Keep Talking

Keep Talking

Our marriage counselor has been pushing us lately to make decisions.  He is wanting more results and wants us to make clear to each other what our intentions are and what we are willing to do.  I won't go into all the details, but we have a few sticking points that are stymying our diving into my moving home.  None of them are small and none of them are easy and all of them are exhausting.
The facts are that there is a history there that contains both good and bad.  We can trigger each other like nobody's business.  There is an understandable lack of trust as a direct result of my actions during addiction.  There is a lot of fear surrounding my not being able to promise there will be no relapse.
This is one of the major sticking points for sure.  I want to be able to promise that with all my heart but would be lying if I did.  I can no more promise that I won't relapse than I can that I won't get some other disease in the future, and I know for those not exposed to addiction, that is hard to understand.  I CAN promise that I will do everything in my power, and I am, not to relapse, to live a more righteous life, to be spiritually sound and connected and to strive to be the best I can be, all of which slakes the thirst I have for falling back on my old ways of escape.  I CAN say that I have no desire to escape today, that I love myself today and that I have no need nor want for mind altering substances and I was never able to say that before.  I CAN say that I do desire to come home a stronger and more equal partner to a man I both love and admire.  I CAN say that I desire to do so only when we can take a leap of faith and that I don't want to lose myself in the process.
I do lose hope sometimes.  I do find it hard to keep going over and over what has happened and examine all the feelings that crop up for us both.  It is exhausting to go to marriage counseling week after week.  There are days I want to throw in the towel and give up.
The other night when I was tucking Dermot into bed he asked me when I was coming home.  I told him that I couldn't answer that question yet but that Daddy and I were talking all that through. Dermot looked up at me and said, "I guess driving us needs to come first and then moving in.  Well keep talking Mom.  Talk for six hours at a time if you have to, but just keep talking."
So when the marriage counselor gave us an assignment on discernment that he uses to make major life decisions which is a faith based praying model, I looked at it.  It took me a few weeks but I looked at it.  I wrote about it for myself.  I meditated on it last night.  I asked Joe for what he thought I should do and he basically told me as he wiped down the diner counter that "The kid has more sense than the both of you put together."
So for all our sakes and perhaps Dermot in particular, I plan to just keep talking no matter how hard, how tiring.  There is history of bad and good in our story, but it is the good I plan to highlight going forward and that good contains Dermot and Wren and we owe them this fight.