Time to Run

(For those who don't know my story you can find it here. To understand what I am about to talk about it might pay to check that one out first as they are related)

I have been married to Luke a year now. We are very happy. I love him very much and love being with him.

I have been married before. I don't talk a lot about what I went through then for a variety of reasons. The first and foremost is that it is too hard most of the time. The second is that my ex isn't around to ogive his side of the story and I feel it is unfair to talk about what went on without his side of it to balance it out. So as you read this please remember that these are my views only and it needs to be remembered that my side of the story doesn't include what was going on for him. Give him the benefit of the doubt, everyone is messed up.

My first marriage was messed up. I wasn't allowed a key to our front door so I couldn't leave the house when he was at work otherwise it was unsafe. The number of tampons and toilet paper squares I was allowed to use were counted out when necessary. I was used to play games on his friends without my knowledge or consent. I had nude pictures of me left on a computer that was given to a friend. I remember sitting outside our bedroom door and screaming and crying because he wouldn't open the door and talk to me and tell me what was wrong.

I lived in a state of anxiety and fear, partly because of him and because of my mental illness. It all came to a head when I came home from a two week stay in the psych ward and had my next door neighbour tell me that his current girlfriend (yes there was more than one and yes I knew about them) had been living at my house while I had been ill.

I left not long after.

Why am I telling you this? Why now?

Because I have finally come to the realisation that I cannot outrun these memories.

The last few days I have spent feeling angry and down and I wasn't sure why. I felt myself drawing away from Luke and not wanting to let myself tell him what was going on. So I did the opposite. I told him how I was feeling and we have spent a few evenings trying to figure out what is going on.

Today, I finally figured it out.

My first marriage left me with a sense of abandonment that stuck with me for a very long time. I was angry at him, but more than that I was destroyed that he didn't come looking for me. I was unwanted, unloved and I lost any self esteem I had left when that happened. I spent the next two years between separating and divorce trying to move on from the damage that had been done. I tried to outrun my pain.

When I got divorced I was terrified that I was now going to have to put myself on the shelf, that being divorced meant I couldn't get married again. When I met Luke it took months before I was brave enough to even go out with him because I was afraid that I was doing the wrong thing. The fear arose again when we got engaged. Since then I have been pretty ok.

We celebrated one year a few weeks ago. At that point my subconscious kicked in and all the fear I had of getting married again came up. Because I am afraid of the punishment.

Now bear with me, I know that God isn't vindictive and angry like that, but my heart hasn't clicked on to that fact yet. I am terrified of losing Luke and that, if I do, it was my fault for marrying him in the first place.

I am terrified of him leaving me, or him dying, or something hideous happening. My life doesn't get this good without something bad happening and so I am waiting for the proverbial to hit the fan. My old counsellor would call it PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder), I would call it learning from my history.

And so when we turned one together all my fear started to resurface. Then he went away to parachute for 4 days and it was like I was being left all over again. I started to draw away to protect myself from being hurt. I didn't want to tell him what I was feeling in case he laughed at me.

Instead I told him. I then I spent the day with Jesus, listening to music, writing every thought in a journal and being honest with my words about what is actually going on with me.

The reason I write this here is because there are so many people who have been left and abandoned in their lives. Those fears go with you even when you think you have outrun them. The past makes us who we are and we can't blank out our minds to what has happened to us.

But there is hope.

It starts by being honest. By going against your instincts to run away and to take a leap of faith and trust someone who has proved trustworthy. If you don't know someone like that then go to see a professional.

Be honest with yourself too. You can't do anything until you acknowledge how deep the hurt goes. With me it is in so deep it took four days to come to light. Sit with it, even though it is uncomfortable, and figure it out. It's then that you can work it out.

Be honest to God. God is the only one who knows how hurt you really are and there can be peace that can really help you get through it.

But is our perceptions of God that can really mess up our issues. When I am scared my image of God seems to move from one of a loving benevolent father who wants to love me to one of wanting to punish and hurt me. And I am not sure how to overcome that yet. But I am going to try. Because once I can figure that out then maybe it won't be so damn hard to pray when I am freaking out.

And maybe then I won't blame myself when things go wrong.