Picking Up the Peaces

We all have expectations. We have expectations for life, our children, our job, our family, school, the government, church, and our marriage. We have expectations for everything. Some of those expectations are unrealistic. Some of those expectations are low, and some are high. Some of the expectations are necessities. As we age and experience life some of those expectations change. I used to expect that I would be a good housekeeper, and then I had children and life happened. Now, I know that I'm not the best housekeeper, and I don't expect my house to be clean all the time. There are times when I want, or need, my house to be clean. I used to expect myself to be a good wife, and always meet my husbands needs. Well, I am a good wife, and I have always tried to meet my husband's needs. Little did I know, I could never meet his "needs" because he had unrealistic expectations of me, so his "needs" were unrealistic.This has been heartbreaking. I always e

PIECES OF ME Somewhere along the way, some of the pieces that I lost were pieces of who I was. I used to be confident, happy, and enjoyed doing things and being active. At some point, I lost that. One of the reasons I started this blog was so that I could start writing again. I've always enjoyed writing, and am pretty good at it. I've started many stories that some people are still waiting for the ending of. I've always had a love of words, and enjoyed reading. Now, I have a hard time sitting for a lengthy period of time and reading. Instead, I watch movies, or shows, and play games. This is how I escape and avoid feeling and thinking. When I'm writing, I have to think and I have to feel. I've never been very good about writing in a journal. I've had the same journal since I was 12. I have added pages, but now I'm almost 39 and still using the same journal. Granted, I've used other journals along the way as well, but this main journal has major gaps

Yep, the crap hit the fan while it was on. Who would've thought that me starting my own recovery process would result in crap hitting the fan? Really, I think I just realized that I was worth something, and that the feelings that I'd experienced for all those years were real and valid. I finally realized that all the messages that I'd been getting from people around me, about how worthless and horrible I was, were completely wrong. I deserved to be treated with respect. I deserved to be treated as though I mattered. I deserved to be number one, numero uno in my husband's life. I was tired of being number five or six, or whatever I was. It was hard to tell what ranking I had in his life because I was getting mixed messages from him. He would say that I was important to him, and that I was the most important person in his life, but his actions would tell a completely different story. I've come to realize that, for years, I would make excuses in my head for his behav

My D-day, as some people call it, was so long ago that I don't even remember the exact date. All I really remember about the time frame is that it was sometime between my first and second child. My husband admitted to me that he had been viewing pornography and masturbating. He disclosed this as we were lying in bed ready to go to sleep. After he confessed, he went right to sleep. I was up pretty much all night. At first, I remember lying in bed stunned by his confession. Then I remember starting to cry, so I left our bedroom and went downstairs to the living room. I had so many thoughts go through my head. I know most women get angry. I don't think I felt the anger. I felt devastated. Surprisingly, I felt compassion. One thing that kept going through my head was, "I can't leave him to fight this alone." I don't know where the thought came from. Maybe it was God's way of telling me that I needed to stick this out, and to not make a decision about anythin

Have you ever been working on a jigsaw puzzle and, all of a sudden, someone comes along and puts it away, or destroys it? Then, sometimes, the pieces end up all over the floor and they need to be picked up, but you won't know if you got all of the pieces until you try to put the puzzle together again, because there are 1000 pieces to this puzzle? I hate it when that happens. It's so frustrating because those pieces are so difficult to place anyway! It's especially frustrating when you've been working on this puzzle for hours, or even days, and this happens. You are almost done, and you can see how close you are to finishing, and then BAM! all that hard work feels like it was a waste of time. Life is like a puzzle. You spend hours, days, years, and even decades trying to make sure all the pieces fit in correctly, and then BAM! something happens that causes all the pieces to fall on the floor. You think your life is going pretty well, and you're doing pretty good,