A Plan of Action

Just over a year ago, I lost 2 of the most influential men in my life at almost the exact same time. That really was when I stopped blogging as frequently. I made come backs and would be good for a month or so, and then I'd have to take a step back. Over the last year I have felt compelled to tell you all about these losses and explain the impact they had on me, but for the first time ever, tonight I plan on actually getting some of the story about them out. Not in the way I had ever intended to tell you about them, but in a way that I hope expresses the love for them I had regardless.

Today I want to share part of the stories of my grandfathers. We'll call one Grandad A and the other Grandad Z. Just as the letters I am choosing to represent them are on opposite ends of the alphabet, so were these two men polar opposite personalities. In the beginning of their becoming family, it would have been safe to say that they were as close to hating each other as they could get. By the end, they were praying for each other daily and sending messages to the other person through us as they were 2 floors apart in the same hospital.



***Before you read farther, I would like to point out that I fully understand that in the grand scheme of things, that God holds the ultimate final decision on when we die. However, we live in a world that has been tainted by sin, so that when we make decisions that could affect our lifespan, I believe that God allows us to make those choices and suffer the consequences of them. While I am not thrilled with the events that led to the deaths of my grandfathers, I loved them both very much and simply mourn their bad decisions, but never mourn that they are now in a much better pain-free place.***

Grandad A was my father's father. He was a southern gentleman, raised by a widowed mother during the depression. He was quiet, reserved, hardworking, and extremely polite. He lived his life serving others and taking care of their needs far before his own. He wanted peace in his family, and strove to find it no matter the cost to him. But he also was not willing to back down on a subject if he thought that it was something to stand his ground on. I know I never heard him raise his voice, and my father can only remember hearing Grandad A yell once in his entire life. Not that he never became upset or angry, but instead he handled it with dignity and extreme amounts of composure. All my life, I wanted to marry a man just like him. I wanted to model myself after him. And in many ways I succeeded in becoming like him -- unfortunately I don't manage to handle myself with the dignity and composure he did when he was upset -- I promise that if you hurt me I will yell. But other traits of his I do have. I want to see peace in my family. When I commit to something I go full force. I can be super stubborn about my beliefs and will not back down when I believe it is something worth fighting for. And I continually put others before myself.
Grandad A was diagnosed with throat cancer shortly after I was married. He made as little fuss about it as possible. But after the cancer was eradicated, his throat had completely closed up. He was unable to swallow food. He had over a dozen surgeries to open up his throat. During this time my grandmother, his wife, progressed into some of the later stages of Alzheimer's. He spent so much time taking care of her, that he didn't take seriously the instructions that he had to learn how to swallow again. We constantly were told "I just don't have the time for that. She needs me right now, I'll do it later." Eventually they put a feeding tube into his stomach and he was supposed to feed himself a certain amount of food on a specific schedule. He again "didn't have time" to eat that much because "she needed" him to do other things for her or the "church needed" him to do something or a "neighbor called and needed" him to run an errand. He tried to get by on putting in less than half the calories he was prescribed. In the very end, what eventually killed him was his refusal to take care of himself and keep himself healthy. He put so much effort into taking care of my grandmother, and his obligations at church, and everyone/thing else, that he never took care of himself. When he passed he weighed less than 90lbs -- he was once over 6 feet tall. He died of a strain of pneumonia that his body should have been able to fight off if he had kept himself healthy.


Grandad Z was my mother's father. He was blunt, forceful, and was convinced that only he knew best. If he saw something that needed to be done, he found someone that was capable of doing it, and ordered that they get it done. He told you what to do, and either you did it, or you suffered his wrath (which when he was younger was violence, but as he grew older became simply long long long lectures). If there was something the HE was supposed to do, he either did the job perfect, or he didn't do it at all. And if there was something that he enjoyed, he dove into it with all his heart and mind, and expected the rest of the world to adjust to his indulgences. If he had something on his mind, he said it and he didn't care if you liked what he had to say or not. He was a forceful personality that many people didn't get along with. Most of the family were frequently heard to say that they loved him because he was family, but they wouldn't like him if he wasn't. By the time he died we had come to an understanding. You see, while I never wanted to be like him, I had become like him in many areas. If I'm going to do something, I want it to be perfect. If I find something that I enjoy, I throw my entire heart and soul into it. And if I have something to say, you know it. I would like to think I say it much nicer than he would have, but I know that I'm not always as thought out as I'd like to be. So when he would start to lecture me on how I should do xyz and I had already decided to do lmn instead, we would joust around the subject for a while, until he finally backed off realizing that it was pointless to argue with me as I was too much like him. I was the only child or grandchild that ever reached that relationship with him, but I'm so thankful I did.
However, he died in his 60s because of something he could have prevented -- heart problems that eventually lead to total organ failure. He decided when he first married my grandmother that he wasn't going to tell himself no anytime he wanted something to eat. He LOVED food. He enjoyed every minute of it. He could discuss spices and textures and cooking techiniques with the best of them. He taught me to never judge a food until you tasted it. He taught me to enjoy all sorts of spices and flavors. He was a pharmacist and knew what he needed to do for his physical body. But when in his 40's he weighed in at over 300 pounds and was already having heart problems, he decided that it wasn't worth his time or effort to do anything about it. He enjoyed food too much to tell himself no. He made daily choices to perpetuate an unhealthy lifestyle. And about once every few years he would make a valiant effort at losing weight, drop about 50 pounds and decide to reward himself with 2-3 days of constant eating all the things he enjoyed. When he'd see the number on the scale rise even a little bit after his binge, he'd throw his hands in the air, say he would be forever fat so there was no point in depriving himself. My grandmother took things into her own hands and only bought healthy foods: she cut out as much fat as she possibly could, started cooking with more raw unprocessed foods, tried to find ways to make their food appealing but still healthy. He approached it as a "hey, it's good for me, so I can have as much as I want." He knew better, but he did it anyway. Because he chose to not say no to himself, he eventually chose to die of heart problems, leaving people behind that needed him to take care of them. He knew in his 40s that the choices he made would impact not only the length of his life, but also the lives of his entire family, and he still chose to be selfish. I wake up on a near daily basis not only missing him as a person to talk to (because I could tell him anything and know I would only hear the truth come out of his mouth), but also mourning that he chose to die way too early when I still needed him here on earth.



March marked the first year anniversary of their deaths -- 9 days apart. It has had me doing a lot of thinking about their lives, their decisions, and my life. I see a lot of both of them in me. But a recent conversation with my mother led me to the following conclusions.
1. I am a lot like Grandad A in that I have the tendency to put others before myself so much so that I allow myself to retreat into an unhealthy place. I allow myself to carry other peoples pains, depression, sins, burdens, etc. on my own back when I should be hearing them, praying over them, and putting them in God's hands. When I carry them myself, however, I end up putting myself into an emotional and spiritual free-fall where I am depressed and feeling disconnected from God. A good trait -- serving others first -- becomes carried to the extreme in me (just as it did in Grandad A) until it's no longer good.
2. Sailorman is a lot like Grandad Z. First of all, he speaks a lot like Grandad Z -- forceful, blunt, tactless, and never realizing the impact his words have on others. But also, he indulges in his own desires so much that he tends to forget that other people have needs too. He allows his insistance that he matter (which isn't a bad trait necessarily) become so overpowering that it consumes him and the only person he can see is himself.
3. I can not allow myself to become so much of Grandad A that I lose myself to a personality like Grandad Z. Right now, I feel like I'm slightly in danger of that. Emotionally I have been spiralling out of control. I am starting to feel myself withdraw from God. And I am not happy about it. I AM willing to put forth everything I have to in order to rescue my marriage and my husband from the road that we seem to be headed on (minus the separation from God because that is a no-compromise area), BUT a part of me is crying out that I matter too, that my emotions and thoughts and feelings are valid too, and that I can't lose who I am in the process of healing Sailorman.



I had this epiphany the same day that I saw Therapist Fred last. So I shared it with him, and asked how do I draw the line where I am serving others first but also keeping myself healthy. How do I know that I'm not taking this too far? What boundaries should I put up and where/when should they go up?

We talked about a lot of specifics that I won't get into, but in the end I have a general plan of action that was already vaguely in the back of my head, but now is quite specific.

~Sailorman returns late July/early August. We will have a trip together -- just the two of us -- in this month.
~In September Sailorman will change duty stations and will be removed from the current situation.
~If by the end of October I am not seeing him invest in our marriage, I am not seeing him try as hard as he can for us, and I still feel like I'm losing myself and in the process becoming depressed and withdrawn, I will give a final ultimatum. Take specific steps (that I have clear in my head) or leave. I have never threatened to make him leave before (even though I've occasionally wanted to), and I have never mentioned the word divorce except to tell him I'm not giving him one right now, so if I have to say it in October it will be with dead seriousness. I don't joke about such things. And as sad as that sounds, it is actually an empowering and uplifting feeling to say that one way or another I know that the place I am in today is not a life sentence. I also do not expect that in October that things would be perfect -- I just need to see him trying (very hard) as well by then.



That being said, I think that simply by acknowledging the choices that both of my grandfathers made that turned destructive, and then saying that I refuse to melt into either of those outcomes is healthy. I will learn from their mistakes early on I hope. I know that my marriage will be even better by my insistance that I be healthy. I hope to find the balance in between me as a wife, a mother, and an individual that I need while keeping in mind that all of those are secondary to being God's daugther.

Tonight I'm on my way to bed feeling very much at peace for the first time in ages. I see hope for my marriage, but I also know that if decisions are made that I can't control, that there is hope for me regardless. I am finally at peace that no matter how this ends, I will be able to rest in God's hands and feel safe in secure in Him. I will put Him first, my family second, and me third. In the meantime, I want to be healthy, balanced, and content in my current circumstances so that I can be who God has called me to be.

One of Two for the Day :)

I just read through my last 2 posts and realized how upset and angry I sounded. And yes, I am upset and angry. But I'm also very very hopeful.



I'm hopeful because I have a God that can heal and restore any situation. He took a broken world that He created and loved, and He healed it with the unthinkable -- the death of His only son. When Jesus was resurrected it brought healing, restoration, and reconciliation between all of creation and Himself! He longs to do that in every broken situation on our earth. Whether it's broken by disease or violence or negligence or hatred, God's creation has been tainted by evil but there is hope because Jesus came to this world so that the entire world -- all of His creation -- might be saved.



My marriage is in a broken place. I've seen more good days than bad in this last week, but we're still broken. And Sailorman is not the only culprit. I have allowed resentment, anger, frustration, unforgiveness, and selfishness on my part, creep into our marriage and bring it to this place. I'm a broken person, married to a broken person. But I also know that just as Christ is living in me and working to heal ME, He is also working in my marriage, and in my husband's heart.



So there is hope. I see positive things happening on an almost daily basis. And I'm content in the circumstances I find myself in, while knowing that God is working through those circumstances for the good of those who love him.



I hope that as you read through my next several posts that you're able to pick out phrases from Scripture as I've been trying to breathe them in on a regular basis recently. :) It's amazing how when you sit down and try to recall scripture that you supposedly memorized when you were younger that it's hard to pull them out of thin air, but suddenly when you truly need them the Holy Spirit whispers it in your ear and you find yourself living and breathing those words of comfort, peace, joy, and calm into your life.

My marriage.

Honestly, I don't even know where to start. Let me try to give a summary, but I don't know that this can be short by any standard.

Sailorman and I have had problems for a while now. We've both known it. This last fall I realized that he was incredibly close to a girl, who we now know as The Whore. I confronted him on the fact that he was not investing in the kids and I, but he was pouring emotional energy in The Whore. I told him we had enough problems without bringing another person into it. I knew she liked him. I could tell he at least was crushing on her. I was furious. I drug him to see Therapist Fred. He swore they were just friends. He committed to working on our marriage. I thought things were getting better.

He lied.

Sailorman deployed at the beginning of the year. Our primary communication comes in the form of Facebook chat. Unfortunately, The Whore works for him on the ship. They have more time than ever to get buddy buddy and such. The Whore has a boyfriend, but everyone on the ship knows she prefers Sailorman to her boyfriend. Sailorman and I had one argument. It wasn't marriage shattering -- it was barely even worth raising an eyebrow at. Yet he chose that argument to be the starting point to telling me that he was in love with The Whore. He didn't/doesn't think he loves me and isn't sure that he ever really did. I am furious, but tell him that if he wants out of our marriage without at least trying to make it work for the sake of our kids, that he'll have to pursue that himself because I still believed that we owed it to the kids to do the absolute most we could to keep it together for their sake. Sailorman's only response is "I just don't know."

He tells The Whore how he feels, but she's a smart 21 year old. She knows that getting involved with a married older man that you work for in the Navy is NOT a good idea. She rejects him. He's crushed. He comes running to me -- not that he loves me, but because he knows that I'm the only person that will listen to his crap and care that he's hurt. Asshole move, right? I tell him so, but also promise that I'll listen to anything BESIDES that. He wants to tell me about conflict with his boss? I'll listen. He wants to complain about food on the ship? I'll listen. And I'll listen to complaints on lack of mail, loneliness, long work days, boredom, etc., but I don't want to hear her name. He tries to manipulate me into filing for divorce by telling me terrible things, about me, about him, about our relationship, and about his relationship with The Whore. He even told me that he doesn't understand why I haven't left yet because he knows he would have. I have stood my ground and continued to tell him that I will not listen to this, and that if he wants out then he can file himself, but for now I'm staying as I still want to work on it.

The Whore is not talking to him. It's making his life miserable. (And you see how well my not hearing about her is working out? I still have to hear about her.... ugh.) But he's slowly making new friends. And he's actually talking to me again. He even slipped up one night and told me he loves me.

He finally tells me that he doesn't want to lose his kids. He doesn't think that there is much hope for us, but he's willing to give it a shot through counseling as I've been asking him to do. I'm now in the process of trying to find the funds for a marriage workshop for marriages in crisis that he's agreed to attend with me (that has a success rate of 3 out of 4 marriages that attend are still together over a year after attending). It's $1500 though, plus hotels and meals.

He also has agreed to plan a trip with me -- just the two of us with no kids. We're looking at learning to dive together. I think it could be a lot of fun.

I'm now in counseling because this is probably the most depressing situation I've ever been in -- and that's saying a lot as I was raped shortly before I was married. It's one thing for someone you semi-know to take advantage of you, but a completely different thing when the person you committed to spending the rest of your life with betrays you.

Right now my stance on my marriage is: I am committed to doing everything I can to restore and renew my marriage that I can, so that if the time comes that I have to leave, I know I did the best I could for myself and my children.

By the way, I know that a lot of this sounds hopeless, and yes he's being selfish and a jerk and honestly doesn't even deserve a family right now, but I know first of all, that this is about more than just him not being happy -- this is about his soul needing to God's rest and peace. And I know that there is always hope. I see a long future ahead of us if we can just survive the rest of this deployment. He's making plans with me. He's committed to trying to work on this. He's acknowledged that no one could have treated him better than I do and that his kids deserve to have him in their lives. There is always hope. Some days it's just hard to hold onto though.

~Steph