“I seem to have a fairly drama-filled life. Not always of my own creation, but stuff just seems to happen to me and my family, you know? I married someone, however, who dislikes drama and attention – and will do almost anything to avoid being the center of attention in any situation, whether it’s pawning off his school captain speeches to his vice-captain when he was in high school, or not wanting to dance with me at our wedding, or even refusing to dance with me at any subsequent weddings we attend.
So how does he cope with the drama that I’ve undoubtedly brought into his life and forced him to handle?
Like a freaking champ.
Seriously, my husband just seems to take the constant ‘happenings’ in our lives in stride. And when I say happenings, I mean big stuff, like me almost dying from a pulmonary embolism when I was 33 weeks pregnant with our first child, my 7 year opiate drug addiction that accompanied being prescribed too many painkillers for too long, the gestational diabetes with our third (surprise) baby that resulted in me having to be airlifted to a big hospital 3-4 hours away from our country home and the baby coming almost 6 weeks early, the complications from the emergency c-section I had that resulted in me needing a total hysterectomy at the age of 29. Not to mention most recently, our eldest daughter almost dying and having to be put into a coma and intubated as a result of a mystery pneumonia that attacked her out of nowhere and we still don’t know the cause of.
Big stuff.
He not only handles it, but he stays stable emotionally and physically the whole way through. Like, truly stable. Don’t get me wrong, he gets emotional, and truth be told, all the stuff – particularly my drug addiction – has broken him a couple of times, but overwhelmingly he is a rock. My rock.
I married him mostly because of his drive and ambition. He’s a dreamer, my man, and has always had the motivation and skills to be able to fulfill his dreams, which has resulted in him building and running full time his own recording studio, which I’m so proud of.
I’ve stayed married to him for 10 years (this May) because of his fierce and passionate love for me. I grew up in an unstable environment. I was born as the result of an affair, and have lived with the complete cowardice and denial of my existence and abandonment my biological father has shown me throughout my life – sometimes reaching out to me out of guilt and then pushing me away when his wife told him she didn’t want him to have a relationship with me, and then reaching out to me again when the guilt struck again. He was and is a coward that is not worth the breath in his lungs.
Also, the man my mom married when I was 2 was an alcoholic and verbally abusive to her and my brother, until she’d had enough and took us and fled one night under a barrage of verbal abuse from her drunk husband. That man, who I now proudly call Dad, turned his life around, went to rehab, never touched alcohol again and dedicated his life to serving God.
So, needless to say, I’ve had a complicated example of manhood and what was acceptable behavior from a man as a woman. I myself was never abused, and I thank God I never was, but I was always afraid of rejection from men, especially due to my experience with the biological sperm donor.
When I met Craig, he’d grown up in the most stable environment possible. Christian home, a mom and dad who loved each other and had 4 children together. They lived in the same house his whole life and he went to the same Christian school from Kindergarten to Grade 12, whereas I moved countless times and went to nine different schools, including overseas in the United States. He represented stability and functionality to me. Something I always craved, but didn’t know how to find because I was also easily bored with relationships. I needed mystery and stability in the same man, and in Craig, I found it.
My husband loves me without reserve, despite the fact I’ve pushed him away countless times, one time almost successfully with my drama. My drug addiction, which I mentioned previously, was the one almost successful time, which was also the catalyst to me changing my life and realizing what I had before it was too late – even though it looked like it already was.
I had deep, troubling issues with painkillers earlier in our marriage, and then, I experienced a miscarriage. I had gone off my meds when I discovered I was pregnant, but my doctor resumed my prescription of oxycodone when I first miscarried because I wasn’t pregnant anymore technically, and I found over those 6 weeks that the pills stopped more than just my physical pain – they numbed my emotions as well. On a side note, if you’ve had a miscarriage, no matter how early, it’s OK to grieve. It’s OK to talk about it and acknowledge the life that was lost. I didn’t know that and if I did, who knows if I would have gone down the path I did.
Thus began my spiral downward. I started taking more and more of these pills to get the same numbing feeling as my tolerance to the drugs grew. I started lying to my husband, my friends and family, and my doctor, going to 2 or 3 doctor’s appointments a day to get more pills. I was chasing the numbness. I would hide packets of pills around the house anywhere I could, on shelves behind clothes, in boxes, drawers, cupboards, even in my kids’ rooms – anywhere. If I couldn’t get a doctor to prescribe me the strong stuff, I’d take handfuls of over the counter codeine mixed with acetaminophen – up to 40 or 50 a day to get a similar ‘high.’ To this day I don’t know how I didn’t die from liver failure.
By 2017, I had two more beautiful baby girls, a husband and a debilitating drug addiction. I had been through detox more times than I could count trying to get free, I’d been to rehab, my husband had threatened to leave me and take the kids and actually had a couple of times, but he always came back. I was so good at lying to him, myself and everyone around me that I didn’t even know what the truth was anymore.
I drove high with my kids in the car, I would drag them to appointment after appointment where they would hear me lie through my teeth about some pain I’d made up just to get a script. I hate that I did that to them and I will always have that on my conscience. In April 2017, the day after my 30th birthday, I lied to my husband for the last time. He found out I’d been using drugs again behind his back and packed up, took the kids and left. I was devastated.
I begged my husband to come back, but he was done.
I called around to any rehab I could find and got on the waiting list. I got into one in my hometown which I’m so grateful for. When I got out of rehab, I still had a lot of work to do to repair the damage I’d done. I have now been drug free for a little over a year and I can’t even express to you how much my life has changed. I’ve gone from a broken mess just about to end my life, to being so much healthier in body and mind. I have a beautiful home to live in with my family.
This man, who fathered my three beautiful children, who has taken me back after lying and deceiving him countless times, who has put up with all of the drama and instability I’ve brought into his life, who has patiently supported me and encouraged me in my flaky attempts to find some sort of hobby outside of my kids, and has lovingly guided me with wisdom to help me choose to go back to work and enjoy my life and contribution to society again; this man, who has grounded me and brought stability and human unconditional love into my life, who has loved our children and embraced fatherhood before either of us were ready to be parents, who thinks beyond the realms of possibility and then pulls it off in everything he puts his hand and heart into; I’m so grateful for him.
I seem to have a fairly drama-filled life. He’s a private person with a preference for a drama free-existence. Somehow, it works.
I guess opposites really do attract.”
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This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Jaimie Honeysett of Orange, NSW Australia. Submit your own story here, and subscribe to our best stories in our free newsletter here.
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