Month: March 2016

Song dedication: “If we’re honest” by Francesca Battistelli  – I chose this song based on the lyrics. They relate so much to my husband and I’s situation. Here are a couple I like.

“The truth is harder than a lie, the dark seems safer than the light, and everyone has a heart that loves to hide. I’m a mess and so are you, we’ve built walls nobody can get through, yea it may be hard but the best thing we can ever do….don’t pretend to be something that your not, living life afraid of getting caught, there is freedom found when we lay our secrets down at the cross”

Bible verse: “For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength” = I chose this one because of obvious reasons. Also I decided to get it tattooed on my arm (inner bicep.) I almost went today but I didn’t. I’m going to go to Winston next week and either get it or make the appointment depending if they have an opening. (apparently it’s tat season according to the guy, haha)

So I am going to try and sum up the last week post telling his family. The Monday after we told his mom happened to be the 19th anniversary of my mom passing away. So none the less it was a sad day with everything else going on. My husband texts me to see how I was doing with that. This is the first time I think he’s ever expressed concern about how I’m doing about my mom. I told him I was sad and just trying to stay busy to keep my mind off of it and how it would be really nice to have a mom while going through this situation. He said sorry I am having to deal with his stuff right now and I just said well it is what it is and I can’t change it. So that night my oldest sister calls me to say hi being that it’s the sad day for all of us and she asks me about me coming out there so I ended up telling her everything that was going on. She was of course heart broken for me but excited about me coming out there. So after I told her I called my other sister and she was completely shocked and upset. She text me the next day telling me she kept crying when she thought about it. The next day I had life group than Travis and I arranged to talk after. Neither of us really had anything we felt that needed to be said that hadn’t by this point so I asked him if he wanted to talk about how we wanted this next year to look like. I told him if we date people to keep it private, no posting stuff on social media, he agreed to that. I also said I don’t want another girl to call herself Potter’s mom. He laughed and agreed to that. I told him that if we sold the house how I wanted to split the money and he agreed. We also agreed to talk to a mortgage person to see if we can refinance in his name and maybe just kinda buy me out. Which would be awesome because that would mean a lot less work and that I could move sooner. I don’t know exactly if that’s going to work out but we should be meeting with someone soon to see. So after we talk we just end up hanging out and watching TV. This is such a weird situation. The next night I tell my dad which I was so scared to do. I don’t ever want to feel like I’ve disappointed him. He was very supportive and understanding. He said a lot of nice and encouraging things and made me feel so much better having told him. He even said he wasn’t that sad and that he’s noticed I’ve seen sad the last few years and he just wants me to be happy.

So Wednesday I go hiking with my mother in law. I think that it was good for us to have that time together, I was trying to get her to more understand what is going on because her and her son need to make up. He told me he was going to call her on Friday but didn’t. I’m hoping they get over this soon. My father-in-law also text me with some sweet words and said if I need a hotel room for my trip to CA that he would get me one. So the next day, Thursday, I man up and I messag this guy I know that lives in Austin to ask if I can stay on his couch when I drive across the country. He didn’t seem to think I was too much of a werido and said I could definitely stay at his place. The funny situation about this is that this guy I have only met once, he is a good friend of my sister-in-laws and I met him at their rehearsal dinner. He is super cute and we ending up talking maybe flirting for about an hour. He also happens to be a musician. So ironically I will be seeing him on this trip but he has a girlfriend which is probably for the best. So now I just need to book a hotel at the grand canyon and I’ll be all set! So that Thursday night I meet my sister-in-law and my friend for dinner so I can tell them more about what’s going on. They both new already, I had texted my friend a couple days earlier to tell her and she was so upset. She sent me a picture of her crying. She told me I was her best friend in this town and she was so sad for me to move. Beth also said when she found out she was crying and her husband made her leave because mine was coming over. So  I’ve never really felt so loved before in my life to see how sad people are when I tell them I’m leaving is crazy. But I tell them more about the situation and by the time I was done and showed them how at peace I am with everything they both felt a lot better. They are still sad I’m leaving but not as sad for me since I’m not sad anymore. Not sure if I’ve mentioned that on here yet but I’m not really sad anymore. Unless it’s about leaving my dogs.

Song dedication: “ID” by Charlie Allen – I don’t really know what this song is about. I do love the sound of it and his voice. Also one lyric stands out to me. He says “And I know that even Christ’s communion wine goes sour.” Now this may even be a sacrilegious song, I really can’t tell. But I believe everyone can have their own interpretation of a song no matter what the author intends. But this lyric reminds me of my husbands fleeting faith. He once was on fire for the Lord now he’s as Luke warm as they come, maybe leaning towards cold. 

Verse: James 1:2-4 – Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete that you may be lacking in nothing. – I pray that God gives me the strength to stay steadfast in the Lord through all of this. Only this and the Lord can make me perfect and complete. 

So the next few days after that family dinner we just kind of go about our lives like normal except not having any intimacy. We go to work, come home, watch our shows and even sleep in the same bed. We just aren’t saying “I love you” or kissing ect. It’s very weird. If he seems sad I wonder if he’s changed his mind and if he looks happy I thinking about him being happier without me and it tears me up inside. I’m so conflicted because on one hand I want to feel loved so bad I’m so ready for us to move on and on the other hand I just wish so badly that he could have truly loved me in the first place. 

So Thursday I have my first conversation with my counselor. I have the worst anxiety leading up to it because as soon as I tell another person it becomes more real. I tell him about everything that has happened up until this point and my plan of moving. It’s so hard to talk about I’m crying the whole time. My counselor gives me some things to ask and talk about with Travis and he plans to talk to him Monday. But he says it seems like by what I tell him that he’s maybe never been in love with me. I tell him how I never have felt truly loved or that he has ever been really attracted to me. But he says he likes my plan of moving. And he gave me more of a peace about this split up. My counselor is truely a man of God so when he seems to be ok with this it really helps me to let go of any guilt I had. 

So later that day I ask my husband per my counselor “If I didn’t care about being a Christian and just said lets do whatever you want, what would our life look like?” He could not give me an answer. Not surprising. He can’t even be honest with me in a hypothetical. Then I ask him if he’s ever been in love with me and he said he still loves me. I said that is different than being in love with me and asked him again and he said yes, he was in love with me in the past. I don’t really feel this conversation going anywhere so we just kind of end it and go on to watch TV like friends who sleep in the same bed and happened to be married. 

So two days after that his mom comes over so we can tell her. We eat breakfast then I eye to Travis to get on with it. He tells her that him and I have decided to separate. She asks why. He tells her that we have grown apart and have different priorities. I can’t lie, I was interested to see how he would word it. I also then realize why he offered to tell her on his own and I’m glad I insisted on being there. I don’t think he would have emphasized that this is his decision and not mine. That I wanted to do anything needed to make this work. He wanted to tell his mom in a way that made him not look like the bad guy. But since I don’t let this happen and tell her my side she starts trying to tell Travis that we need to try and fix this, that we are no longer in the honey moon stage, that marriage takes hard work and her and her husband are proof of that. Travis tell her that we aren’t emotionally connected and she says she doesn’t even know what that means, he tells her about how when he went to Nashville he could be himself but when I came he couldn’t. She told him it sounded like he just wanted to party and he started to get mad and told her that wasn’t it. There were a lot of words exchanged and I even went upstairs at one point to let them talk because he said we were ganging up on him because aparently my comments were not needed, that he would have eventually told her all the facts (which I don’t believe)  While I was upstairs I could hear them and she got so mad at him that she stormed out. Her and I texted throughout the day and she was so nice and it helped to feel like she was on my side with this. She was obviously so heart broken and she said my father-in-law was upset and cried when she told him. My husband hasn’t talked to either of his parents still and it’s been a week currently since we told them. 

Song: “Wasting Water” by Conner Zwetsch -Represents how I feel about my life, that its been raining on me for most of it…

Bible verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:18 …give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Chris Jesus for you. -This is very challenging for me right now but I won’t stop trying…

 

So that night I couldn’t sleep and I stayed up thinking of this plan. I thought since we couldn’t get a divorce until we have been separated for one year that we might as well take a separation. Maybe it will make him realize he really does really love me or it will make us (me) realize we (I) can actually be truly happy with other people. So I come up with this plan for us to sell the house, pay off our debt and take the left over money and I’m going to drive across the country to live with my sister. I just assumed she would let me live with her, which turns out she will. I’m going to first stop in Florida to visit my other sister, then I’ll stop in Austin, then the Grand Canyon with the final destination being Monterrey, CA. There I can start fresh. I can hopefully get a good job, join a new church and hopefully meet someone that truly loves me for me. I figured I would have a much easier time meeting someone in CA being that people seems to start families later there and there seems to be more single people. I just couldn’t even imaging living in the same town being separated from my husband. The thought of him with another girl makes me sick to my stomach. I pictured seeing each other on tinder (not that I would join tinder) and how weird that would be. Plus he has a much better chance of meeting someone here than I do. There are much more single girls in their 20s than there are Christian single men in their 30s. So the thought of this new plan was the only thing that was bringing me a little happiness and hope.

The next day we go bowling with his brother and friends for his brother’s birthday. He doesn’t hold back on his new habit of smoking cigarettes and of course I love that. (sense the sarcasm) We barely speak the whole time. On the way home I tell him my plan. All he can say is “I’m sorry for ruining your life” and I take that as he is fine with my plan. I tell him he should be sorry. That lucky for him I love the Lord and will forgive him. I tell him that I feel like he used God when he needed him and now he doesn’t need him so he’s throwing him away. I feel like he’s doing the same thing to me. I supported him for years when he didn’t know what he wanted to do and while he worked in ministry but now that he has a good job (not that ministry isn’t a goo job) and his life is more together he can finally toss me aside. He of course said that that’s not how it is but I don’t really believe him.I told him at least I can look back and be happy that I tried and gave 100% to this relationship, that I did all I could. He’s the one that wasted 7 years of my life possibly ruining my chance of ever having a family. I got so mad at him in the car ride. I just wish he could have been honest with me or would just be honest with me now. He still acts like this is for me when it’s really just for him.

Through out this situation God does bring me peace and joy but I still have a lot of anger towards my husband. Why couldn’t he have just been honest and told me a long time ago that he didn’t really love me? Why couldn’t he have let me go when I still had a better chance at finding someone else? Why did he even ask me to marry him if he had no emotional connection with me? Why did he have to do this to me? Haven’t I been through enough in my life? How can he be ok with doing this to someone? What kind of horrible monster does this? You meet a girl who has lost her mom at 12 years old and had to deal with a lot in her life and you think it’s a good idea to get married to her when you can’t even be there for her to confide in? What kind of evil person would do that? When I let my thoughts get away from me like this it makes me feel like he is a terrible terrible person. I don’t know if that’s the truth but it’s how I feel. But on the other hand I feel like my chances of finding anyone better are so small that I almost just want to stay in this terrible situation, not that that’s even a choice for me. My mind is obviously very confused and very hurt.

The next day we meet his family for a birthday dinner gathering. It’s pretty awkward when his mom talks about our future babies that there will never be. It think that this is probably the last time I will ever be at a family function and no one but me and him know that. I wish I could tell everyone bye and that I will miss them but I can’t. His mom is coming over (current time) tomorrow for us to tell her the news….

 

 

Song dedication: “Break my Heart” by Alex Preston

Bible verse: Psalms 126:5 Those who reap in tears will harvest in shouts of joy.

 

So about a week and a half ago I found out I was not pregnant, after being so sure that I was. This was probably about the 20th time that this has happened and this time just like the rest I become extremely sad. I have to say that this time I may have been a little more sad than I had in the past. Now it would be so nice if when I was sad like this, I could confide in my husband. I could cry and he would hold me and say the right words to make me feel better. But for me this doesn’t happen. I don’t know exactly why but I’ve never been able to confide in him when I’m sad. Nor does he confide in me.

So a little before this happened my husband had a sales conference in Nashville. The conference was from a Monday to Thursday then two friends and I drove down on Thursday and stayed the weekend. The whole time I was their I felt a million miles away from him. We were with each other but couldn’t have felt more apart. It’s not like we didn’t talk at all when we were apart or that I thought he did anything bad like cheat but I did know (because he talked about it non stop) how much he drank during the conference due to open bars every night. He made about 100 comments about it that really annoyed the crap out of me. Now, I am a Christian but I don’t believe there is anything wrong with moderate drinking but I do believe getting wasted is not exactly what God wants of us. So it’s not like I’m totally in love with the fact that my husband, while away from me, is getting super wasted everynight in the city of Nashville.

Despite the distance, I managed to enjoy myself in Nashville. An interesting event that happened one night as we were out at the Honkey Tonk Central. At one point I couldn’t find my friend. I asked her husband where she was and he said she’s outside with this drunk guy who got kicked out of the bar. I thought at first that that seemed crazy but I decided to go out and see what was going on. So this kid, 23 we figured out, was so drunk he puked all over the bar and himself so they kicked him out. He was barely coherent, but he could nod his head and answer some questions. But he was all alone, his phone was almost dead, he wasn’t from there, it was freezing and he didn’t have a coat on and he could barely move and was just sitting there with his head down and drooling. So when my friend’s husband first saw this he and said “we gotta help that guy.” People kept walking by just wanting to take selfies with him. No one cared that he might get robbed or left there to freeze all night. So we contacted his cousin from his phone and she was 45 minutes away but she came and picked him up and we stayed out there till she got there. But honestly being able to show God’s love to someone that night meant a lot to me. We go out to this city and indulge in food, indulge in drinking to pleasure ourselves and usually I’m not thinking about God at all, I’m too wrapped up in myself. So it was so nice to be able to stop for an hour of just trying to have fun for yourself and do something that no one else is willing to do for someone who desperately needed it. He called us and left us a message thanking us the next day. I kinda wish we would have texted him a bible verse or something inspirational because judging by how much he drank, he probably needed a little Jesus in his life.

But back to my husband and I, we get back from Nashville and the distance between us is still there. So as you can imagine when I realize I am not pregnant and am sad and can’t confide in my own husband the distance gets worse and worse and I keep getting sadder and sadder. There’s days at work that I’ve been the middle of working and my mind wonders to my life and I have to fight back the tears. Not to mention at this time I have bronchitis and feel terrible so this isn’t helping the sadness. Yet I still can not talk to my own husband about why I am so sad. I feel like I have no one to talk to. Of course I have sisters and friends but I can’t talk to anyone else about my sadness. The whole, not being able to get pregnant thing is something that is so hard to talk to people about. For many reasons.

So finally one day he can tell that something is wrong because he asked me if I was mad at him. I said I wasn’t mad and that I’ve been really sad lately and that we can talk about it later. This usually helps me because then I am committed to talking about it. So that night he gets home kinda late from where he went so I got out of talking about it for that night because it was late and I was tired but the next night we start talking about it. I tell him how distant I’ve felt from him lately and he just comes out and says that he feels like he can never live up to my expectations for what my husband should be and that he feels he will never be able to make me truly happy and that I deserve more than what he can give me. He admitted to being selfish and taking me for granted and told me I’m “awesome” and that I deserve better. He said this after I mentioned that I am happy most of the time, that I don’t rely on him for my happiness that I get my joy from the Lord, I would just need him to do just a little bit more, like if he things I’m awesome I just need him to tell me once in a while. He said that this distance thing between us has happened several times (which it has) and that we’ve had conversations about it and even did counseling once (I’ll do a post about this later) and that every time he tries for a while to do better but then just goes back to the way he usually is. That it always feels forced and never natural and that it shouldn’t be that way. We talked about how much he has changed since we got married and that he is not making God a priority in his life at all. He said when we met he didn’t know who he was, he was still figuring that out and now he knows who he is. (which I guess is someone that says they are a Christian but doesn’t want to act like) So after this conversation I asked him what he wanted to do about all this and he just kept saying he didn’t know. The weird thing was is that I was a lot less sad then I thought I would be talking about even the possibility of not trying to work on things and the hint of splitting up. I think after 7 years of not truly feeling loved by the one person who should love me most has really taken it’s toll on me. I think on one hand it really has pushed and taught me to rely on God for my joy and happiness, but to an extent your husband has to do some of that. And I was being honest when I said I was mostly happy cause we get along great, we really do love each other, we hardly ever fight or argue, but it’s almost us not fighting that’s the problem. We aren’t emotionally invested in each other enough to even fight about things. When I’m sad I usually just try and rely on God because he does give me joy and happiness. So we don’t come to any conclusions that night and go to sleep.

The next day I get to work and I obviously had been crying on the way to work as everything is sinking in and I just tell my coworkers I must have allergies…I’m sure they knew better. I text my husband this day and tell him that I don’t accept that “I deserve better”, that if he doesn’t love me enough to try and make things work that there’s nothing I can do about it. But that I’m not gonna give up and that I’m willing to do anything to make it work. I told him not to text me back and that we could just talk about it later. So it’s later and were talking and I told him that I think it would be best either way to talk to Cecil. (The best counselor in the world that’s a friend of my dad who I have used recently on an issue with my dad, we can get in to that later) He agrees to talk to Cecil. Then I tell him that the only way I think we can work things out is if we completely rely on God. We need to put him in the center of us and use him to help us gain this emotional connection and I asked him if he was willing to do this and he said he didn’t know. At that point I felt very not hopeful for us. I kind of needed to hear a yes at that point to have any hope. He pretty much told me that although he does love me he has never been able to have an emotional connection with me. I agree to the face that there has been an emotional disconnect since the beginning but that it was more him than me, that if he opened up to me I would be able to do the same with him. Again, nothing really gets decided, except to talk to Cecil before doing anything.

That night I couldn’t fall asleep which becomes a regular thing for the next few days. I kept thinking about this plan and I couldn’t help but feel a peace and happiness in my heart…to be continued…

The song dedication is pretty self explanatory. It’s a pretty awesome break up song. You should just listen to it. Especially if you are breaking up with someone.

The bible verse is one that came up in my readings this week. It’s pretty awesome. My interpretation is that there is a light at the end of this tunnel. I may have plenty of tears now but if I stay steadfast in the Lord there will be shouts of joy in my future. And that is pretty freaking awesome!

 

 

About two weeks ago I was living my normal, every day life and also I was SURE I was pregnant. My husband and I had been trying for two years, one year ago we had a miscarriage but still to this day no baby. But I felt more than I ever had before that I was pregnant and God was finally giving me my turn. After almost every single friend I have has become pregnant, some even on their third, it was finally going to be my turn.

Fast forward a short two weeks and I am, turns out, not pregnant and now my husband and I are planning to take a separation (I like the way that sounds more than “we’re separating”) we are planning on selling our house, splitting what’s left after we pay off debts, then I will be packing what I want in my car along with one of the dogs and driving across the country by myself to go stay with my oldest sister and her two kids in California.

Needless to say it’s been a whirlwind two weeks, more specifically 5 days, that’s how long it’s been since we had the first conversation about the possible separation. I have never had so many emotions running through me. Anger, extreme sadness, confusion, hopefulness, anxious, excited, scared, embarrassed, ashamed, these are some of the many emotions going on in my crazy brain. It’s a very long story of how we got here so if you are interested stay along on this journey with me to find out.

I haven’t quite figured out how I am going to write this blog. I’ve considered writing in each post a little on the current happenings of where I am at and also a little about how I got here, until one kinda of catches up with the other but I am not totally sure.

I do know for sure that every post I want to dedicate a song and/or a bible verse. God and music are two things that I am most passionate about. God obviously comes first and music probably comes after my family and friends but you get the point. I am not musically gifted in any sense. I of course took the obligatory piano lessons as a kid that I hated and then I played the clarinet in the middles school and high school band (dork alert!) but was not very good at all. But I am absolutely great at listening to music. Music can make me have all sorts of feels. Without even listening specifically to the lyrics it can make me cry, dance, get int he “mood”, or feel joy ect.

This first post’s song dedication is “Mess is mine” by Vance Joy. It’s a song that for the past few months I would hear and think to myself that I really needed to look up who sings that and listen to it on Spotify. It took me a while to do but eventually I did and it was about 2 weeks ago I started listening to it. The whole album ‘dream your life away’ has been my sound track during all this mess. Mostly the album makes me cry, it’s not super sad but it’s the kind of music that when you are already sad can just make you wanna ball your eyes out. Maybe that’s just me though. “Mess of mine” makes me sad because it is about two people in a relationship that except the other’s mess. That’s something I can say I definitely did for my husband but not sure he did for me. In his case he had literal mess (which I constantly had to clean up after) and figurative mess. He had no/bad credit so we bought a house completely in my name along with financing furniture, buying two cars ect… I took all the financial risks and didn’t complain because that’s what you do for the one you love more than any other. But any who, I just think it’s an amazing song that just happens to make me said because it reminds me what I did not have in a relationship.

So due to the length of this first post and my desire to not bore you (the possible one reader I may ever have of this blog) to death, I am going to end it hear. Stay tuned…