September 21, 2008
Did you read the fine print on those vows?
**Sorry for the confusion as I learn the lay of the land around here, comments are now enabled for this post!**
For better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.
I took those vows, I said them with all sincerity and genuine belief in my heart that we would honor those promises.
And we have, we’ve loved each other through it all….it hasn’t been easy, it hasn’t been pleasant, we’ve struggled mightily with those worse, poorer and sickness parts. Who doesn’t?
But I know in my thinking, I made that vow regarding my husband’s health. It never even crossed my mind that we would fight to keep our marriage together over the sickness of a child that was yet unborn, unimaginable, just a wisp of a dream.
One of the scarier statistics we heard over the months following Peyton’s cancer diagnosis wasn’t about her survival chances or secondary disease, it was about the divorce rate. We were told that while fifty percent of American marriages would end in divorce anyway, when a child with a critical illness was thrown into the mix, the divorce rate was over eighty percent.
I still remember Peter and me getting wide-eyed and just looking at each other for a moment. Then he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Don’t leave me, ok?”
Yeah. Same here, buster!
Really, though? Could you find any better breeding grounds for a divorce? I have watched marriages around us crumble, the overwhelming circumstances transforming minor irritations or unhappiness into full-blown, catastrophic level relationship breakers.
If you have a tendency to need to control the life swirling around you, these are the moments that you realize you can’t and your method of coping with that can be to lash out. Perhaps you’re married to someone who is driven to hide in busy work, you may find they’re distancing themselves from the situation and farther away from where they’re needed.
A friend told me, “All the things that might be wrong with you? 1000 times worse now.”
So true.
I took all my anger and frustration and unspoken fears out on my husband. He took the brunt on of it all because I didn’t have anyone else to unleash it on. And I give him big HUGE credit for being the main reason we didn’t crash and burn, because it would totally have been in his right to volley back the enormous ball of crap I continually threw at him. During a sit-down heart to heart, I tried to explain how overwhelmed I was, how out of control I felt, this place of fear I lived in and how I didn’t mean to constantly rage at him, but he was the only one I could take it out on.
His words to me?
“I have big shoulders, I can take it.”
That communication and understanding is the only reason why we’re still together today.
Has there been a make or break moment in your relationship that you realized you were teetering on the brink of a breakup if you didn’t change the way you were handling things? What did you do?
You can also find me at Hope4Peyton, you come by, it's nice…we have cookies! Feel free to email me at Anissa.Mayhew (at) gmail (dot )com.
Filed under Blog, Family by PeytonsMom
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5 Comments on Did you read the fine print on those vows? »
#1 - Tammy and Parker @ 9:04 pm
I can't explain it, but I can say that my marriage is stronger than ever since Parker was born.
Reed and I have discovered each others strengths in difficult situations and we act accordingly.
Reed can handle a lack of sleep better than I can and is willing to put in extra nights on the mattress on the floor of Parker's safe room than I do.
I do better with research, homeschooling, and biting into butts as needed.
Reed will happily empty ostomy bags, but the dilations he prefers to leave to me.
Reed will even pitch in on the weekends to help clean up our joint, but during the week I'm on my own. But at the same time he comes home each evening and takes over Parker Patrol so that I can make sure we all have clean underwear the next day.
When we go up to PCMC I take the lead with the Doctors. Reed takes the lead with getting us there on time and hauling Parker and the ton of gear that goes where he goes.
Reed makes sure all the tubing etc. gets changed out on time. I make sure it gets ordered.
We take turns venting.
We are a good team. I'm lucky to be married to my best friend. And the still hot buns that came with him. hee,hee
#2 - nancy @ 12:35 am
When we had Tyler we had a WONDERFUL charge nurse that asked to speak with us. Tyler had been life flighted to a different hospital and so we were settling in from a trip to see him. (They let me out for a few hours to see him) She told us that this will either make or break our marriage.
We have been fortunate that it has MADE our marriage. When he can't do it I am strong and able to do it all. When I can't handle it he is able to do it. Its strange how it has worked.
We have loved and still love being married. It is a challenge.
Thanks for the article!
#3 - Joyful Days @ 12:38 pm
What a beautiful, heartaching post.
We've never had to endure through a child's illness. We have had some serious dark spots. But I am so grateful I can say we survived and are better for the trials.
Thank you for sharing your heart.
Julie
#4 - Spring @ 9:14 pm
I thought we had a perfect marriage 14 years in, and then we adopted our newest daughter who should have been a healthy 6 yr. old but in reality was a mentally ill, heavily traumatized 10 yr. old. We were completely unprepared.
To say that this surprise strained our marriage would be an understatement. Thank God we had the skills and the sense to keep ourselves out of free fall and to know when we needed to put newest's needs on the back burner and tend to ourselves. About 6 months or so after meeting our newest daughter, things got rocky. Scary rocky. Things were on shaky ground. We were angry, and like peytonsmom, we took it out on each other.
But we were resilient and now that we're becoming accustomed to our new family configuration, everything is getting better, our marriage included. We take time for our relationship now in a way we didn't have to before: enforced scheduling, creative use of time, and real commitment to being nice to each other even when things kinda suck.
I do have a feeling that after withstanding serious trials like this, there is a sweet reward waiting…an even stronger marriage, even deeper commitment…more appreciation.
#5 - Spring @ 9:16 pm
I thought we had a perfect marriage 14 years in, and then we adopted our newest daughter who should have been a healthy 6 yr. old but in reality was a mentally ill, heavily traumatized 10 yr. old. We were completely unprepared.
To say that this surprise strained our marriage would be an understatement. Thank God we had the skills and the sense to keep ourselves out of free fall and to know when we needed to put newest's needs on the back burner and tend to ourselves. About 6 months or so after meeting our newest daughter, things got rocky. Scary rocky. Our marriage was strained to the breaking point and we had little energy or patience for one more thing. We were angry, and like peytonsmom, we took it out on each other.
But we were resilient and now that we're becoming accustomed to our new family configuration, everything is getting better, our marriage included. We take time for our relationship now in a way we didn't have to before: enforced scheduling, creative use of time, and real commitment to being nice to each other even when things kinda suck.
I do have a feeling that after withstanding serious trials like this, there is a sweet reward waiting…an even stronger marriage, even deeper commitment…more appreciation.