would be used and abused by someone else. After finally leaving Mathew, I tried to date again but I just couldn't. Everyone reminded me of him in different ways. Someone would talk like him, walk like him, act like him or even look like him and I would exit at stage left. I just wasn't having it. I wasn't wealing to yield to anything or anyone until I met Freddrick, No matter what I threw his way, he never gave up on me. He loved me no matter what. But now, I had become the Mathew in our relationship. I was treating Freddrick the way that Mathew had treated me and I didn't realize it. I think it had become something normal to me. But I was wrong on so many levels.
Today and here on after, I'll try to remember who I was before that evil person came into my life. I try to be a better person and a better wife. My eyes are open and I realize the error of my ways. Sometimes, we hurt the ones we love most without even knowing it. I don't want to live like that anymore. I encourage you to look at your own behavior. Are you having problems in your relationship? Is the problem you or your mate? Baggage from the past has a way of taking up residence in the present. Take a look in the mirror. Have a candid conversation with your loved one. Don't let a good relationship go down the drain because of something that burned you in your past. Ask yourself this: Have the wounds healed or are they still featuring and infected?
Comments