Reunion

At this very minute Daniel is on a plane coming home! His two month deployment is over! I am beyond excited for him to come home! The Air Force has sent him away from me for a month or two before, but this time was different for several reasons, the main one being he'd never been sent into the war before. I didn't worry much about him. I guess I was just blessed with a tremendous sense of peace during the whole deployment. Thank you to all of you who have kept him in your prayers - whether you prayed for me or not, I felt the power of your prayers for him. It also helped that we were able to email or video chat online almost every day. David was great company to me too. He never let me get bored ;-)

These last couple months have been a time of significant growth for me (for Daniel too, but this post isn't really about him). I've been amazed at the impact my experiences have had on our marriage. I really want to tell you about my journey, but it is very personal. I am extremely nervous to share this with you. I am afraid that you'll think less of me and/or Daniel, or think that I'm just being preachy (I admit that I know I can get preachy sometimes). Also, I'm nervous because I know that our families read this blog, and, frankly, it's just kind of scary to give family this kind of look into our relationship. But what I have learned has made me happier than I've ever been and I feel like I've been relieved from a heavy burden I'd made myself carry for a long, long time. I've decided to just suck it up and open up with you in the hopes that what I have to say might help any of you in some way.

I first want to preface by saying that I have always loved Daniel and I know he has always loved me. We did find ourselves, however, running out of things to talk about. I think I decided that I knew everything I wanted to know about Daniel and had shared with him everything I wanted him to know about me.

Becoming a mother has not seemed like a huge adjustment. I feel like I was prepared as well as I could have been to bring a child into our family and raise him and see that his needs are met. What I was completely unprepared for was how our baby would effect our marriage. After David's birth I became increasingly resentful of Daniel because he didn't seem to be trying hard enough to make me happy. I felt like a failure as a wife because nothing I did seemed to make him happy either. One night, after hours of listening to my complaints about how unhappy and empty I felt and how it was his fault, Daniel said to me, "I just want you to be yourself." As I thought about that I realized that I didn't really know how to do that anymore. Now as I look back, I know that our relationship had been less than great for quite a while. The birth of our baby was just a catalyst that alerted me to a need for changing our status quo.

Daniel and I have been married for six years. In that time I have read dozens of books about marriage and relationships, I've even done several studies in the scriptures. I've learned a lot of great things from those books. Variations of this one idea were taught in each one: Focus on meeting your spouse's needs. Ok, that's what I had been trying to do for 6 years but I always felt like I was failing. Nothing I tried seemed to make either one of us any happier. I must be a horrible and selfish person. When David was born I felt even worse. I felt like I was giving literally every ounce of my energy to this brand new person and that I didn't have anything left to give my husband. I was totally empty, emotionally overdrawn and didn't feel like anyone was giving back to me.

I loved Daniel so much that I was trying to become him - in a sense. I washed the dishes (when he was around) the way he did. I only fixed food that he liked, I parked the car in the driveway the way he did, I only suggested we do activities I thought he would want to do and stopped thinking about things that I wanted to do. I thought that this was what all those books were talking about when they advised, "Meet his needs." It seems silly to me now that I translated that idea into "Do what he does and what he says without question." No wonder I started feeling resentful and defensive. Because I thought my needs and desires didn't matter, I started to emotionally withdraw from him. I became defensive whenever he would ask me why I did this or that and took every little comment as a personal attack. He could sense it, but I never realized that that's what I was doing.

When Daniel left for his deployment I began the most honest, painful self-evaluation of my life. I read a few more books and did a lot of thinking and analyzing of myself and my behaviors. I thought about what Daniel had said, "I just want you to be yourself." I felt like I was making some progress and was feeling pretty good about the things I had learned. One of those things was I finally figured out what my real "love language" is. Daniel had been asking me for years what he could do to show me he loves me because I never seemed to believe him, but I never had a real answer for him. I did now! I was so excited! I thought that as soon as he starts doing these specific things then I would be happy. I told him about what I had learned and that led to a conversation that really didn't go very well. Actually, it was horrible. I was devastated. I felt awful that I had even brought it up, but at the same time I felt defiant. I thought sharing this information with him would help improve our marriage. I wondered, "Is it selfish of me to want to be shown love in my love language?" I prayed and asked God that very question. Within seconds the answer came to my mind and heart, "No it is not selfish. But, now that you've told him what you want, you need to focus on loving him in his." What a wonderful answer to prayer! I felt validated and was given instruction as to what my responsibility was now. Since then I have relied heavily on the scriptures and prayer to answer my questions about my responsibilities.

At around that same time, I had a conversation with my mom. She told me that ultimately my happiness is my responsibility. That was like a bonk on the head that snapped me out of the self righteous pity party I was living in. What a novel idea! See, I had always thought that I would get married and that my husband would accept sole responsibility for my happiness and I would do the same for him. Well no wonder we were both so unhappy! For me to have made Daniel the end all be all of my happiness was ridiculously unfair. If I made him in charge of my happiness, it was easy to blame his shortcomings for my unhappiness. Again, this idea seems so childish to me now. Daniel can do things that I like and that bring a smile to my face and joy to my heart, but like my mom said, ultimately my happiness is my responsibility. The only other time when I was almost as happy as I am right now, was right after my mission and before I got married. That was a time when I was very self-aware and was doing things just to make me happy. I was in charge of my life and I knew it.

In the scriptures it says that it is good to lose oneself in service of others. I definitely believe that. However, I've come to realize that it is also good and important to develop and maintain one's sense of self. If my cup is not full, I am not able to give as freely or as gladly to others. I now feel like I can be the woman that Daniel needs without feeling resentful or forced. I can park the car in the driveway the way he likes it because I want to, not because I'm afraid he'll be unhappy with me if I don't.

Daniel has been so encouraging and forgiving. His is the most perfect, unconditional love I have ever experienced from another human being. I have been amazed at how easily and quickly and readily he has forgiven me of the years of loneliness, frustration and pain I have caused him. I was blessed with just a taste of those feelings recently, but his ability to forgive me has made it easier for me to forgive myself. He also knows that I'm still in the process of breaking many bad habits and will have relapses here and there, but he knows I'm trying.

Despite being separated for 60 days and over 6,000 miles, Daniel and I are closer than ever. We are both happier and more open with one another. I am more excited to see him tomorrow than I was even on our wedding day (that day's excitement was mixed with nervousness).

Like I said at the beginning, these things are extremely personal to me. It may seem odd that I would want to share them on the world wide web, but I hope someone has been able to glean something from my experience that will help or give hope of change in his or her own journey or relationships.