We sat together nervously {close enough so that our bodies naturally touched}, facing a woman whose profession it is to look at a marriage and listen to the output given by a couple. She does this while simultaneously reading the unspoken communication between the two, and then…with a highly advanced degree of educational background in this area, make a judgement call and a game plan for the future.
We were sitting in a therapist’s office.
After all these years, this is where we were? Sixteen years, seventeen if you count the whole year of pre-martial bliss. My stomach almost couldn’t handle the gut check that I so willingly placed upon it. After all, I was the one who suggested this. I was the one who made the call {like the actual phone call}. I was the one who felt desperate for a reach beyond my own understanding, and beyond my own capabilities.
I knew there was more to us than where we currently stood. I could feel the depth of devotion amidst the pain, but it was continuously lost in heartache and confusion. I didn’t know how to go backward, and also understand that I was safe right where I was. My eyes truly could not see what was right in front of me. I needed to hear it from another person’s voice. I needed to see it from another’s eyes. But it could not come from the voice of a friend or sister, or the voice of him or “them”. I needed an unbiased advocate that could back either party. I needed someone who handles people like us with caution, consistency and courage.
I NEEDED a therapist.
Most people have two, three and sometimes more marriages in their lifetime.
Immediately I tensed up. What in the actual {bleep} is this woman talking about?!
For many of us, those marriages are with the same person.
Wait. What? Ok, so people get married to the same person over and over again. Weird. Like, you have three weddings? Wow.
My mind then caught up to what was really being said, and my mind exploded.
I mean, had I ever considered this? No. Nope. Not even once. When I eventually caught on to her words, they sank deeply and instantaneously into my core. There was a certainty as she spoke those sentences. It attached itself to the root of my beliefs. In a moment’s time, my weak mind and my fiercely strong heart collided together.
I clearly understood so much of what I hadn’t before.
This thing we call marriage, it evolves. 
Duh. Right? How could it not, really? If it doesn’t evolve, it ends.
Our marriage isn’t what it used to be {thank goodness}. It isn’t even close to what it is going to be {THANK GOODNESS}! Evolution is {as defined by Webster} :: a process of change in a particular direction.
I believe part of our misunderstanding as we come through these transitions in life is that it is really difficult to let go of what once was. Even if that “once was”, was just an ideal in our minds. It isn’t necessarily because the things back there were without mistakes or sacrifices. We know the past us and we know they weren’t perfect people. However, we knew it or at least we knew our place in it. We knew our role, the expectations, the times to be happy, the times to be sad, how he would react, and how you would respond. Knowing is comfort. There isn’t anything more reassuring than knowing where you belong.
It’s like if I walk into the chapel at church a little bit late on Sunday morning and my family isn’t sitting in the exact same spot we sit in every week…you will likely see me have a full-blown meltdown. It isn’t because the other seats aren’t just as lovely and the people around those other seats aren’t just as wonderful. It’s because knowing where you are supposed to be brings comfort.
This is the concept that just clicked in that moment when I listened to our therapist state those words.
Let it be, let it change, let it grow.
I allow myself to accept that we will change individually and as a couple through this concept. It won’t always be a change for the positive, but always with learning and growth attached. We will each have our struggles and our own forces of nature to overcome. My husband isn’t the man I thought I married {hallelujah!}. I too, am totally different than the woman his dreams were {then} made of. The dynamics we had early on in our marriage are not what work for us today. That’s okay. Our goals and visions for what is to come have changed with each passing year, with each new addition to our family and {every.single.time} I have a hormonal imbalance. It is what it is, my friends.
This new way of thinking encourages me to be more forgiving of who we are and who we were, even in a point in time that felt like it was complete turmoil and loss. It allows room for progress, and it also permits a new mindset of reevaluating, reinventing, and reestablishing. Naturally, it then flows into giving ourselves the grace to step into a higher level of loving one another.
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