The Song of My Spirit 5

The Song of My Spirit

The Journey to Become a Better Me: Week 5

By Kristen Debler

My journey the past few months has opened up my eyes to the world around me. Things are going to change! Sometimes things are going to change, no matter if we want them to or not. The past couple of weeks, I have come face to face with my present self and been forced to see things for what they really are. There have been other times that things have happened that were beyond my control and my life changed because of those instances. This just goes to show that change in life is inevitable.

But then there are times that you have to make the change for yourself. The past two weeks I have made some major decisions to my life. I believe... No, I know, that these decisions are for the best. This past weekend, I made a huge move. I decided that all of the toxins in my marriage were holding me back as a person. That the stress of my marriage was causing me to gain weight; which caused me to become lazy and depressed, and in the long run, I lost sight of who I was. Who I am. So, this past weekend, I moved out of  my house and moved in with a friend. I moved out to take care of myself and to find myself again.

My marriage was toxic. It wasn't that way in the beginning. When I met my husband, I was actually in love. We were great together. We had so much in common. Actually, we had a lot of things in common until we go married. Our wedding and honeymoon were great. They were small and inexpensive and everything that I could hope for. Except for one thing. My mother-in-law was very sick. She was dying of cancer and she could not make it to our wedding. But she had made it clear that she would hold on until she heard that we had gotten married. So, we continued our plans. 5 days after we got married, my mother-in-law passed away and the man who I had married no longer existed. I am not kidding. 

For 5 ½ years my husband became someone who lost his way in life. He lost his drive for working or doing anything. He quit his job and stayed home every day. I would find him in the living room drinking beer, watching YouTube or playing video games. That was the highlight of his life. When he quit his job, which was supposed to be temporary, he was supposed to clean the house and cook; like I would if I had stayed home as a Housewife. Instead, I continued to work and go to school to better myself. I thought that all of this was going to be a phase and that he would gradually get better. After all, he saw a counselor and I thought this would help his grief. But, he was an alcoholic before this happened and it just went south from there. He gave up on everything and the thing that made it worse was that he never gave our marriage a try. When things started going bad in our marriage, it was actually over two different issues. First, he put me in the role of his mom. He needed more nurturing. He started acting like a child and because he wasn't working he would ask for things and if I said we couldn't afford them he would throw a fit.

And, the other thing we fought about was spending time together. Relationships are about compromise and I compromised. He didn't  It was either do things his way or not at all. He never wanted to do things that I liked that he didn't  For instance, if I was watching a TV show that he did not like, he wouldn't lie down with me, he would go in the other room until I was done or until I wanted to watch something else with him. So, with these things and everything else going on with the dirty house, him complaining about cooking, about listening to my conversations or problems. I felt like I was in a one-way marriage and I started to stress out and gain weight, become depressed and our life together just became toxic. I didn't understand him anymore and he didn't understand me.

A lot of my friends stopped hanging out at my house or did not come around often because of my husband and his attitude. If kids or people he didn't want to be around came over he would hide in the back bedroom and drink. If someone didn't bring over alcohol for him he would pout and go into the back room. I had to learn the hard way that he represented me and I represented him. People judged me through his actions and I didn't want to be labeled as that person anymore. In the long run, I had lost who I was. I became my husband’s enabler, his ATM, and his wife only when he wanted me to be. Otherwise I was his mother and he treated me as such. I had to do something.

This January, I made a change to become a better person. I wanted to lose weight, and get rid of all of the negativity in my life. I realized that I could not do this and still live at home. My husband and I had too many personal problems to work on in our marriage. I was too dependent on him and I needed to break that bond of dependency he had on me for everything. I left my house on Saturday and I have already started making progress in my new life. I am living with people who are working on becoming more positive in life and trying to become better people. I know that this is right for me on my journey. I know that I would not get to where I want to be in life without this new journey. Now, I can set some positive goals that will help me become more successful in losing weight, becoming healthy and working towards my career. 
Here is to the journey of my spirit. 
Here is to the success of my soul.