Why Not Give Up?

You might be asking yourself, if I was so stressed and unhappy for so long, why didn’t I just give up and leave? The truth is that I have thought about it many times, and my husband has wondered if I would be happier without him, but it’s not an easy decision to make for anyone.

MY VALUES

There are some fundamental things to understand about me, as a person, to get why I have not given up. 

I was raised in a Catholic home and even made the decision to go to a Catholic High School. I had very strong religious values and even thought about becoming a nun at one point because I never had any luck in the love department as a teen. You could say I was a late bloomer in that department. It seemed that I blossomed in my later teens and early twenties. After High School, when I started University and met new people, all of a sudden I was attractive. I had never felt that before. I had never felt good enough before this time. I wasn’t pretty enough or was it my personality? I don’t really know. I used to watch my girlfriends and secretly compare myself and I could never understand how they had boyfriends that liked them and vice versa. With me, boys I liked, never liked me back. Instead, boys that I didn’t consider my taste, liked me.

But, in University, I even had a guy send me anonymous letters telling me how he thought that I was the most attractive girl he had ever seen! What? Me! Who’s playing a joke on me? It was no joke, the writer revealed himself and it turned out that I knew him. We dated for about four months. He was seven years older and into things that I wasn’t, so in the end we were just at different places in our lives so we went our separate ways.

My past with my grandfather made me question my ability to be loved. I always felt different from other people. I still do. I had also watched 3 of my siblings divorce and one “take a break” for a year and get back together and I did not want that for myself. I had made a decision to marry this person, spend my life with him and raise a family together, so I wanted to do my best to work through difficult times.

MAKING PERMANENT DECISIONS FOR TEMPORARY PROBLEMS

I have seen people that I know split up and have always wondered if they really did all that they could to make it work, or did they just get tired and give up? It’s really none of my business and they made the decision that was best for them at the time.

I have adopted the phrase, “making permanent decisions for temporary problems” in the last few years. The original phrase is from former talk show host, Phil Donohue, with reference to suicide being a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Though there have been many days where I wanted to walk away, I would always stop, reflect and ask myself a few questions that have been the lifeblood to my long lasting relationship, including being a permanent or temporary situation.

1. Do I enjoy being with this person? **Number ONE for sure. You have to enjoy being together, enjoy each others company and doing stuff together. So many people say that they have married their best friend, so have you?

2. Can I move past this? With the help of counsellors, long, deep, real conversations and time, will tell. Some things take longer than others.

3. What do I like about him? The things you like should outway the things that you don’t. 

4. Is he a good father, partner and provider? An involved dad and loving, caring partner have always been important to me. It never mattered to me which one of us our kids would to go when they needed us, as long as they came to one of us. I use provider loosely because its not just about financial status. Although, I have been fortunate in my situation, the more you earn the more you spend.

5. Is what’s going on a permanent or temporary situation? Can I live with it if it’s permanent? How will I deal with it if it is? I have learned that there are some permanent things that I can live with because all of the other things in my life with this person outway this one thing. Through communication, research and self discovery, I have been able to learn how to deal with my fears about certain things and am working on accepting these things about my partner, instead of walking away.

I contine to appreciate myself and my husband and the life journey that we share. I have come to realize that the overall journey is more important than life’s unexpected hiccups. With the right tools, I am working on forgiveness, acceptance and living my best life, though some days are very difficult. It is still a work in progress.