My past has been following me around lately. Memories from my marriage hitting me at the most inconvenient times. The question that keeps hitting me is this, will my heart, mind and spirit ever be fully put back together again? The past little while I have really had a hard time feeling anything spiritual. My desire to pray vanished as if I had never prayed in my life and so could not recall the feeling of what it felt to pray. Sitting in the celestial room of the LDS Temple I felt safe but my heart was not in it. I don't know why I have lost that whole feeling I have grown so accustomed to but I have.... so now what? How do I get it back? Do I want too?
Marshal and I were sitting on the bed, reading separately when I got up to go to the bathroom. I don't remember what we started talking about but I do recall that it upset him enough to follow me into the bathroom and start to yell at me while I was in the process of peeing. I didn't want to look at him and next thing I know he had grabbed my legs and wedging them in between his legs. He also grabbed both my wrists in his one hand and held them tight trying to force me to look at him. I still kept my head turned away so he took his free hand and grabbing my jaw forced my face inches away from his. The stubborn part of me told myself to squeeze my eyes tighter shut and the courageous part said, "Open your eyes! Face him with all that you have." I opened my eyes and found the hatred raging in his eyes, I had grown accustomed to finding it there. He whispered again to me that I could be easily disposed of and that even with all the advancements of our time, the Army had trained him better than to be caught..... I stayed silent just looking into his eyes until he had finished and had let me go. my wrist and legs ached from how tight he had held me there but didn't leave any bruises. I finished up what I had originally gone to the bathroom for and climbed into bed curling over onto my right side facing away from him as I usually slept that way. He was on his phone, we fell asleep this way.
Marshal came home from work smelling terrible! He came at me while I was in the kitchen trying to finish dinner. I typically wore sweats and so I was on this occasion. He came from behind and put his hands down my sweats trying to start something. When I brushed him aside and said that I wasn't ready to start something he just pulled out his penis and started wiggling it at me and hitting me with it. I got him to stop by saying that I he stunk and that he had to go up and take a shower right away. He had a sour look on his face but he listened and went up and showered. later that night we went out in the car to go grocery shopping...the car smelled terrible like someone had taken a dump in my car. I mentioned it to him but he just said that it had been a long day outside and that it smelled from him getting inside the car. Later when I had left him and arrived in Utah I realized what the smell had been. He had smoked weed in my car and lied about it.
One night we had a terrible fight. One that ended in us both yelling, me crying and Marshal leaving the house and taking my car for a drive. He came back a little while later with gummy worms and powerade.... peace offerings. I started to cry due to how nice that gesture was and noticing that it was the best sorry I was going to get decided to forgive him. He came and cuddled me to sleep and while I thought things were okay he had only wanted to make me feel safe and sound for the night. I woke up sometime early in the morning to a loud crash in our house. I was so groggy... so UN usually groggy that all I could do was partially wake up enough to notice it and fall back asleep. In the morning I saw that he had written a note on our bathroom mirror with window markers he had to have bought sometime in the night. That was the first time I found out the Marshal could sneak out of the house in the middle of the night without me knowing. That was the first time that I realized why he had been so tired each morning when he would wake up for work. It wasn't due to the fact that he had nightmares from his PTSD... it was because he was sneaking out of our house in the middle of the night and doing who knows what. It didn't hit me than, I was too naive. It did however, hit me last year sometime, when I was working on compiling all the evidence and records needed for an annulment.
In one week from now it will be my 23 birthday. Two years to the day that he proposed to me. It is harder for me this year than it was for me last year. Does that give me hope and faith for the future? No it does not. Am I getting better with dealing with the heartache and overwhelming emotions? No I am not. I was doing so well, for so long that I had forgotten what it felt like to struggle through the roughness of heartache and feeling alone. This should mean to me that I need to lean more on my savior and less on my own understanding, I am trying to do this, I really am. Just so hard to try for something that you can't truly feel deep in your heart. I think that this must have been how Marshal felt about our marriage. It was too hard for him to pretend to love me. Too hard for him to try for something that wasn't really deeply rooted in his heart. I was his bright light at the end of the tunnel. I was the promise of a bigger Army paycheck and endless sex whenever he asked for it. I was the woman who stayed home and cooked and cleaned and would have raised the children while he was the one who could come and go as he pleases plus rough up a few extra women on the side.
These are the broken pieces of my past. The parts of me that haunt me whenever I try and go on a date, or even just meet someone new for the first time. These are the parts of me that cry out whenever I feel rejected or misused in anyway. These are the parts of me that stop me from drinking them away. These are the parts of me that remind me that I am better than all that and that I will succeed. Happy 4th of July everyone. Make sure to hug a soldier and take a few moments of silence for all those who you can't hug today. May God bless you in your life.
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