A Recap

Hey all!

Here is a recap of the last few months of 2019, year of 2020, and up to today.

Late 2019:

• November 2019: Wife starts showing signs of depression, due to the years of chronic pain and years of being married to a depressed guy like me.
• December 2019: We are broke financially. We have enough to pay for Christmas, but debt collections are breathing down our back to pay off my wife’s knee surgery and other accumulated bills. My wife handled the money at that time. I am feeling hopeless. My wife feels hopeless. A friend from church notices this depression in my wife and takes her under her wing. Though friends before this, a tight bond forms between the two women and seeds toward real growth are planted that will get us to where we are today. She asks me to take over the finances and I start preparing for that.
• January 2020: My wife can’t hardly function. She can’t hardly get out of bed, she can’t do the things she loves to do, she is basically hiding from the world. I pay off a bunch of debt with my Christmas bonus and enter payment plans with others debt collection agencies. My wife continues to rely on her friend while not talking to me. I am depressed, blaming myself for her suffering. My wife’s friend and her husband have us over for dinner and have an intervention. That was the starting point to a restored marriage. We finally were able to talk because there were moderators to help us say what needed to be said and be there when we were unfair. I commit to taking over the finances and doing it well. I commit to the hours of overtime it’ll take to pay off our debt. I commit to my wife, though I was ready to throw in the towel.
• February 2020: A lot of pulling double duty, being the bread winner working overtime and also maintaining the home. My wife spends almost everyday at her friend’s house while I’m at work. My wife is barely talking to me but would open up to her friend, so I became upset and was ready to leave. I was hanging on by a thread. I talked to my friend (husband of my wife’s friend) about the lack of sex we have. He said it shouldn’t be that way and it was the first time I felt validated by a real human being in person. He talks to his wife and the seeds to a better sex life are planted. I doubt the seeds ever actually grow. We are still a mess. I’m powering through the internal hateful thought processes, and even at one point considered driving my car off the road to hit something. I don’t. I think about driving to the hospital. I don’t. I power through, and it was probably a major mistake. I was the closest to suicide I’d ever been. I pray and pray and feel God take control of me and bring me home safely. This is not the first time Jesus has talked me off the ledge.
• March 2020: Starts off with more of the same. COVID lock downs hit in the middle of the month. We feel isolated from our friends. My wife feels the growth she is making with her friend is being lost. Any progress my wife made over the last month is set back. I start feeling God push me to love my wife unconditionally. My wife’s friend urges her to dive deep with God. They pray together often. They seek God together often. They study the Word often. My wife starts learning what it really means to lean on God.
• The rest of the year is a blur. A lot of 3 steps forward and 2 steps back in all areas of live. In our marriage. In our finances. In our walk with God. In our church life. In our regions dealing with COVID. We do start making love more often, even with her initiating sometimes. We have conflicts with our current church and start feeling like we don’t belong there. COVID inspires us to start an outdoor church with a pastor friend. That gets kicked off as a very grassroots, organic group. It was exactly what we needed in our growth with God. However, due to the cold of the fall, the group can no longer meet and also keep up with being COVID safe.
• End of 2020: We have paid off several credit cards and loans. We are budgeting and saving money. My credit score is going up. Our growth in marriage is better than it has ever been, and we are still growing. We both are in multiple bible studies, and actually each of us is facilitating our own studies. We pray more often at meals, which has been bringing our family closer and closer. We have enough money for Christmas without overextending our means. We are giving back to our community by building a small food pantry to place in our home’s alley for those in need. This gave my wife a meaningful purpose and humbled us as we see people using it.
• Today: We are in a much different place. We still have set backs. We are still far from our potential. I finally feel love from my wife. I see a lot of hope in our marriage. We are making love much more often. She still has moments of chronic pain flareups, but we get through them and I am here for her. The grassroots church we started last year is going to turn into more this year; more doesn’t necessarily mean more people, but deeper growth and stability.

That is a quick recap of the last year. There are obviously a lot of details missing, and hopefully I’ll be able to fill in the blanks as I continue this blog. I still struggle with the self doubt. I still struggle with the hateful inner dialog. Those things will never go away. I am dealing with them better. My wife and I are still committed to each other. As I look back, I see God in it. He may not have caused it all, but he was always there for us. I am still the same person, but also not the same.

Again, I plan to start using this blog as a journal. The raw thoughts as I navigate life. My raw thoughts are unfinished processes that I am working through. Some posts will be me venting of a certain situation. Some of my posts will be super encouraging. I’d like to say this blog was for you, but it really is for me, and if it happens to help someone out there to read and follow along and cope with their daily living, then I’ll take that as a bonus.

God bless,

~James