Love is Kind

When acting from kindness, you see the need, and then you quickly make your move. First. Don't wait for your spouse to be kind first. Make it your daily mission. It is difficult to demonstrate love when you feel little to no motivation. But love in it's truest sense is not based on feelings. Rather, love determined to show thoughtful actions even when there to be no reward. You will never learn to love until you learn to demonstrate kindness. First. 

Day Two's Dare:

In addition to saying nothing negative to your spouse again today, do at least one unexpected gesture as an act of kindness.

Well with having a husband who pulls in and out of ports and is deployed this can be difficult. I asked myself if I could really do these 40 days with him gone. But that was rubbish. There is no way that I will let my those inner demons tell me I can't do this. So what was I going to do today as an act of kindness. How would this work if we had no communication. So I began to search online and found the deployment love dare. They help transition the love dare for deployments a little easier. It did help a little. So today I took his car out for a spin with a friend of mine to get the engine running and to keep it from dying.

Does he know I did this yet, no. However, when he pulls in he will read the text message that I started his car. I also sent a note that said "Thank you for working so hard babes, I love you". So while I have said nothing negative to him it makes it a little easier when he is underneath the water. However, I know at some point he will pull in and it will be a struggle again. I was asked today by a fellow wife if I was going to talk to him. I doubted myself for a moment, I asked myself whether I would. For a split second I thought "Hmmm I should make him suffer and not talk to him" and then I fought back and simply responded yes I would be talking to him.

I am not going to shun him, or shut him out just because I don't agree with what he is doing. As tough as that may seem to most. I am modeling myself after Christ. It's not right for me to treat him poorly because he treated me poorly. How will things ever change if I  were to keep that attitude? Playing tit for tat and constant conditional love. Basing how and when I love him on how and when he loves me or does things for me. How is that going to make anything better except for add more negativity, resentment and animosity to an already dire situation?

Learning how to unconditionally love someone is difficult. I can honestly say I didn't really understand Love and what it meant to unconditionally love someone without question, without any reciprocation, any reward, or expecting something in return. This is one of the most difficult lessons I am learning in life and in my marriage. I am also learning that I need to be more involved in the church and find friends with in the church to be prayer warriors with. I think this will help make all the difference. Because the truth is, this is war. Satan is waging a war on my marriage and I need all the help I can get and I will not lose. 

So here I was thinking that Day 2 was over and I was getting ready to close out this blog and the phone rings. It was  my husband. I could feel a panic setting in a little. The uneasiness in my stomach. Conversation seemed to be ok for a bit and I was trying to fight the negativity I was feeling. I think it was also a sense of guilt as well. From not telling him that I knew about everything and the intimate details. It has been eating away at me for some time now. I rifled with whether I would say something or not and then it flowed out of me. I let him know that I wanted to tell  him something but that I was in no way trying to be critical, negative or make him feel worse. 

I wanted him to know that this wasn't coming from a hostile place but a place of my own guilt for keeping him in the dark. I let him know that I knew about everything. The intimate details of his indiscretions and that if he wanted to talk about it I was here. He expressed he didn't want to talk to me about this. It was instant he felt anger and I could feel is seething all the way from across the globe. But he also wanted to shut the conversation down instead he expressed his anger vocally. That he was fighting a battle in his head of even coming home, that he was struggling with just serving me papers and being done with it all. Hearing those words were the most painful and gut wrenching feelings, I felt paralyzed in my seat, in my mind. I physically could not speak. It was a strange sensation. I don't know what it was or why it happened but I was silent and he rattled on more.

He expressed "I don't know why you went digging for that information when I confessed". I still said nothing and let him speak some more. But that was the problem. I didn't feel he confessed and what a word to use. Confession in my mind means confessing your sins with truth, with remorse and the effort to want to change or make up for those sins. To confess by definition means to acknowledge one's sins in order to obtain absolution. One of the many meanings of term but how I see it. If he really had confessed why didn't he tell me the whole truth? Why did he make up so many half truths? And why did he keeps the apps on his phone and continue to talk to women even after telling me of his own volition that he had deleted everything? I did not agree with this but following my love dare, I chose to say nothing and let him continue to be angry and get things off his chest.

I know a lot of it was anger flowing through him, I know that I was being tested to see if I would stick it out or give up and fan the flames to his anger. The next thing he said was "I wish you would flip out get angry and just leave". I knew at that moment, I wasn't going anywhere. I wasn't giving up or giving into the insecurities or fear. I thought to myself "Please God, help me ". It was quick, short and right back into the conversation and I expressed that I know he is human and he's going to make mistakes along the way. That whether I agreed with what he was doing or not I was going to love him. That whether he did what I wanted or not I was going to unconditionally love him. Regardless of how he treated me, regardless of whether I felt he deserved it or not. 

I began to explain to him what unconditional love meant to me. He tried to explain his lies away and they fell on deaf ears. I heard the words coming out of his mouth but I just didn't have it in me to believe or trust what he was saying was true. I knew that some of was truth and some of it was still lies. Even after being confronted with the truth that I knew everything, I don't quite understand the need he has to continue to lie and why it is so difficult for him to be open, vulnerable and honest with me. I have been trying to foster an environment where he can tell me the most difficult things and I would not be angry or make him feel worse. I don't understand why it is so scary to be open with me? Why does he feel conversation is strained? Why does he find it so easy to talk to these women about life and everything in between and not me? All these questions will go unanswered until we find the root of the problem or he chooses to talk about it. 

He then began to express that if he felt he could talk to me we wouldn't be having these problems. I understand that it takes two for a marriage to break. But in my heart of hearts I feel that is an issue he needs to work on and contend with. I am working on a lot of my own hang ups and making myself better. Why can't he? It is clear he has been harboring this for a very long time and chose to internally let it build inside of him until the point of no return. I am not a mind reader, I didn't know what signs to look for and I didn't know that he really needed to talk. I know that part of that is not having more conversation with him, I know that I am part to blame in a way but I also wish he would have just expressed it. Not when it's far beyond the extreme and you have to use other women to fill the voids in your marriage because your needs are not being met. 

And yet still through all of this, bringing the lies into the light there was still no remorse. If he truly wanted to confess why was there no remorse? Why would you keep doing the things you are confessing to? I may not express it outwardly to him or anyone I know but it hurts. This whole ordeal is difficult for me. It takes every bit of determination I have not to fall into a depression, to get up, keep moving forward, keep pushing, keep praying and not to lose hope. It is clear he does not yet feel remorse for hurting me at all. In fact, I am not yet a factor in his mind to be worried about. Which is a tough pill for me to swallow right now. Showing him unconditional love in this situation was horrendous. I felt sick on the inside speaking with him. I wanted to hang up, I wanted to scream, I wanted to break down and just give up. I wanted to tell him how hurt I was, how what he was doing was literally shredding me to pieces. But what good was that going to do? 

If someone does not feel remorse and is still battling negative emotions in their head, how can they clearly hear or even care if their actions are hurting someone? It is clear he is in a negative tailspin and is very selfish right now. And I can not feed into that with my own selfishness as well. So we ended the conversation as good as it could have been considering. At least there were I love you's exchanged. Even if it was routine, it was something. It was hope, even a very small bit of hope. I got off the phone and while I expected to cry I didn't. I closed my eyes and I prayed to God. I thanked him for getting me through that conversation, for helping me to fight the urge of negativity and to yell or hurt him. I also asked him to soften my husband's heart and to help him with this fight because it's not one that I can battle alone. 

Day Two was completed and it was even tougher then Day One. Just when I thought I had it in the bag, my strength and faith were tested. While I may not have handled the situation perfectly, I bounced back and did the best that I could. I can only thank God today for helping me through another yet difficult day. So Day Two down and here's to another day of Fireproofing my marriage!