Him vs. Her – Is this for real?

It’s been awhile since I wrote a Him vs. Her, and there’s been a few things that I’ve wanted to share, so here goes…

As I’ve spoken of in recent days, hubby and I have been having quite a bit of trouble getting through these past two years.  We’re coming up on 23 years of marriage in February and although things haven’t been the best, I see a ton of progress being made in our relationship.

One thing that has recently changed, is the fact that hubby began to ask himself why we weren’t connecting the way we ought to be.  He started praying about a lot of things that he had been struggling with, and asking God to show him where he was going wrong.

One morning he suddenly woke up, and announced to me that he was no longer going to be the man that just let life pass him by.  He vowed to encourage me in my own faith, to stop withholding his love from me, and promised to become the man that I deserve.

I was quite taken back from his sudden change of heart.  I truly wondered if he was serious.  After so many years of me feeling rejected and unloved by him, I wondered why he wanted to change now.  I was actually a bit angry at first, and wondered why he waited almost 23 years to change his tune and be the man that I had always hoped he would be.

It’s been about a month now, and my head is still spinning from the changes that I see in him.  I still have my doubts that things will stay this way and I am unsure of how to act sometimes, because I had gotten so used to feeling as if I didn’t matter to him.  I felt ignored, unimportant, and very unhappy most of the time.

So now confusion is setting in.  I keep asking myself… Is this real?  Will this last? And do I really want to give him a chance to fix what’s been broken for so long?  My stubborn side tells me not to give in; warns me that he had his chance, and reminds me that my heart has since moved on.  And yet the part of me that has never stopped loving him, tells me to forgive and forget; to let go of the past and move forward, because obviously God has taken his heart and changed it for the good.

I feel vulnerable in accepting the possibility that he really has changed.  I feel like I could wake up tomorrow and be taken for granted once again.  I don’t think I can handle another 23 years of feeling that way and I’m almost fearful of being blindsided and letting that happen again.

I have become stronger in these last two years.  Learning to be more independent of him because he wasn’t always there, and quite honestly, I grew to love the freedom of being alone, because it meant that I didn’t have to continue feeling rejected by him.  I used writing as my escape and felt like I didn’t need him anymore.

So now, I have a choice to make.  I am struggling every day to either accept this unexpected gift that apparently God has given me, or throw it all away because I’m stubborn and tired of trying.  It sounds like an easy choice, and yet I’m fighting against my own will to keep myself from getting hurt.  My heart just won’t let me forget all the suffering and the pain, which plagued me for so long.  And yet I know what I must do.

In recent days, I have been blessed with loving words of affirmation, by my husband who is trying so very hard to make things right.  Tonight I spent some time going through all the notes that he’s been leaving for me over the past month, and I affixed them to the tree that I painted on my office wall.  I decided that I needed these loving reminders, to help me move forward.  I need to forget the years of bad memories and replace them with the good ones that we are finally making together.  I think I may eventually win this battle after all.