Lot's Of Questions, Trying To Sort Out The Answers For Myself

What is the definition of family? Is it the group of people whom you were born to and/or raised you? Is it simply the people in your life that you are closest to? If you don’t have family, who do you have? Do you have friends? Do you have someone else’s family to rely on and to think of as your own? To be there for you when no one else is? Will they be there for you long term?

How do you know when to take a step back and build a protective wall around yourself? When is the right time to say enough is enough? How do you know when the right time is to put your foot down and stick up for yourself and your feelings? Are there people that should get a pass in how they treat you simply because they are family? If you stick up for yourself and it causes you and your family to divide, is it worth it? Or should you have kept it all quiet and kept on taking the abuse? How long should you keep letting your feelings get hurt before you take it into your own hands and stop it?

Once you put a stop to being hurt over and over, what are you supposed to do if it means you can no longer be around your family? The family that has been there all along, even though it has been rocky? How are you supposed to get over the hurt of having to chose to let them go in order to protect yourself from the constant hurt and let down? You talk to therapist after therapist about letting them go and building the wall between yourselves, and they reassure you that you are doing this in order to protect yourself, but how do you let go of the guilt and the fear of not having your family in your life any longer? They remind you that family does not mean blood and that family does not mean they can treat you any way they please, but how do you get past that word, family? Haven’t we as a society been conditioned to put family on a pedestal? What if that family makes you more stressed, hurt, and anxiety ridden than happy? Is it okay to let them go in order to find your own happiness?

A Long Time Coming...

The title of this post means more than just one thing. Although I am not ready to share details of what has been going on, I did want to write a post addressing it. I apologize in advance if this doesn’t make a lot of sense since I am not sharing details, but I wanted to write what has been on my mind.

So what has been a long time coming? Well, this post for one. After everything that has recently happened, I have been at a loss for words. How am I supposed to blog if my thoughts aren’t even clear? If my head feels so confused. Then you have the recent event. As much as I didn’t know, it has been a long time coming as well. It seems that I was so focused on getting through day to day, that I lost sight of the big picture. Vince has been having a very hard time recently. He is so good at hiding it, that I didn’t even realize what was going on around me. Maybe there were signs and I ignored them.

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, one of my worst fears and nightmares almost came true. I still replay the events of that night and the week that followed in my head over and over. Every detail from the start of that night, through the entire week. As I replay everything in my head, I think I am trying to figure out how I got through it. Of course that answer is clear. Vince’s family. Without them, I would have lost 50 pounds and been a complete mess that week. Words will never express the love I have for them. For helping us through that hard time and for always being there without hesitation.  I didn’t know what to feel at the time and I still don’t. Was I happy that everything turned out okay or was I was feeling sadness, anger, betrayal, and hurt. Quite honestly, I think it was and still is everything combined. Talk about being confused. I have spent the better part of the last 6 or so years making sure nothing bad happens to Vince. He has so many health problems. I just couldn’t handle if anything else happened to him. What if I ever lost him? It would feel like my world would literally stop in its tracks and fall apart. How would I ever move on? I surely couldn’t go home to our house without him, and that has now been proven. He is my partner and my best buddy in everything I do in life. I don’t have a family that supports me and the life I have chosen. I would feel so alone.  I now know that I have his family and can rely on them for support, but it still scares me.

Vince’s medical issues have affected our marriage in so many ways. It has affected us physically and mentally. Add in my anxiety, and it is a recipe for disaster. Some days I just cry. All I can do is cry until there are no tears left. I even get to a point where I forget why I started crying and yet the tears still flow hysterically, sometimes for hours. My very recent cry was about the “normal” marriage I feel that Vince and I have been robbed of. When I say normal, Vince along with our therapist, ask me what I think is normal. I admit. Maybe normal isn’t the right word. But when you think of a marriage, a few distinct things pop into your head and a lot of those things are not a part of our marriage right now. I wouldn’t know how to act if I had a husband that wasn’t diabetic. One who didn’t rely on me to care for him. Once you do something long enough, it becomes natural for you. I don’t feel like I am different. Well, that is until I stop pushing my thoughts and feelings deep down. Eventually, every so often, something happens that makes them come to the surface and I am reminded that we are not normal. We do not have the life we wanted. We don’t have the marriage we both dreamed of. We don’t have children to call our own. To raise and to love. But when I finally calm down and Vince talks me through my tears, it all seems okay. It all gets pushed back down, deep down, until next time. Until the next cry comes. With the recent event, Vince and I are trying to communicate better. I feel we have always had decent communication but I think sometimes, we don’t completely tell the other what is on our mind because we know it will break their heart. I don’t have the heart to tell him what I feel our marriage is lacking. Because I know he is doing what he can. But now, we are trying. We are trying to tell one another what is really bothering us. Because as we have seen recently, holding it in is just going to cause someone to eventually cave.