Admitting you are lost is a feat in itself. At what point does anyone have enough confidence in themselves to look in the mirror and say “where the fuck am I? And what the hell am I doing here?”
We all have our reasons for thinking it, but what did it take to get there?
Was it that time when all you wanted to do was take a bath, but the kids were up and couldn’t sleep, all you needed was a little help but there wasn’t anyone there to help you? Could it have been that time when you just needed milk and bread from the grocery store, but you have to load all your kids into the car to run and grab it, of course when none were dressed and were all dirty and unkempt. You probably would have paid the homeless guy from down the street to watch them if you could have found him, but like your husband, he was also MIA.
As wives, and moms we get lost. My breaking point was 5 years into a relationship, where my husband was more involved with his business than he was with me. We had two little girls, he worked 80+ hours a week, I was taking as many college credits as I could manage to try and get my degree done. I was a single mom, who was a full time student that went to bed alone, woke up alone and did it all by myself. But yet I was expected to be there emotionally, physically when he needed me. I was expected to be the rock that held him up when expected, when I was cracking and crumbling without notice.
Let’s take it back to the beginning, before the kids, before the business, before the beginning of the end.
I was seventeen when I met my husband. Young, with more than just daddy issues. I jumped into bed with anyone, looking for someone. I never knew what I was looking for, just someone to love me, and fill the voids that had been left by a dad that didn’t want me, a step dad that was never around and friend’s uncles that loved to be around a little more than they should have been.
My first serious boyfriend, well I was sure I was going to marry him. So what if I was fifteen, he was the one. We met at youth group, and both became avid church goers. Sundays, Wednesdays and Friday night youth group, we were inseparable. It only took three months for him to get me into the cleaning closest alone, and it only took 10 minutes for him to rape and leave me. After that I had a long string of boyfriends, most of who said they loved me but needed not to in order to sleep with me.
My mom left when I was sixteen, leaving me homeless for a point of time, putting me in a position where I had to live with my boyfriend of the moment. He was 18, and came from a broken home with an alcoholic mom and an abusive dad. He was sinking like me, trying to grasp for air after a car accident where he had killed his best friend. I became his lifesaver, the person who kept him afloat. Unfortunately, you can’t be a lifesaver when you are sinking yourself. It was toxic, to say the least. I left him after some time, right before by seventeenth birthday, and went to live with my step dad who was dependent on drugs to get through the day. I sank into a routine of school and kept my boyfriends on rotation up until the point where I met my husband.
Now, I’m not looking for sympathy here, if you are going to tell a story you have to tell the whole story. All the pieces that put it together.
When I met him it ended my long list of suitors, he was all I needed. He became the air that I breathed, the answer to everything. He filled my voids, emotionally and physically. He was it. Four months into our relationship, right after my 18 birthday, I moved the three hundred miles to live with him.
Secret Life of a Lost Wife 