A Text

The text read, “I love you more then you will ever know.”  I received it while driving in my car today and it made me smile. 

Today was a great day for me.  I love my job.  I had no adult children drama.  My Baby Girl got ready for school today with no fights.  I saw an old friend.  The weather was beautiful.  I made a date with Mr. Wonderful for a bike ride on Saturday.  The text was just a bonus.

The text made me think a lot about my marriage, about my heart, about the present.  I texted Mr. Wonderful back and told him I adore him and never get tired of hearing that he loves me. 

None of that seems like a big deal between a husband and wife, unless you know the background.  Mr. Wonderful and I married in 2003.  I had never been so happy in my entire life.  I had that relationship that you look for your entire life.  I had been divorced twice and disappointed more times then I care to think about, and I finally felt like I had it all.

Life threw us a lot of curve balls.  My in-laws didn’t accept our marriage, Carl’s children wanted no part of our marriage, my heart was broken.  It took me a long time to realize that my heart was broken, I’ve always been able to bounce back.  I couldn’t.  I wanted to “fix it”, I wanted to “understand it”, I wanted it to be “ok”.  The more I fought for my marriage the worse I made it.  I was miserable, Mr. Wonderful was miserable, my kids were miserable and my in laws and stepchildren didn’t care. 

We finally seperated.  My heart was shattered.  My Baby Girl was hurt beyond belief.  My older kids were just pissed off.  My in laws and stepchildren were tickled pink. 

Oh yeah add adultery to the issues.

Talk about a fork in the road, boy did I have choices.  I’ve posted about this before and I still say I clung to my faith.  Scripture says that God “heals the broken hearted, binding up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3) and gives to His children “comfort and joy instead of sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:13).  I read those scriptures over and over.  I believed it, I had to believe it.  Our marriage was saved.  We spent 50 weeks in marriage counseling and we learned so much about ourselves. 

Our marriage is awesome, not perfect.  I was thinking today while driving in the car not a lot has changed from when we seperated.  My inlaws still do not respect our marriage, my stepchildren still have nothing to do with our lives, but we changed.  I not only respect, but encourage Mr. Wonderful to have relationships with his mother and children.  I no longer care if they like me or don’t like me, I actually enjoy not having to deal with the drama.  I have faith in our relationship and as our counselor told us our children do not allow us to choose their spouses and they don’t get a vote in our marriage.  Mr. Wonderful sees the situation for what it is, he no longer has thoughts of those “poor kids”.  He loves his mother, but can finally admit she hurts him in her attitude towards our marriage. 

I’m often asked how did I forgive all of it?  I can only say I clung to scripture says that God “heals the broken hearted, binding up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3) and gives to His children “comfort and joy instead of sorrow” (Jeremiah 31:13).  I kept my heart open to Mr. Wonderful even when I knew he didn’t deserve it.  I accepted that Mr. Wonderful could have married Mary Poppins and his mother and children would have hated her, it’s not about me.  I accepted that the situation was a mess.  I overlooked the little things and made myself heard on the big things.  I set boundaries and Mr. Wonderful respected those boundaries.  I compromised and so did Mr. Wonderful. 

I started having these thoughts on Sunday, it was cold, rainy and downright depressing.  We came home from church, my favorite time of the week is when we sit in the same pew every Sunday and Mr. Wonderful has his hand around my shoulder and he whispers, “I love you.”  Mr. Wonderful offered to make chili, I challenged him to a game of Monopoly and a rainy gloomy day became a great day.

While I was typing this text my youngest stepchild called Mr. Wonderful and I thought, wait a minute I didn’t tell the whole truth in this post.  The Youngest stepchild is part of our marriage and I should give him credit for that.  For a matter of fact I guess he needs a blog name, summer is almost here and he’ll be here hanging out with us.  I’ll think of a name, that will make him laugh.  He’s a great kid.  I often say he’s Switzerland, he just stays neutral.  He flies under the radar and just rolls with the punches. 

For the record I’ve never beat Mr. Wonderful at Monopoly.