“The reality is people mess up, don’t let one mistake ruin a beautiful thing.”

“The reality is people mess up, don’t let one mistake ruin a beautiful thing.”

Back in December was the worst place our marriage had been in. We just weren’t what we had been before. The tension was insane and I don’t think either of us really knew why. He felt like we were both mutually giving up, which is why he decided he wanted to separate, and I felt like the hope I was holding onto was slowly but surely disappearing. Eventually the tension became too much and I couldn’t help but to ask for answers and the answers were worse than I ever anticipated. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way it felt, how much I sobbed in that one single day, or the look in his eyes when he said it. And the more we discussed everything the more it made sense, or so we thought. 

Our marriage had been through a lot before this past year. Big moves, long distance/a deployment, college; but we had made it. Even that couldn’t prepare us for what was to come though. Trying to get pregnant with Benjamin for months and months (after Carson was conceived the first month we tried) was so discouraging and put so much strain on our marriage. And then when we finally conceived Ben I instantly knew something was wrong, I just had this insane intuition that something bad was going to happen. I didn’t know what, but I told many close people to me that I just felt like it was my turn for something bad to happen and it was going to involve the pregnancy. Then sure enough, my very first ultrasound confirmed my intuition, I had a subchorionic bleed. They claimed that most go away and don’t cause issues, but I knew that wasn’t accurate for my case. I just felt it. So again, more strain. I wanted to be extra precautious about every little thing while he was trying to calm me down and encourage me to listen to the doctors. I can look back now and see why he was that way, but at the time I felt like he was just another person questioning my Mother’s intuition, so more strain. 

Then ER trip after ER trip, we were both terrified but dealing with it in our own ways, since we are very different people. Some of those ER trips were extremely traumatic with the amount of blood I was losing. Then I was admitted. We both hoped that it was temporary, but once we got the news that it wasn’t, even more strain. I was an emotional basket case about where my pregnancy was potentially going, knowing that he was absolutely coming early and that they thought there was a possibility for me to lose too much blood during delivery, and having to leave Carson for an unknown amount of time. He was going through his own set of problems with having to come up to the hospital all the time, be a single dad for the time being, working on his masters degree, and full time work on top of processing what was happening at the hospital. We were both going through so much individually that we didn’t have the mental space to be there for each other, as bad as it sounds. We were both in places that we had never been before. That month long stay in the hospital broke us. I was so caught up in trying to process everything that had and was still happening with my body and unborn baby and trying to somehow still be there for Carson that I didn’t even realize my husband was shutting down. I was completely naive to the fact that things were broken long before I even knew it. And all at the same time, he was there physically for me, but emotionally he wasn’t and couldn’t be because he was so shut down. 

Fast forward to my emergency c section, I couldn’t contain myself. That day was the most I had ever cried and it was extremely hard on both of us. Going into an OR to deliver your 27 week baby that you have no idea if he will survive and you have no other option is terrifying. It was terrifying for both of us and it overwhelmed us. We both met Benjamin at different times and at just a few hours after he was born we were told to prepare ourselves. That day was so much mentally and emotionally and neither of us knew how to handle it. 

Then the NICU stay. Those two months were the longest months of our lives. Going back and forth to the hospital everyday and having to make such big decisions, hoping they would be the right ones, was insanely stressful. We were both again dealing with what we were going through in very different ways and we both felt like each other was handling it wrong, so again more strain. That NICU stay and my hospital stay changed us both more than we ever could have thought. 

Then Benjamin came home and it seemed like things were getting better. But that was short lived. With preemies you have to be insanely precautious about the germs they are around and exposed to and once flu and RSV season comes around you have to literally isolate yourself from everyone. We couldn’t go to family holiday parties, we couldn’t go to birthday parties, we spent Thanksgiving at home alone, and it was very seldom that we seen our friends or family beyond October. Being cooped up in the house and literally able to go no where put me in such a dark place. And being in work and school full time and then being isolated once he got home from work (because everywhere we go we’re picking up more germs that we then bring home and expose our preemie to) put him in a dark place as well. We were both so unhappy in what should’ve been one of the happiest times of our lives. But we both had also and were still going through hell. Even though Benjamin was home, we were still terrified. Ben getting sick could have been life threatening because his lungs were so premature and that triggered so much anxiety on top of everything else we already had going on with him. 

The truth is we lost ourselves and in turn we lost each other. The distance between us when we were just inches away on the same couch was a feeling I’ll always remember. You could cut the tension with a knife. So we separated. We were both SO sure that there was no hope. We had literally every aspect of our divorce figured out. How custody would work, what holidays and birthdays would look like, how we would split our debt, who was keeping the house, which items we were both taking, how long we would wait before introducing a new person to the boys when that time came, literally everything was sorted out. The only thing left to do was file, which we were waiting until a certain month to do so for personal reasons. 

While we were separated I learned so much about myself. I grew in ways that I never realized I could and became more confident and secure with my own self than I’ve ever been. And the same went for him. We both grew and we both were changed so much by that experience. We both came to terms with the way things happened and had a sense of understanding. When he came back I could tell that he felt as though he made a huge mistake, the look on his face was everything. I’m not going to lie, I thought there was absolutely no way we could come back from how bad we had gotten especially with spending many months apart already, and I was extremely unsure of what I wanted in that situation. My head was telling me no and my heart was telling me yes. I was beyond confused and torn on what to do. I was so afraid that it would be a honeymoon phase. So I stopped with the blog posts (even though I had already written more) because I had no idea where things were going. It’s been a couple months since we started working on things and I waited to share that with anyone until now because I don’t want to be that person that is back and forth all the time. That’s not what we strive to be, especially not for the sake of our boys. 

After thinking things over for weeks and having the constant conversations about where things went wrong and what had to change for this to even potentially work, I decided that I wanted to give it a shot just as he did. Not only for our boys, but for ourselves. We both had chosen each other so many years ago for a reason and we both had so much love for each other still. It’s so hard to throw yourself back into a situation that you know you’ve been hurt in before, but sometimes it ends up worth it.

Today we are both better people than we were in December. We’re more understanding of each other and we’re both putting in so much effort. We’ve started counseling, which has already been a tremendous help. After being so sure that we just weren’t the right people for each other, counseling has helped us to realize that we actually are who each other wants and we are so hopeful that this time will last forever. 

Our separation taught me so much. It taught me to trust myself and love myself. It taught me that sometimes you have to go through things you never wanted to to get a whole new outlook on things. And it taught me that people make mistakes, even the people we love. Forgiveness can mean everything and the only way that a relationship will work is if both people are putting in equal effort. We weren’t before, but we are now, and for that I am so thankful. 

And just as I was sharing about the separation/divorce before, I’m hoping that by sharing this new side of it that other people can relate. Going through the absolute darkest time of your marriage and then starting to rise out of it is an experience that only other people that have been there can fully understand.