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Who's gonna drive you home tonight?

Been reflecting quite a bit on my marriage. Our anniversary is next month and it will be ten years. I first met him in January 2010 at a place we both worked. I was not looking for anyone and had my heart completely broken only a few months prior. But I knew after we met that day...he was it, the one. He was different from anyone else I had ever met. I felt pretty early on that I could trust him with anything. And he really has been that person for me, the one I can always rely on. 

I haven't always been the best wife to him. For a long time, I didn't take my marriage seriously. I took it for granted and that is such a big mistake. It's the worst way to treat a person. He called me out on it a lot over the years and eventually I realized things needed to change, that I needed to confront what was going on with me internally. Now I pray very frequently about my marriage and for simply the ability to better understand him, what he needs etc. I will never forget one time many years ago he told me "I always think of you first, how something will effect you. You never put me first." That sentence is seared into my mind. He was right and I needed to hear it. It was a bit like a sword through my heart. He really thought I didn't give a damn about his feelings and I was intentionally giving off that impression. TO MY OWN HUSBAND.

I've struggled with suicidal thinking for a long time, since around junior high, maybe even earlier. This is not something I talk about or share with anyone. It is well concealed. In fact, a great majority of family and friends who know me in reality would be surprised to know I have such inner demons. My husband knows everything about me; the good, the bad and the really ugly. He has pulled me back from the edge so to speak more than once. I didn't know what was wrong with me for years, but I know now that it stems from childhood abandonment. That is an issue that has plagued me most of my life. I start to believe people can not possibly love me because I am not worthy of it, or that I will do something to make them leave, and it just spirals from there. When I was very young, a serious disruption in regard to parental attachment occurred and it really did a number on me, psychologically. Both of my parents were emotionally unavailable to me and I knew by the time I was 9-10 years old that I was on my own. Not physically, but essentially everything else. So I cope as an adult by being extremely avoidant. I would just rather die than tell someone I need help. Vulnerability within a relationship is excruciating. Which is such a foolish thing to do because the one thing I crave is for someone to sincerely nurture me around my emotional life. There is an underlying fear of abandonment that is always there and it is as if I am still that horribly lonely little girl deep inside, no matter how much time passes. That is painful to even type out, but yes, these are the raw facts about me from a psychological perspective.

I had a really bad day recently and told him I felt like disappearing completely, that maybe one day he'd come home and I would be gone. His eyes welled with tears and he said "I have always loved you. I will always love you. And I would be a miserable wreck if you weren't here." Even in that moment I thought, he is saying that to placate me. But if I were to be very honest, I don't think he would want to move on from our relationship to something else while I was still alive. He once told a room full of people during a speech he gave that the day I agreed to marry him was his proudest moment. That really stunned me. Because people don't always say those things to one another. And that's what I told him the other day, please...don't forget to tell me...

He is literally the only person in my entire life who has ever really cared about me. I sincerely hope I don't have to live in this world without him. It is one of my greatest fears.


Who's gonna hold you down when you shake? 
Who's gonna come around when you break?

You can't go on, thinking nothing's wrong
Who's gonna drive you home tonight?

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