NEVER STOP TALKING

"I think we should just get a divorce", " I could not agree more". These are words that are going on in marriages everyday all over the World. I have two very good friends who are going through this, after 23 and 13 years of marriage. I would give anything to have the opportunity that both of these couples have to fix their marriages. See, their marriages do not have the damage mine does. They are divorcing because they just do not want to do the work involved to save their relationships and families. "It's his fault", "It's her fault", is all I hear.


I think of those of us who are trying to save our marriages after the absolute worst damage has been done. The struggles we deal with on a daily basis, the pain we face every minute, the fears we feel, especially the fear of, "Will they do this to me again?" My Pastor/Counselor told me, not that long ago, that it is not a matter of "IF, but WHEN". That is scary and the thought never leaves my mind. So I put it in God's hands and let it go. One thing I know, if he does it again, I will know and I will go. If my Pastor is right, than I have to ask myself if I am wasting my time trying to salvage a marriage that is already gone. The only thing that keeps me here, still fighting every day for my family, is this time I am aware of the man that is in my life, I know what he is truly capable of, this time I have boundaries set so high he could never jump them and the accountibility is, in one word, "GONE", I'm GONE, no looking back a second time. Now, if I say it, I'll do it, no more maybe's, no more ignoring, no more looking the other way, no more shuting up. This time I am wide awake and willing to move on. The greatest damage there is to marriage has happened, over and over in mine, yet every day I face it. While so many marriage, with so little damage are ending up in the divorce court. WHY? I believe I have found the answer to my question:


I heard the most powerful message on: http://www.puresexradio.com/ the other day, it was called the "HURTING CYCLE", it described my marriage so absolutely, incredibly dead on, prior to my discovery day. The world I was living in, was on that show. The hurt and pain, prior to discovery that I felt could not have been better explained than how Jonathan and Stephen said it. I am positive if you went and listened, you would hear your own life in it. In fact I would wager that in 95% of marriages this is happening.


In all the marriages that I am hearing about and watching disintegrate, as far as I know there has been no infidelity in them, yet they are ending in divorce. Families are separating and children are being hurt. I have asked myself why. Why would they want to end their marriages when they have so little damage. Maybe I see it as little damage because mine has such great damage. Here I am working at saving my marriage, my family, after the absolutely worst storm hit it and others are just throwing theirs away. WHY? After listening to Pure Sex Radio, I got it. There is hurt, with to much pride and an unwillingness to TALK to each other. It is just to much work. Wow, if they could just see how much work it takes after your marriage has been hit by a tornado, (sex addiction, infidelity) maybe they would realize just how easy it would be for them to salvage their relationship. Sometimes I just want to scream, TALK TO EACH OTHER, how hard does that have to be. Yell, scream, get mad, but do something, say something, throw your darn pride out the window and humble yourself. What does God say about pride? "A proud man is a stupid man but a humble man is wise." Where is the wisdom is breaking up your family?

I remember when I stopped talking to my husband. I had tried for years to get him to hear me, to listen to my concerns over our marriage, to get help for himself and our marriage, yet no matter what I said or did, he would refuse and after awhile I stopped asking. In fact I stopped talking all together to him. I only spoke when speaking was necessary. I can not tell you how many times my friends would say, "talk to your husband" and I would say back, "why, it will do no good, he won't hear me, or he'll just lie to me, so why should I waste my time and energy." When I think back to those times, I get extremely angry with myself, because I should have spoken up regardless, I should have screamed it from the mountain tops. Instead I buried it inside myself and began the journey to resentment and totally distancing myself from him. Both physically and emotionally.


One Sunday afternoon, about four years prior to discovery, I felt so lonely in my marriage, I felt like I had this man who was nothing more than a body sitting in my living room. I took a walk alone, listening to music on my - walkman radio - cassette player, (no, I had not heard of the Ipod yet, lol) a song started to play called, "It Matters To Me" by Faith Hill and I started to cry, that song said so much of how I was feeling at the time, it stirred up so many emotions in me. After that song was over another one came on by Patti Loveless called "I Don't Want To Feel Like That", after Patti's was over another one came on, "Whatever You Say", by Martina McBride, I could not believe that these songs were playing one after the other and each one described emotions I was dealing with in my marriage. When I got home, I went to my collections of tapes and found all three songs, I walked down stairs and put them in the player, turned up the volume and said to Wayne, "Please listen to these three songs, they say so much about what I feel and how our marriage is failing, we have to do something to change, I can not take it anymore, please listen with an open heart and mind". I turned them on and while Wayne and I sat in that room together listening to these songs, I cried the entire time as he sat there stone faced, saying NOT ONE WORD. I sat there in tears and he showed NO emotions, is that Love? Is that even an ounce of Care? NO Yet I stayed. I had no boundaries, I had no accountability to how he treated me or our marriage. He would not TALK and I did not push for answers. SHAME ON ME, SHAME ON ME.


Today, I have boundaries and let me tell you the accountability is harsh. Never again will I allow someone to disrespect me like that, never will I give and give while receiving absolutely nothing in return, NEVER again will I disrespect myself. My God, wants me to be my very best and I can only be my GREATEST by living OUT LOUD. I will never be SILENT again. If I could only teach this to others. If I could wrap up everything I have learned the past 2 years and hand it out as a gift to every marriage in this world, I would do it, I would scream it from the highest mountain. TALK, TALK and TALK some more, SPEAK UP, SPEAK OUT and than STAND UP, STAND TALL, STAND STRAIGHT, STAND STRONG, SPEAK UNTIL YOU HAVE BEEN HEARD, IF NOT BY WORDS THAN BY ACTIONS, DO NOT STAY QUIET, DO NOT KEEP IT INSIDE, DO NOT IGNORE IT, DO NOT FEAR IT, DO NOT ACCEPT HIS/HER SILENCE.


Why are marriages falling apart today? Because no body wants to, or is willing to Talk, Listen or do the Work it takes to make it. It is to easy to walk away, it's the simple way out. It's to hard to be honest to face our own issues and change, it is to much to face the pain of who we have let ourselves become. Empty, lonely, afraid, resentful, angry, frustrated, hurt, unforgiving or cheap forgiving, self pitying, judgemental individuals. It takes a STRONG person to face them self. It is so EASY to see the faults in others, to blame others for our pain, our misfortune, its so Easy to judge someone else for what they do and don't do. Its EASY to give advice on how someone else should live. IT'S EXTREMELY HARD TO LOOK IN OUR OWN MIRROR, IT'S HARD TO STAND UP TO OURSELVES AND TAKE OUR OWN ADVICE. THIS IS WHERE A PERSONS TRUE COURAGE SHINES THROUGH, WHEN WE TAKE COMPLETE RESPONSIBILITY AND ACCOUNTABILITY TO WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO. IT TAKES COURAGE TO CHANGE AND IT TAKES COURAGE TO SPEAK UP, TO ACTUALLY FACE THE HARD BLOWS IN THIS LIFE AND DO THE EXHAUSTING WORK TO CHANGE. We have all gotten to lazy and divorce is just to EASY of a way out anymore, its EASY to walk away. The saddest part of that walk is that every time we walk away from the fight, we walk away from ourselves. A part of us dies right there. Even though we do not recognize it at the time, something dies in us every time we choose the EASY way out. A part of our self esteem goes, our self respect, our integrity, our self worth and we do not even realize it.

The next time someone tells me a weak person stays in a marriage that has been damaged either by infidelity or just a disconnection, I am going to scream. IT TAKES MORE STRENGTH TO STAY AND DO THE HARD WORK, IT TAKES MORE COURAGE TO FACE YOUR PAIN EVERYDAY, IT TAKES BOTH STRENGTH AND COURAGE TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE, THAN IT WOULD EVER TAKE TO WALK AWAY. (Let me make this very clear, it takes NO strength to stay and look the other way, it takes NO courage to stay and do no work on your self, that's just another easy way out. This really is not a way out, this is just a way into more pain.)


To those of you who have choosen divorce over working on your marriages, those who have been dealt the greatest blow, infidelity, do not take me wrong. You have a right to divorce and move on with your life. God Bless You for it. I am not saying that you are weak for chosing divorce if your spouse was unwilling to change or if your spouse gave you no choice and left. I just hope that if you have chosen divorce, you are still working on yourself. I am going to share a story of a lady who divorced her husband. She does not believe in forgiveness. She was extremely angry with her ex husband for the choices he made during their marriage, her anger stemmed over to the other woman as well and after four years of so called trying to salvage her marriage, she chose divorce. Although she divorced her husband she was still having sex with him, she would still call him up at night, yell and scream about what he did and why. The pain of his infidelity was still there, even after she divorced him. She was so afraid of being alone. She is 47 years old and her fears of growing old alone caused her to make a choice that cost us our friendship, worst than that, it cost her so much more. Instead of working on and through her fears, she jumped. 7 months after her divorce, she met someone on the internet, someone who she knew in school, 30 years ago, within one month, they are living together. Let me tell you what ended our friendship, mine and hers, this old friend she met online had been living with a woman for 15 years and was still living with her when my friend started seeing and talking to him, she excused and justified her behavior as not being the same as infidelity because they were never married. My old friend does not put herself in the same shoes as the other woman, I do. Instead of working on her issues and changing her life for the better, she allowed her fears and self esteem issues to take her integrity and self respect away. I have lost all the respect I had for her. I am not judging her, its through my own changes that I now will only allow those who value their character, into my life. If someone can justify in anyway that hurting someone else is okay, they can not be a part of my life, it is just that simple. Trust me, I told her exactly how I felt about how she conducted herself through this. It saddens me to the deepest part of my heart.


If you have chosen to divorce, please continue to do the gut wrenching work on yourself. Know who you are and what you stand for. Never let what you have been through take your self worth and self respect away. Be proud of who you are and your strengths.


For those of you still fighting for your marriages, stay strong, believe in yourself and let know one tell you, that you are weak for staying. If they have been where you have been, they will understand, if they have not, they should hit their knees right now and Thank God and start doing the work they need to do in their own marriages, like TALKING so they may

know the pain we have endured.

For those of you who are struggling to just connect with your spouse, start TALKING and do not stop until you have been heard. Scream it, Yell it, put it on a Bill Board, just do not stop TALKING. TALK, TALK than TALK some more, TALK everyday of every year and NEVER STOP. Communication is what bonds us together.