Last month I opened my front door to discover an Italian Casanova holding the most impressive bouquet of flowers. The Casanova had a beautiful face with brown hair resting on his shoulders. I said to him, "You have the perfect look for delivering flowers" and he smiled his seductive smile and said, "I know."
I took the flowers and slowly closed the door on the Casanova. ---I already had my man.
The flowers were mostly pink roses and my favorite flower, daises. $88.00 dollars worth of flowers from my husband. I'm not a big fan of store bought flowers. I'd rather have a flower especially picked for me from a field, even a dandelion, but I'm not looking for a perfect husband only a faithful one and the flowers were his gift to me on our 30th Wedding Anniversary.
It's a miracle that we are still together. A year ago we lived in different cities and the success of our marriage was out of my control. When New Year's rolled around I wanted to feel like I had power over something....like my happiness at least. I decided to make a resolution to celebrate my 30th wedding anniversary 30 times during 2014. I wasn't going to let my happiness depend on if he was with me for the celebrations or not or if we were living together or not. I had a choice---I could feel like a failure and be depressed or celebrate my ability to continue to learn and smile and stay on my feet while being married to an addict.
So this past year I have had celebration after celebration. ----I went to the LDS temple 30 times in 30 days. (Now that's a trick since it's only open 5 days a week but 2 days a week I went twice.) I had fun dates with my husband (theaters, picnics, movies, beaches, drives, talks on the porch swing.). We read a fabulous book together and I can't wait for this book to be published so I can tell you all about it! There were trips and sacred occasions. I counted Life Star, special family activities, an SA retreat and UCAP...In fact it was during UCAP (Utah Coalition Against Pornography) that I invited my husband to move back home because I could feel that he was finally in Recovery.
For our actual anniversary date I sent him a Google Calender Request inviting him for dinner and an activity. The date was only from 6 pm to 8 pm. I made his favorite dinner of meatloaf, roasted potatoes, rolls, salad and 30 dipped chocolates for dessert. Then we sat together on the couch and looked at scrapbooks from our dating years and our marriage. I could feel his heart soften. At the end of the date I excused myself and went for a walk in the dark and let tears roll down my face. I'm not sure why. I felt thankful that I am still married to the husband of my youth. I felt proud of myself for surviving hard times and not giving up. I felt grateful for God's Hand in my life and I felt scared for future hard times. --Overcoming an addiction is a long and complicated path and being married to an addict is a long and complicated path too.
When I married, my goal was to be married FOREVER to my husband. Now the goal is to stay married today and we'll see what tomorrow will bring. Maybe, if I am lucky, my married days will add up to forever.
"Yea, I know that I am nothing as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things." -Alma 26:12
I love this post. I love that you found joy in being married to the husband of your youth. That is how I feel about my husband. I will take our story, for with pain though it is, in order to have OUR story. He is my first and only love and I am his. Pornography and other firms of acting out tried to destroy that, but we can and will rise above this as we lean together on Christ. Thanks for your blog.
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