I Caved

It was 3am and I found myself crying uncontrollably, staring at my daughter who had been crying for over four hours. I was alone. I couldn't take it. What had I gotten myself into? Hubs was at work and I had been desperately texting him for hours now to please hurry home. When he finally walked in the door at 3:30am after putting in a long day at work, he looked at me and told me to get some sleep, took our daughter and left the room. My goodness, what did I do to deserve such an amazing man??

Oh no...do I even deserve this amazing of a man? Immediately panic and anxiety set in and for weeks following I went over every scenario in my head of how my husband will decide to break my heart and shatter my world. I waited. I knew it was coming. Surely a man that is willing to work two jobs, sometimes 20+ hours in a weekend, take the baby in the middle of the night (sometimes all night), run to the store to get me anything I wanted whenever I wanted, was more than understanding about the "6 week post-partum" rule and did the dishes without being asked did not want to stay with a mess such as myself, right?

I knew it was coming.

Three weeks later Hubs was home on his few hours in between jobs, and instead of napping like he once used to, he was playing with our daughter. I was sitting on our living room floor when he took her to her room for a diaper change. I lost it. I couldn't take it anymore. Why was he torturing me like this? I'm already an emotional mess and dread every moment of the day, and now it is only made worse by waiting for the moment my husband tells me he's leaving me for someone else, someone who has their shit together. I broke down. I bawled. Hubs returned to the room concerned at the sight of me crumbling in the middle of our peaceful home. I told him everything. I'm miserable! I have everything I could ever want and I'm sad all the time and you're going to leave me and we're never going to have time together again and I feel so worthless sitting in this house day after day and I feel guilty for not loving our daughter more or playing with her like you do *gasp for air* and I have a panic attack every time you leave this house and I don't know what's wrong with me or what to do anymore!

Whoa, crazy lady.

I think this was the moment I fell in love with Hubs all over again. He didn't look at me like I was out of my mind, and what he said next was nothing close to the sense that he had found someone else and could I kindly move out as soon as possible. No. He told me he loved me and that having P brought us closer together and he loves our life together and wouldn't change it. He held my hand and told me it's not easy, but that eventually things will go back to normal again. I didn't believe the normal part, but I believed everything else. And when I told him I think I need to call the doctor, he didn't try to talk me out of it or look at me any differently. Instead, he told me whatever I needed to do to get better and be happy again is what I needed to do. I can't believe I had held these feelings in for a grueling 5 weeks!

For so long I felt like I needed to be the strong, do it all, super mom/super wife. I didn't think I could show weakness because that would be letting down my husband, my family, my friends and my daughter. I held everything in, hoping it would all go away and I would magically become me again. Wouldn't it be nice if that's how things worked? And maybe it does. But after 5 weeks of feeling like every day my entire world could fall apart, I couldn't wait any longer. I prayed every night to God to please give me the strength and patience I needed to be a good wife and a good mom and every day I felt like God had let me down....until the night I caved and told Hubs everything and reached out for help. My strength was gifted to me in the form of telling my husband everything and my patience...well, we're working on that, God and I. I'm still healing. I'm still on my long road to recovery. But now I know it does get better and it can get better. I only wish I had been able to cave sooner.