This is Us

I didn’t know this would be us. Almost 14 years later. Fighting for our lives. Clawing our way out of this rubble.

I didn’t know this would be the woman you married...broken, full of scars, slowly dying inside. She’s afraid. She’s hurting. She can’t break free.

I didn’t know this would be the mother of your children...angry, hot, raging, on fire.  Where is her empathy?  Where is her smile?  Where is her joy?  There’s no fun. No laughter. No playfulness.

There are tears. Endless tears. An ocean of them.

I didn’t know this would be us.

I didn’t know the toll childhood sexual abuse would take on our marriage. I didn’t know the separation it would cause. The damage it would do to your wife and the mother of your children.  I didn’t know what it would do to us.

I didn’t know that over the span of six years we would bring four healthy children into this world, naively.  But that after twelve and a half years of marriage, we would bury our stillborn daughter, and then less than a year later welcome another son.

I didn’t know the pain we would endure.  The suffering we would face. This road we would travel together. It has hurt so much. Been debilitating at times. It has broken this shell of a woman that you took to be your wife.

I didn’t know this would be us.

You say you are in it for the long haul.  In it for good. You knew what mess you were walking into. I look at our picture before the crucifix on our wedding day, our heads bowed in prayer, and I wonder. I wonder...

How do you keep fighting?  For me?  For you?  For them?  For US?

I’m so beaten down. Where is the strength I once had?  Where is that “warrior?”

Abuse. Trauma. PTSD.  Stillbirth. Child loss. Postpartum Depression.  They have damaged me. A statistic. A label.  This is me.  And me is the other half of us.

It’s not who I thought I’d be.  It’s not who I thought we would be. But this is where we are.  This is us.