A Letter To My Husband

It's like I'm dancing around the house in a dress and pearls with a smile on my face but underneath the facade my skin is decaying and my heart is slowing because inside I'm dying a slow death of guilt, anguish, confusion, pain, and frustration.

When no one is looking though I take my dress off, I lay my pearls in the box and the one man who is supposed to get the best of me gets the worst. My tongue lashes at him when he offers to help me do something, my eyes roll so hard they almost fall back in my head when he does something "his way" instead of "my way."

When I lay to sleep at night I can't feel him touching me because I've rolled over and shut down, not ready for another night of scripture reading or prayer that feels so empty because my heart is so empty.

I'm scared for him to see my heart, because if he does he will know that it's different, he will know that it's not what it was the day he met me, and it's not what it was the day he married me, and it's not what it was the first day we took that test and it was positive.

It's not what it was the day we watched an empty ultrasound monitor, it's not even what it was the day we watch a motionless ultrasound monitor.

It's worse.

It's dark and twisted and jaded.

My pearls look so pretty with my work clothes. They look good with my swimsuit. They look even better in my new house.

I cover my pain with the excitement of a new job.
I cover my pain with a vacation.
I cover my pain with a new house.

Baby clothes hang in the closet, but office furniture sits in the room.

I can't cover the pain when no one but him is looking. It spills out. It erupts from my body with foundation rocking force. Sometimes it doesn't erupt at all, it simply boils deep inside and forces silence. This silence builds a stone wall between us that makes me wonder how it will ever break down.

Couples entrenched deep into the joy of pregnancy are surrounding us. Their excitement is contagious, yet temporary. Each time the story breaks I feel the sting. The twinge of pain deep in my heart that crys out to God, why not us? I am fearful they will see the hurt wash over my glazed eyes, I don't want them too for I fear they will feel guilty for their joy and I cannot be responsible for stealing it. The emotions compound one on top of the other until I feel like my pearls are strangling me.

I spit hurtful tones at the giver of my pearls. He swallows them and looks at me with a rage in his eyes that I've never seen before and couldn't once imagine was in him. I have brought this out in him. This crazy.

I realize the rage in those eyes is his pain that I've failed to acknowledge. He isn't a father any more than I'm a mother and in that moment if I could have seen those eyes as hurt instead of anger I might have changed my tone. I might have backed down. I might have grabbed tight of his hand and pulled him to his knees and cryed out to Jesus to break this wall we've built.

I might have realized he isn't my enemy, he is my friend. I might have remembered they weren't just my babies, they were our babies.

I might not have drank so much wine that night.

Rebelliouness rises up within me with such force that I stop guarding my heart. I start letting stuff back in that pushes Jesus out.

And night after night, in my pretty little gown, in my king size bed, I fall into the blissful sleep where I can forget all that has happened in the first year of our marriage. Where I can pretend that Satan isn't creeping in and trying to destroy. Where I can dream of a new day that I don't wake up and wonder how the man I fell so crazy in love with and married in less than half a year has become this body that I walk through life with motionless.

I wake up and realize it won't go away. I can't continue to avoid it. I can't continue to be strong. I can't continue to walk along and allow people to think that just because I'm wearing a dress and pearls that I'm gracefully handling the turmoil seated deep inside my soul.

I want to go home. And strip it all off. To let him see me without my pearls. Without my dress. To hold me as tears well up in my eyes with so much force that I can't choke them back. To rock me back and forth as I tremble and finally seek comfort in accepting the empty womb.

To seek peace.
To seek mercy.
To stop looking for reasons.
To stop questioning.
To just accept.
To just breathe.

I want to love him. I want to embrace him with that fierce desire that used to consume me about him. I want to feel the way I did the moment he walked in my front door. The moment he kissed me in the car. The moment he fell to his knee. I need to love him like that.

I imagined our first year so different.

If I take my dress and my pearls off, will you pick up a hammer with me and start breaking our wall down?