This will round out my three-part post telling My Story. Just like I felt I needed to tell you how we got through those initial days, I want you to know where we are now. (This is long and I can’t apologize. I think in some ways, this third part is the most important of all. It’s my redemption).
It’s important to remember that “That Day” was the worst day, the culmination of years of issues. But nothing prior had rivaled his behavior on that day. Although he’d given me reason to fear him, I couldn’t have imagined that. He wrestled with his own issues that I believe he never sufficiently dealt with and begged him to get help with that, but he wouldn’t.
Note that beginning early into the marriage, the verbal abuse began: nit-picking everything I did, lying to me, infidelity earlier on and then later on again. He wasn’t a partner. He left nearly every household and family responsibility to me, but then would criticize every one of them…
From how I cut tomatoes to how I dressed, to the once-per-week breakfasts I had with friends, to my work (though I worked more than 40 hours per week, he never considered my job “real” because I worked from home), nothing I did measured up to him. Except my parenting. That’s the one sacred area he wouldn’t touch. He even said I was a great mom.
There was gas-lighting: where a person says or does something and then tells you it never happened. They want you to question your own sanity. It’s a form of manipulation. There was yelling and blaming and his raised fist (though he never used that). There was the total control. We couldn’t have anything but white walls in our house because that’s what he wanted. I wasn’t allowed to paint because I wouldn’t do it right. Overnight once, I painted my son’s room, determined that my little boy would have a room that was fun and happy. He said it looked terrible and I should have let him do it because then it’d be right. But it was beautiful and my son loved it.
These are just some lighter things that occurred throughout and I’ll never share them all. It was my marriage and there are details I just shouldn’t share and won’t out of respect for that union and for my children. My point isn’t to besmirch his memory, but if my ministry is to encourage and educate, then I need to indeed show you a glimpse of what it’s like to live with someone who abuses.
I don’t think he liked himself. I don’t think he was proud of his behavior. I think he just refused to face his faults and attempt to fix them. He lived a stellar public life. He was a great friend, employee, student. He was funny and jovial, excellent health care worker. He was respected at church. He was well-liked. But when the door to the outside world closed, he was a much darker person. And we’ll never know why. I believe that was between him and God. And I do believe he is with God. I know he loved him and never stopped. I know he was human and failed to live like he should. I’m sure he had some serious explaining to do when he met his Maker. But I know God knows the heart and he’s merciful.
***
But guess what? There’s an after story, the moving on. We were the Three Musketeers, I’d call us. We had some painful, ugly times struggling through our grief. My babies were angry and rightly so. The father they loved…gone. The home they loved with giant closets (my daughter had three in her room! What girl wouldn’t grieve that loss too?) and a playroom and a beautiful yard…gone. Everything was upside down and I had to find a way to turn it rightside up.
I’d love to tell you that I moved along just swimmingly, guiding them perfectly and making every right decision. But I can’t. There is no handbook that comes with being a widow to suicide on the same day you’re brutally attacked and your children know it and feel the grief too.
There’s no right path or timeline to follow that tells you to do this thing and that and exactly when. There were epic meltdowns and tears. There were sweet, honest conversations and hugs, always hugs.
I lived in denial for awhile. After spending some wonderfully nurturing weeks with my brother and his family, we found a little house to rent. It wasn’t palatial but it was perfect for us because we could walk to town, school, and my brother’s home, and we were surrounded by the kindest neighbors. It was a house-turned-home because we were together. But those first few months, I lived on autopilot, looking back. I had so many tasks: a will, a house to separate from, paperwork, find new health insurance, etc. Someone died and we had to move and it was huge and overwhelming and well, work. And we had help…beautiful, generous help with packing and storing and setting up again in our new place.
I immediately found us good therapists and we went on a weekly basis, sometimes together but usually individually. It helped. Tiny bit by tiny bit, I could see their wounds heal ever so slowly. They laughed and went out with friends. We went to movies and the fun Friday nights in our little town. They started sports and school again.
Then I hit a wall.
I don’t know if they ever knew it. I’m sure they saw me cry and I never tried to hide that from them. I was sad, bereft. I mourned the loss of a marriage and things that shouldn’t happen and things that should but never did. I didn’t know how to not be a wife, something I was for most of my adult life up until that point. They needed to know that I was grieving too. But I also had to keep it together for them because if I fell apart, they would. And I would never let that happen. If they could see me grieve but keep moving, they would too. And I thank God every day that they did.
You move forward on pure strength from God, I believe. I really do. It wasn’t my power. When I hit that wall, it was like the feelings I should have been feeling and grief I should have been experiencing from the previous few months (maybe years, really), slugged me in the gut all at once. And it was brutal.
A friend who’d been through a deep loss herself told me: “You’re never so alive than when you’re in pain.” It was the oddest statement but I understand. When you’re in pain like that, you’re vulnerable. You’re bleeding. But you’re also learning and you’re healing, becoming stronger. Even when it feels opposite.
I call that time the “Dark Days.” I never, ever for one second contemplated anything drastic. It was a horribly painful time that felt like it would never end. That friend also told me “grief is exhausting” and it was. I barely had the energy to work, even sparingly. Everything I had was channeled into getting my kids where they needed to go and back home again.
I cried. A lot. And I didn’t care who saw it. It had been bottled up and when it comes out, it comes out, whether you’re at a donkey basketball game or the middle of church (and it did come out both places). I pretty much walked around in a chronic state of crying for weeks and weeks. We went to a Haunted Forest for Halloween. I bawled through the entirety of it, not because I was scared, but because I was terribly, deeply sad. On many Friday mornings, I’d meet my sister-in-law halfway between our homes which were over an hour apart. We’d talk and I’d cry, all the way there, back, and while we met. But it was necessary.
I knew there’d be a time when it would end. I couldn’t see it, but I knew it existed. I read and wrote a lot through that time. My friend Mary gave me some books and I devoured them, usually late at night when my children slept. It was a bitterly difficult time but a sweet one. I knew that God was at work. He was taking those broken, shattered pieces of our lives and he was fashioning them into something more beautiful than we could imagine, stronger than ever before.
And then I came out of the dark.
I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “Oh, the grief is all done! Phew! Glad that’s over.” It was a slow emergence into the light, but it came and it felt good to be in the sun again.
My daughter wanted me to get on Christian Mingle. Just look around, she said. I didn’t want to. Date? Me? Already? I haven’t dated since the early 90s, last century. But if my child is giving me the green light to date, maybe there was something to this.
I did set up a profile and looked around a little. She’d look around with me. But in my soul I knew I had to get in my own face before I could date again. I was terrified, not just of the dating process, but of falling into a relationship like the one I previously had.
I made a list. One of those lists of traits a mate must have in order to be allowed into my life. I promised myself I wouldn’t deviate from the list. I wouldn’t make concessions, not one. The list wasn’t long, maybe a dozen items, but each one was vital. “He has to love God and live like it” was number one. He had to love my children as his own. He had to be gainfully employed. He had to be funny.
I was open to a new relationship because I’d been a good wife. I enjoyed being a wife and I knew that was a role I was meant to be in. Although my first marriage was far from perfect, I had learned from it: about it and about myself. I knew that I could move on and be a better wife to a husband who was meant for me. I had seen beautiful marriages, healthy ones. I knew they existed and I wasn’t afraid.
Then I spotted someone, DavidP67. His profile was simple but there was something about his photo that grabbed me. I can’t describe it because it was just a feeling. I still say “there was just something about it.” I reached out and let it go. Old Melanie would have been insecure and felt like something was wrong with her if he didn’t respond. New Melanie was at complete peace and okay whether he responded or not. New Melanie knew that if he didn’t respond, he simply wasn’t the right guy and New Melanie could move right along.
Sidebar: Do not ever settle. Make your list. Being single does not mean”alone.” It simply means you’re not yet mated. And that’s an okay place to be because it’s better to be single than to be poorly matched. Wait for who is right and perfect for you. If you want that wonderful mate, you have to first be that wonderful mate because that guy is looking for someone who stands up to his list too.
New Melanie was in no hurry. She knew that whoever God intended for her and her children would show up exactly how and when he was supposed to. Over a few months, DavidP67 and I chatted online and eventually met in person. We got to know each other first but it was clear there was something pretty magnetic going on. Things were easy with him and I felt safe. As time unfolded, it became more and more clear to me that God had created this man just for me. In every way, my needs were met. Gentle nature, funny, made me laugh, understood me, respected me. He didn’t want to change me. He accepted me, exactly as I am. And I know you’re wondering: my kids loved him instantly, if that’s possible. They were smitten right away just as I was.
And we got married and lived happily ever after.
Well, that is true. We are married and we are happy. Life is good and it’s not always easy and it’s definitely not simple. I have PTSD from That Day and the years prior. I have some anxiety that crops up now and again, and a bit of emotional baggage that has carried forward no matter how hard I try to shed it. My Crohn’s disease has taken a severe hit from all the trauma.
My children still grieve their dad. They still wonder how he could leave the way he did. I think one of the best things I can do for them is let them grieve how they need to. We visit their dad’s grave. He has a lovely headstone because I knew they need him to have that. My honoring his memory, honors my children.
He’s not a dirty word in our house. They talk about him, I do sometimes. He’s important to them. He’s part of them. We will continue this healing process as long as we live. They are thriving and have discovered their own strength. They are spectacular human beings with tender, beautiful hearts.
Please find hope here. My story is long and has ugly, ugly parts. But there is truly beauty from ashes. What man meant for evil and dark, God turned into good and wonderful. He refined us like gold, making our life shiny and whole once again. Look what he dug up from the ashes? A woman…broken and beaten, heartsick and damaged. Now I’m strong, able to help others and share what I’ve learned both through my first marriage and through my healing.
Please don’t give up. Whatever your life may look like now, please don’t ever give up trying, don’t give up hope.
Hope…always,
