So my husband and I have known that we haven’t been in the best place in our marriage for a number of years now.  We just celebrated our 18 years of marriage last month and over 20 years together but we really wanted to just celebrate about 12 or 13 of those years.  So yeah that tells you we have had some years of rocky roads.

We have had our fights, late nights, chats, times where even he has said if it would be better for us and the family he would just leave.  Well I didn’t know what to do.  I knew my heart was hurt.  I knew I was broken but the strange thing was no matter what happened to me and what was going on or being said to me I just knew that all of those were the wrong choices.  I knew that we were suppose to be together and that I was suppose to be in the picture to help find a way to fix things and to work things out and to do all that I could to continue to honor and serve God.  I knew I had made a commitment to him and that this marriage wasn’t mine that we gave it to him.  So I just said no and stood firm and fought hard and cried tons not knowing what to do next.

I knew that I had great examples of Godly grandparents that were married for over 50 years and served in the ministry for years.  I had Godly parents that were involved in church and a father that was an amazing example to me.  I know he was because of his mom my other Grandma.  My dad’s sister and her husband have in their years become missionaries.  So I have just been blessed by great examples to God.  So I knew that I needed to fight deep down to keep my marriage together and strong.  We have been serving and working in many ways in our church since we have been together.  So I just needed to keep praying and find away to make things work.

I have over the years read blogs and things on marriage and well so many people who have go through even less than what I have gave up.  There wasn’t a lot for support or how to make things work.  As I started to realize that I just couldn’t make this walk alone I knew that I had to finally reach out for help. I tried or wanted to but didn’t know how.  I would want to ask friends, people at church, I did searches on the internet to see what I could find or do to help me.  I wasn’t going to give up but I wanted to try what I could to try and help myself and my marriage but I though for some reason I had to do it alone.  One day I don’t know what happened but I just broke down.  I cried at church (I have done that before) and I didn’t know what to do but I was walking down to get my kids and I ran into my pastors wife.  I asked her to pray for me.  I was so shocked but she did right then in the hallway.  After she gave me some resources to go home and look up.  I did.  They have been life changing for me.

I started reading one book once I got it and well it was good but I quickly realized it wasn’t my story.  I just didn’t connect and well where it was sad I couldn’t relate and still felt lost.  Then I look at the second resource from the RefineUs ministry and well that grabbed me and touched me from the moment I found them.  I read the 8 Things that destroyed your marriage and well I was in tears.  I went to my husband and said I want to read something with you.  This was the first time I had been really close to him in ages but it just felt right.  We started to read it together and started to talk about things late into the night.  I was for sure that this was our stepping stone.  What I came to find is it was but it took a lot of time for things to develop with my husband.  I was at a breaking point and this was what I needed.  I needed this support and needed to know more.  So I kept up with them as much as I could so that I would not loose hope in my marriage.  I felt this was the only hope that I had at this point.

After about a year I had read the book that had come out from the ministry called Beyond Ordinary.  It opened my eyes, my heart, and started to give me hope to a new beginning.  This was not all I had to do was to read the book though.  I had to open things up with my husband again.  I tried to talk with him about our situation again and let him know that I wasn’t happy the way things were.  So this year I didn’t want to celebrate our anniversary.  I was giving him his last chance to either work on things or to resolve our marriage.  I just could not do this to myself or my kids anymore.

I was so scared to just put it all on the line like that but I knew deep down that I have tried so many ways and tried to be nice, tried to talk, tried to bring things up, and well nothing was working.  So well I guess I just had to be real and say this is it we either fix us or there is no us.  To my surprise and he took off slowly but it started to happen he knew this was his last chance.  So now we are taking steps to try and make changes.