I was cleaning out my drafted posts recently and I discovered an old post I began writing late at night over a year ago. I never did publish it, in fact I forgot all about it. I’ll explain why in just a bit.

Here’s an excerpt:

Marriage is hard. Sometimes it downright sucks. I’ve heard married couples tell me they have never slept on the couch, or they have never felt like they hated the other– and I always think the same thing:

Gag.Me.With.A.Spoon.

All I can think about is the crushing disappointment that I experienced after the honeymoon phase of marriage, and how absolutely unrealistic and impractical the whole wedding/marriage experience can be when we put so much “God called me to marry this person” into it and takes logic out of the equation.

I’ve been in some form of marital counseling for more years of my marriage than not. I am 5.5 years into mine and must say that I HAVE NO FREAKIN IDEA HOW TO DO THIS THING!

…it’s been hell.

How wonderful is it to live your life in an unloving situation? And, I’m sorry, but I’m not Jesus. I’m Vivian! I have my own baggage, my own habits, my own struggles in trying to relate and express and merge. And, yes, I HAVE Jesus, but what does that mean, practically, to a girl who has heard it all and tried it all and is just, in pain?

I remember being in that much pain. It was confusing. Nothing made sense. Chris’ behavior didn’t make sense. If I was asked about my relationship in those years, it would have been tough to not cry. I didn’t know what to do.

Just 4 days after writing that draft, I discovered Chris’ infidelity. The weeks that followed were sucked into a time warp that included some of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. It included the confession that his infidelity had begun before we were even married, that in fact it spanned back to his adolescence in the form of an addictive pattern of behaviors. I was horrified by the things I heard had happened during our marriage, as though my life was being deconstructed and an alternate timeline was emerging that was dark and perverse. I slept on the floor in my living room for weeks. My knees felt weak and there was a knot in my stomach constantly. I couldn’t work and I could barely take care of Ethan. While Chris began 12 step support groups every day and counseling and everything while living in the studio in the backyard, I was hurt and angry and embarrassed and lost. I felt divorced in every way. I had no desire to see pictures of our past, even baby pictures of Ethan pained me for a long time. One day, I decided I couldn’t have possession of my wedding ring or wedding pictures. I ripped them up and left the rings on a bench in the Pearl.

Last summer was the worst time of my life. And it was also the best.

At the time, I could barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even when I saw Chris devastated and broken and repentant, even when he found a decent new job and even once I decided to let him stay at the house again, I walked around in turmoil often. I felt a cloud of shame, my family couldn’t believe I had decided to stay for even one more minute, to give this any sort of chance at all. Sometimes I would be walking with Ethan around the neighborhood, enjoying his long talking streaks in the weather that was just as it is now, quickly turning to Fall, and a car would drive by and my eyes would meet with some stranger driving it. In an instant my heart would sink. They know, I thought. As though I were wearing a scarlet letter.

Still, we talked all the time. Sometimes ten hours a day. Talked and talked and talked. We rediscovered each other, the real us too, not just the best foot forward. We talked into the late hours of the morning, usually we ended up crying together before falling asleep again on the living room floor and couch. (I couldn’t go back to my bedroom after that, not until we redecorated it and painted the walls and so on.)

I didn’t trust Chris and I didn’t forgive Chris. Our marriage was broken and the thought of it only brought pain. But I put all that on one side of my existence, and decided that I would take it one day at a time in our “new” relationship. There was, in some small way, such promise in what was blossoming that I couldn’t bring myself to throw that all away just yet. I wanted to see what would happen, if this was truly a turning point. If a turning point is even a real thing. I felt my heart beginning to love this man talking to me, even when no love existed before.

I also, and this is key, felt love from Chris. Once I recognized it, I realized I had never been given it until then.

Of course, I conceived of Verity in the midst of our early reconciliation, and the news was shocking, to say the least. Some days were so dark that I actually called an abortion clinic to find out the cost. If you know me, that’s about the deepest darkest confession I could lay out there, but there it is. I felt nothing but the desire to NOT be pregnant for a long time. I cried through my early midwife appointments, began counseling for prenatal emotional health, and slowly began to bond and accept the idea of this new baby.

From the moment I saw Verity on the sonogram and gave her a name, I was in love. I didn’t regret my state after that, despite the unlikely and inconvenient timing of her arrival. I still felt insecure and ashamed when my baby bump began to grow, wondering if people thought I was only staying married because I was knocked up which was the furthest thing from the truth. But I came to terms with it. I moved through the last year one day at a time. Chris “celebrated” 1 year sober last June, one year since he did the wrong thing with his pain. He’s been in meetings and counseling all year, and recently began individual therapy to work on his “daddy issues”. We strive to work on our marriage daily, despite the distractions of bills, work, children, so on and so forth. Nowadays, our marriage looks and feels, well … normal. We have arguments, but we try to be respectful and focus on working at the problem together, rather than against each other. We spend time together, enjoy each others company, smooch when we pass each other in the kitchen, cuddle at night (among other things ), talk about our feelings, and apologize when we fail.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned this year, besides a ton about myself and a ton about communicating better and ton about how far I have to go, is that granting some one forgiveness doesn’t let them off the hook. It doesn’t mean what happened was okay. It doesn’t even mean I’m not angry. It’s not even very much ABOUT the offender or the offense, but rather the choice, when ready, to let it go in my own heart – to begin to heal.

And even if, in the long run, my marriage doesn’t make it through this, I know that I will. For all these lessons and more, I am grateful – to Chris, my community of support, my counselors, my family, my children, and of course, my Jesus.