She Found Her Wings

Everyone has scars from their past that affects their present. Some scars are huge and noticeable. Some are so small you have to look hard to see it. 

Not sure if I have mentioned it much, but Jason was married before as well. He didn't sign up to have his past broadcast over the Internet, so I'll keep it short and sweet. He had to get in his ex's purse once and found  something that made him suspect something terrible. It was a total blindside. He wanted to do the work and fix whatever the issues were. But shortly after that she demanded a divorce. And was never willing to speak to him after that. It destroyed him; it was a total blindside. The people who knew him at that time have shared with me how tough it was for him. Jason and I discussed to great lengths what he thinks went wrong and why she left. Since she never really talked to him, all he can do is speculate. Which I think he speculated correctly. But nothing concrete, so that's all I will share.

His divorce was so long ago (he was getting divorced as I was getting married, I find that ironic) that when we ran into her recently, he said he had no feelings of any kind. It was like any other old acquaintance he might have run into. But that doesn't mean he doesn't still have scars from his nightmare. He will not under any circumstance look in my purse. I asked him about it one day after we had been together a while. I had noticed that he would never get me anything out of my purse, he would instead bring it to me. I told him tampons are in the side zipper, so if that was what he was scared of, he could avoid them. He shared with me the details of what he found in his ex's purse. I don't push him about it, it's not really even a big deal. But knowing how his ex made him feel emotionally. From what he has told me, and his moms and sisters. I know that I need be aware of how I treat him and make sure I never do anything to make him feel the way him and his family felt with her. 

When it comes to dealing with a spouses past scars I defiantly have an easier load than Jason. Jason has got to deal with my severe panic disorder. From what happened to me as a child sexually and emotionally, and then trying to work through abuse issues with someone who was in the process of abusing me really messed with my brain. While I'm over Sam, and moved on, my scars don't go away. My attacks are getting fewer and farther between. But sometimes something will trigger and I can't control it. I literally can't breathe, I can't stop shaking, I can't think rationally.

Generally I can understand why something has triggered an attack and know why it's irrational. Part of my therapy was learn to separate myself from the situation and look at it from a different perspective. Generally my triggers are something finance related. Or an unknown phone call. A situation that makes me uncomfortable, or one that reminds me of the life I had when I was married to Sam. 

Just yesterday we were driving home from our Valentine outing. Jason got pulled over for speeding. Unfortunately our insurance cards are out of date. We have insurance. It comes out automatically every month but for some reason we never got an updated card last time. No big deal, just got to call and correct it and get the new cards. Jason went to the store a little later. I was cooking him dinner, candles, the whole romantic Valentine thing. I called him and I thought when I heard him get in the car that meant he was on his way home. So I set the food to be ready as soon as he walked in the door. A few minutes after he should have been home I plated the food and pored the wine. I called him about 7 times. No answer. He was now way past 20 minutes later than it takes to get from the store to our house.  Basically I believed he was dead on the side of the road. Or I was going to get a call saying I needed to get to the hospital immediately. Then suddenly I remembered the encounter with the police and we couldn't show proof of our insurance. What if he had not been paying our bills and realizing he was about to get caught he ran off? Then I was going to be sitting in a hospital with a dying husband finding out he was lying to me too.

Jason finally called me back. I thought he was on his way home. But he had made another stop. NOW he was on his way home. I was in tears, Peyton was so confused. I thought when I answered the phone it would be a police officer saying they took him to the hospital. Later that night I told Jason why I got so worked up. He died laughing at the complete ridiculous story I had made up. First of all, our bank account says, "Allstate" when the money comes out. How could he fake that. Secondly, we HAVE to have insurance because we are still paying for our jeep or they would come repossess our car. I had a good laugh too. We only laughed bout it because in the emotional moment I did not accuse him of anything, because I knew I was completely insane. He has learned when I say and feel things like that, I'm not comparing him to Sam or accusing him of lying, but Im just very damaged. 

Jason and I speak completely different languages. We've had difficulties communicating at times. And it causes arguments. But we've learned in the end we are generally saying the same thing. (Worlds most brilliant couple right here) there are many times I feel he is hiding something from me. Or that he doesn't love me anymore. He gets upset because he thinks I am being ridiculous. (I generally am. See above story) It took a while for us to learn how to talk to each other in these moments. But I think we are figuring out how to communicate better. And help each other in our insecurities, without fighting or saying something to make it worse.

After a weekend away we came home to an eviction notice on our door. I started digging to find out what happened. I saw the checks exit our bank account. Why did our landlord say they bounced? I asked Sam daily if it was him. I told him if he just fessed up we would work it out. He promised me every day it wasn't him and he was clueless. The landlord said they had a wrong number for me so they couldn't ever get a hold of me. His parents graciously gave our landlord what we owed them. We were allowed to stay. 

Where was my money going? (To this day I still don't know, I never will) I couldn't figure it out. I had the bank looking into it. One day and the manager transferred me to their loss prevention. He said he had been hoping to speak to me alone. He had videos of Sam being the one doing it. He told me to come down to his office and I could see for myself. 

I did. It was devastating. Seeing on video proof that my husband was doing fraud on our accounts in my name. I'm thankful for my friend's husband who took off work to drive me the 40 min to the main fraud office. I wouldn't have been able to do that alone. He took me back to my house to pack my bags. Sam had called on the way asking where I was. I told him I was on my way home from the bank seeing the videos. He still acted like he didn't know what I saw. He still tried to deny it. But I saw the videos. I told him it was over. I was taking my dog and staying with a friend for a few days.

There was no way to get out of the lease. There was no way Sam could move out without being on the streets. So I decided we could be roommates. He moved to the spare room. It was seriously the worst experience ever. It was not healthy for either of us. I spent every waking moment at work or at a friends house. Finally he was able to stay with friends. My anxiety calmed down. I was able to feel some peace and start to heal. Then he had a court date which I knew nothing about. The judge put him on house arrest instead of putting him in jail. I didn't have a choice. He was back and so was my anxiety. 

At one point in my life Sam was exactly what I  needed. He taught me about love in the way he treated me when we were dating. Before Sam a lot of my views of what love was very distorted because of experiences while i was growing up. We were a perfect fit in our dreams of what we wanted to do with our lives. I was a hurt scared girl when we met. He helped encourage me and learn to be confident in myself. 

We met when i was in 8th grade. We were both on a missions trip with our youth group. On the plan ride home dad tried to play match maker and changed seats with him so we sat together. He was nice. I didn't think anything more of him at the time. The summer before my senior year Sam was at my house hanging out with my older brother. By the end of the summer we were dating. We were very happy together. We fell in love. We had future plans to do youth ministry together. My freshmen year of college he asked me to marry him. The next March of 2008 we were married.

I remember the moment before my dad walked me down the isle my dad said, "If you don't want to do this you don't have to. I have heard some things about his work ethic." That was the first I had ever heard anything negative about him from my dad. I didn't listen dad loved Sam. Nothing would have changed my mind. I was suppose to marry him, I was crazy in love (or what I thought was love). I wouldn't be where I am or who i am if I didn't. Even if I had the chance to go back in time knowing what I know now, I would  still l do it all again. 

It's been very hard for me to think back and try to remember the good times and why I loved him. When I think of a memory I can't help but wonder what of that was a lie too? When did it really start? We were very happy while we were dating and engaged. And we had many happy times while being married too. A few months before everything blew up the second time I remember telling his mom it was the happiest we have ever been. He had finally after several years made some friends. They were a good group of guys. They would come over and hang out all the time. I loved it. 

I knew he stole from his parents in high-school. It didn't seem like a red flag to me, that's pretty common. On one of my phone conversations with his older brother while I was filing for divorce, I learned that Sam has been writing checks from his bank account while he was dating me. Maybe he always had a problem, and I just didn't know. He meant so much to me. He changed me and was a big influence in my life. I would have done anything for him.  But I can't help but wonder if I meant anything to him? Did I help him in any way? Was I just a silly girl blinded by love? From my point of view it looks like I changed him for the worse. He went from a man going to school and being a youth leader to a criminal who can't keep a job or tell the truth. What did I do? I ruined him. And I have no idea what I did to cause such a dramatic transformation.

I remember feeling after our wedding and Sam moved to Northwest Arkansas with me that something had changed. He was mad all the time. Yelling, Hitting things, I found things that scared me. Whenever I tried to talk to him to figure out what was going on, he would tell me it was all in my head. I developed severe anxiety. I couldn't function in most circumstances. Something was wrong. I had no clue what. I just tried harder to be a better wife. Maybe he was right. It was all in my head. It was probably my fault.

One night he never came home. His cell phone was off. Finally around 1030 I got a call from an unknown number. It was his one phone call. I had to ask him where he was. I had to ask why. He didn't volunteer any information. All I could gather was he was stealing cash from his job because he lied to me about having one. We hung up. I was so confused.

I called his dad because I didn't know what to do. He drove 3.5 hours in the middle of the night to stay with me. (Again, best father in law ever) I remember just laying on the bathroom floor puking out my guts before my father in law arrived. It felt like my heart was trying to come out of my throat. I was crying so hard I couldn't breathe. Why? How? I was a newlywed, this was suppose to be the happiest year of my life. I was broken. There had been something wrong. It wasn't in my head.  The truth was out, it wasn't me. My marriage was filled with lies. I didn't understand? How did he change this much in such a short time? This wasn't who I dated. Did I do something to cause this? It had to be my fault, I had to be doing something wrong.

We sat there waiting for them to release Sam the next afternoon. I felt like it was a dream. A few months before I had worn the prettiest princess dress and danced with my father in law to my favorite song. Now we sat in a jail waiting room after paying his bail. How do you react? I didn't know what to think. My whole body and heart was numb.

Sam walked through the doors. He smiles a smug smile. Looked at his dad and said, "Hey Dad!" I was instantly angry. I don't know what I wanted him to say. But that wasn't it. After an uncomfortably silent drive home, his dad said, "Sam you are my son and I love you. But if you don't get your act together and change you are going to lose everything. If you do it again and Christine doesn't leave you, I'm going to come take you away from her. She doesn't deserve this."

I was shocked. My mind hadn't even thought of leaving him. I don't know what I was thinking, but it wasn't leaving. His parents work for a mission that counsels couples to stay married through hard times. And here his Dad was saying he was going to take him away if he didn't change. I didn't know how to comprehend any of this. 

I ended up telling him we were going to get the help we needed. We were going to work through it. And that if he ever got arrested again, not to bother calling me. I wasn't going to live like this my whole life. We were going to learn from it and become stronger because of it. 

Fast Forward maybe 3 months. I had had ovarian cysts and was having surgery to have them removed. I was highly medicated and couldn't get around well much less drive. Sam went to do his community service. Several hours later his mom called and said she was on her way over. I thought it was odd since she lived 3.5 hours away. I asked what was wrong. Sam was in jail again. Apparently it was a misunderstanding, the police lost records of his community service. He had to finish his hours out in jail. His mom sorted it all out. He was only in for several days, all of which she stayed and took care of me. 

Looking back now I can see that it wasn't a misunderstanding. Most things that seemed crazy or horrible luck that he had I look back now and see how blind and stupid I was. Did the rest of the world see what he was doing and how he was treating me? Or did he have them fooled too? When I think back I can't help by feel like an idiot for not seeing through his lies.

I feel everyone understands that no one is perfect. Everyone is going to fail and hurt even the one they love. Trying to hide that failure is no way to handle it. If he would have just told me the truth about what was going on with our finances. Yes, I would have been furious. But as his wife, how could I help or be apart of our marriage if I was clueless about what was going on? How could I encourage him without knowing what he was going through? I couldn't. I was set up to fail. He thought he was protecting me. But in actuality he was single handedly destroying me and us. I didn't have a clue.

In the Bible Belt we are raised to believe divorce should never be an option when you are a Christian. You work out whatever issues come up. My parents said all the time they would never even mention the "d" word. It's not an option. That was how I was raised. How can you love Jesus and want to divorce your husband at the same time?

I was hurt. My husband had been lying to me for basically our whole marriage. Him getting arrested and having most of our future ruined was not enough of a wake up call for him.  After years of struggling to connect with him and have him let me into his life, I had finally felt peace that divorce was the decision. I assumed everyone thought I was wrong and wanted to change my mind. 

The church I belonged to and love was a long drive. I was hurting. I was angry. I felt like I would be judged. But in all honesty, only a couple of the people there even had a clue what was going on. So many mornings I got up to go, and as I was walking to the door I would get so angry I would have a panic attack. Eventually I just quit trying.

I have thought back on my conversations with those who knew the intimate details of my marriage and what I had been going through. Not one of them told me I was wrong. In fact everyone I really let know all the details was strongly encouraging me to run as fast as I can. 

Why did I feel like I wasn't allowed to pray or go to church? It was all in my head. During that time I physically hurt because of how broken my heart was. I was lonely, I thought no one understood, and they all judged me. It that wasn't the case. I isolated myself from my friends, my church family and my God because I was ashamed at what my life had turned into. I was the one judging me, not anyone else. I willingly did the one thing that I wasn't suppose to ever consider. Though I had no control over any of it, I blamed myself for it all.  

In my thoughts of wanting to help other people in my situation I tried to think of what I would have benefited from. Honestly nothing would have made it any easier. It was a tough road I had no choice but to go down it. But knowing that I was not the only one would have made me feel much less like a failure. So I felt compelled to write down and share my story. I don't know why. I don't know how. But it's not to hurt anyone or make anyone look bad. It's to share my feelings, failures and experiences.