Grateful

I am so grateful for the 17 years I had with my husband. When I first met my husband, I was 19 years old, and had just ended a five year abusive relationship. It sounds funny to say that now. How many 19 year olds have been in a five year relationship? At the time, though, it didn't seem strange. I dated him off and on through high school, and lived with him for a year, but it took several years to get over him. My husband helped me through it.

He was a patient man, who listened to me. He was 30 when we started dating, and he said that he knew right away that I was the one for him. I guess he was old enough to know what he wanted. I still had some growing up to do, so he waited patiently for me [a couple of years] to realize that he was the best thing that ever happened to me.

At first the relationship was awkward to me, and I was very insecure. I was so used to being put on a pedestal and then shot down, which is common in abusive and co-dependent relationships. He wasn't emotionally dependent on me, and it was difficult for me to understand why he was with me. He helped me to finally realize that he didn't need to be with me, he just really wanted to be with me. When I understood this, my life changed.

He was my best friend. We could tell each other anything. Nobody has ever known me, or loved me as much as he did. Not even my parents. With him, I learned self respect, and how to see myself as worthy of love. To him, I was special, even when we reached that phase in our marriage where we were in a rut and taking each other for granted. I could tell him I was bored, and he didn't get defensive or judgemental. We worked together to make our marriage more interesting and find new things to do as a couple.

We spoke the same love language. We both showed our love by being there and listening. All he ever wanted from me was for me to be home when he got home from work, to listen to how his day went, and to be on his side supporting him. He didn't care if the house was a mess or that there was no dinner. An hour or so of venting about work and a good back scratch, and he was happy. In return, he was always understanding of my depression, and never judgemental.

He wasn't perfect, though, and had his faults. He was messy. Ok, he was a slob. Sometimes, I would just give up cleaning up after him. I learned to live with that. He also wasn't very out going or social. As long as he had me around, he was inclined to be a hermit. To outsiders, he seemed grouchy, but to the people who knew him, he was laid-back and easy going. Everybody that knew him liked him. It was easy to overlook his imperfections and occasional grouchiness.

I have never met anyone that I've had more respect for. He was honest, hard working, and principled. He gave each job his best, even when the pay was little. A trait that was important to both of us. He had quite a reputation of respect in his industry. When a company had a job they couldn't fix, they would call whatever company he was working for at the time. He was proud of his reputation, but I was more important to him than his career, and he would always put me first.

As a result, I centered my life around him. I had no idea how dependent I had become on him until after he died. I trusted him completely, and didn't worry about him leaving me. On June 30th 2001, he died from a heart attack. He previously had no sign of heart trouble. I could not believe he was gone. It didn't seem real to me. Yet, there must have been a part of me that feared this, because I remember telling him once regarding his smoking, that I did not want to become a widow before I was 40. Now, seven years later at the age of 42, I find that I'm still lost without him.

What I miss most since he's been gone, is having him to talk to. Part of what I was learning when we were going through that "boredom" phase of marriage, was that I needed to find myself again as an individual rather than as a couple, and not be so dependent on my husband for happiness and purpose. This process was much easier when I could talk to him about it.

So, why am I so grateful? Most of the people around me are carrying some pretty hefty scars from their past relationships and marriages. I can't imagine going through what I'm going through today without ever having known the love, trust, and respect my husband showed me. Because of him, I know what a healthy relationship should be like, and how to love myself. He gave me the opportunity to see myself through his eyes, and no one can take that away from me.

The picture above is a T-shirt design that I made for him when we were first married, and I was working a printing company. He wore that T-shirt out.