If you're in for a long story about the good/bad or our marriage (and lot of pretty pictures of the trail up to Ice Lake in Silverton Colorado... then this is a post for you.
But first, I must post this quote (that I found on Instagram) that I just love:
Not that I think I'm the coolest for telling the truth, but I do think it's pretty important to be more transparent than not. I don't need to share EVERYTHING to tell the truth... in fact, I don't need to share anything at all, but I find that the more real stories I hear, the more I am satisfied with my life because I discover that everyone has baggage.
So, if you can relate, I guess this is for you.
It's a long story, but I have tons of pictures, so it should work out :)
I have talked with Jake and he has given me permission to share this part of our story/journey.
We are just shy of being married for 14 years. We are both the 3rd of 6 kids growing up #middlechild and I have always been used to compromises and am especially loved for being the peacemaker or peacekeeper. Jake, being the only boy in the family had a little bit of a different experience being the middle child.
I am a huge fan of psychology and love to look at all the reasons we might, or might not, be a certain way.
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Jake and I met through some friends and there was an instant connection. He is SO willing to love and I really needed to be loved. He was genuine, sweet, and caring and I knew in my heart of hearts that he would always take care of me. I loved how vulnerable he was from the start.
He liked that I had big boobs.
Adventure and nature has always been my favorite ways to connect. Connect with myself, others, Heaven (whenever I mention "Heaven" I mean: God, Jesus, the Spirit, my spirituality, the angels around us, etc).
Jake and I spent every possible moment connecting my favorite way: mountain biking, long boarding, dirt biking, rock climbing, hiking, camping and I knew I would be so happy spending the rest of my life with him. He seemed to be connected to his spirituality and that was important to me as well.
He was strong and capable. Manly.
He told me he loved me right away. I could read him like a book. He was sensitive and loving. Everything with him was uncomplicated.
We met and were married within 5 months time. We probably would have gotten married sooner if possible. #younganddumb?
The first year was good. And rough. I think pretty normal for most couples. I was only 20 and struggling with many self-confidence issues and issues from my childhood/upbringing. Jake, like always, was loving and understanding and willing to listen and help me through anything.
During early years in marriage, I struggled to not voice my irritation at how he brushed his teeth or how late he worked or how he ALWAYS fell asleep in church.
I was really struggling coming into my own. How to develop into a person. Several parts of me were broken and Jake had no way of knowing that before he married me.
At one point, several years ago, he did mention how unhappy he felt during some of those early, hard times. He just felt like he could never do anything right or find a way to make me happy. He silently considered divorce a few times.
But together, we were always looking for forward motion. Mostly in material/worldly ways.
A better job, buying a townhome, moving to a new state, new job, new townhome, new job, a promotion, buying new quads, renting a better house, different cars, a motorcycle, starting a family, another house, then renovating a house, moving to another new state, a whole new career, another baby, another house, another baby, another house, keep on building that career.
We were successful.
SO SUCCESSFUL...
...at distraction.
I have always loved to keep busy. As busy as possible. I love to workout because my mind goes somewhere else. It stops focusing on things I can't change or things that "are making me unhappy". I get a high from working out.
I've always kept busy with the kids taking them to parks and on bike rides and I try to keep them as active as possible. I've always been afraid to 'stop moving' because I wasn't ok with who I was in the quiet moments.
Forward motion. Always forward motion. Ignore the problems. Distraction.
Jake THRIVES on financial success.
He wants to be the best and really has to work on his pride when he isn't always #1. He would sacrifice so much so that he could be "winning" at work.
Everyone loves Jake.
Everyone.
Really.
He isn't just a people pleaser or a BS'er, he genuinely cares about his clients, friends, coworkers etc.
He cares about them so much and wants to be so successful that in the moments leading up to his FIRST BORN coming into the world, he took an insurance claim call while I was literally bent over dying from a transitional contraction.
It hurt. In all the ways.
Together we understand that we were both in such hard places in our lives at the same time.
Raising little kids/babies is quite literally the hardest thing on the planet that I've even tried to do. The longest, loneliest days. Mentally challenging and physically exhausting. I've never wanted to quit or give up more than when I was pregnant or had a little one under 18 months.
And during ALL of those times (in the 10 years since Everett was born) Jake has been fighting through the first decade of his career. The hardest decade. The decade that makes or breaks you. Where you are challenged in every way. Where you literally have to give it your all just to barely keep your head above water sometimes.
When two people are at their wits end, in survival mode, they become ships in the night.
At least that's what happened to us.
And then I legit had a mental breakdown.
Our good friends (the Millers) got divorced, we sold our house, spent the summer in WA, rented a house while our current house was being built. I'm good at running... running from the hard things. It was too hard to stay and watch our closest family friends fall apart. I couldn't do it. I needed a distractions and now I didn't have a house to distract me anymore. I couldn't work on a project or paint a room. All I had was me and my brain/issues to work through. And TIME.
I talked to my Dad a lot.
I talked with several therapists.
I reached out to an uncle.
I read piles of self-help books.
I talked with Heaven. Yelled. Cried. Asked for help.
Started writing in a private journal again.
And when I just couldn't take being with me anymore, I got an evening job working at HomeGoods.
I needed a distraction.
Jake was willing to do whatever he needed to help me.
Time helps to heal and it did help a little.
We eventually moved into our house and slowly life started to normalize.
We were able to make it out of a very hard time. I knew that I wasn't just having a situationally hard time (although it was difficult) but I knew that there was something fundamentally "wrong" with me.
I feel like I've been pretty open about my personal mental health journey but there are always more details.
I started on an antidepressant. As it turns out, I have a somewhat rare issue where the type of antidepressant I was on was actually doing more harm than good. The kind that actually makes you have suicidal thoughts.
But I didn't know that yet.
And then my Dad died and my world fell apart.
He was my person.
My cheerleader.
The person that understood me the most.
We just fundamentally understood each other.
He always told Jake and I that we were doing it right. That we were living the right way. That we were his hero. He looked up to us so much and he was very open about telling us that. He LOVED Jake. Sometimes I thought he might even love Jake more than me :)
When my Dad died, a very big part of me died too. So I did what I always do.
I found a distraction.
A huge, stressful, stupid, stupid distraction.
Renovating his house before selling it.
Jake and I were never together.
We were always 100% stressed out, barely functioning, and literal ships in the night.
Eventually, we sold my dad's house and a few months later were able to go on our trip to Switzerland (that Jake earned through work).
We were both hoping this was help to mend our hearts. Time together, time away.
I was still on the medication that made me more depressed, but I obviously didn't know it.
The actual flight and travel to Switzerland was rough on me.
I didn't sleep for a billion hours and felt like a zombie.
Because Jake and I are who we are, we've been "happily married" through all of this.
We deeply love and care for each other but our trip to Switzerland was a little eye opening.
For both of us.
Jake has always been the best. Literally everyone knows that. I don't even know how he was still single when I found him. He'd do anything for the one he loves. He has been so patient.
But while we were in the most beautiful places we've ever been (Switzerland🇨🇭), we talked.
We talked openly.
About how I couldn't ever seem to be happy.
How it was wearing on him.
How he didn't know how much longer he could take it.
It totally sucked.
It's never fun to hear that you are running your spouse away.
I didn't know what to do.
I'd been on a 13-year journey to try and "fix" myself and it wasn't working.
Any time something wasn't working between us, I thought it was something I could fix.
I thought it was because my brain was broken.
That I was to blame.
That it was alway ME that was the issue.
That it was ME that was the issue when he worked FREAKING LONG hours I shouldn't be upset... but that I should be happy because he was working hard for our future. I felt guilty for having any sort of negative emotion or feelings towards him.
And when I did, I kept it to myself. #peacekeeper
I think I somehow tried to not have feeling because they were just causing me pain.
They were also causing me confusion.
Pain and confusion because when Jake would try and figure out why I was upset sometimes, I might bring up the fact that I'm lonely or feeling worn-down from him working so many hours and then it would turn into something like: "it won't be like this forever. I can't come home any earlier. This is what it takes. etc" so I would just try not to feel anything anymore because it wasn't serving me well.
Some of the disagreements that started from the very beginning were because I felt like something should change (but Jake didn't feel the same way) so I learned to just shove those feeling down.
Don't cause waves.
Don't cause contention.
Be the peacemaker.
Because that is one thing I am really good at.
About a year ago I was finally able to find a great doctor who took extra time to help me and help me find the right medication and the right dosage.
It made a world of difference.
In the meantime, Jake has been working hard at work.... moving levels and climbing that ladder. Being awesome for his clients and coworkers. Taking on several volunteer positions and being THE MAN. And why wouldn't he try??! Who doesn't love to be awesome!?
He was working a lot (like always, literally always) and had bought a dirt bike to reward himself. He went on SO MANY dunes trips and guys trips and weekend rides and take-a-day-off-work to ride rides.
We spent less and less time together.
If he wasn't happy in his marriage, then he could at least be happy at work and on his dirt bike.
I feel like I have always supported his hobbies.
Whether it be mountain biking
or his super time-consuming (and SUPER expensive) kite boarding
or dirt biking... I have always supported him.
(even when we took special trips to the ocean for kite boarding just for him to get stung by stingrays...)
But him working and being gone so much has never helped my mental state. Long days with the kids, dinners alone, him not knowing anything about the kids' schedules or even just having time together was never helpful.
At the beginning of the year, things seemed to be going in a negative direction. I was finding that I was putting my attention other places than on him and we were growing apart.
We were supposed to go on a ski trip (through work) in March but then COVID changed everyone's plans. We weren't going to be able to go.
And I found that I was actually relieved.
Lately I had been feeling like my opinion didn't matter anymore.
I HONESTLY think it was because of an entire marriage full of me making compromises so we both just got used to doing whatever he wanted to do.
I felt like I grew apart from him because of this too.
Because of Jake's line of work (Financial Advisor) his everyday is directly affected by the stock market. This year hasn't exactly been great in that aspect and his attitude plummeted with the market.
His attitude was basically the market.
Down, down, WAY DOWN, way up, record lows, etc
It was hard. Really hard.
He became pessimistic. Short tempered. Chronically stressed.
He dove into both sides of politics so he could sympathize with his clients. He was always reading the news to stay up on current events that his clients would ask him about.
We became different people in a way.
My mental health was SIGNIFICANTLY better and I was putting my attention other places and he was changing into a pessimistic, irritable dad who was sometimes home.
We did made some changes along the way though.
Jake made a SOLID effort to be home much earlier on the weekdays and even took a Friday off here and there. It was a game changer.
But something else had already started to drive a wedge between us. We could both sense it.
I was earnestly praying to Heaven for help, frantically listening to talks and podcasts, dying of anxiety on the inside trying to fix this wedge between us on my own.
After a few months I couldn't keep it in anymore and sought out help from a trusted friend.
It was rough.
One layer at a time Jake and I had to start fixing our marriage.
We were both very uncomfortable talking about all that has gone "wrong" and where we have both fallen short. It was hard. During this 6 hour hike is when we started peeling off a few of those layers that had created the wedge.
I had had smaller, simpler conversations in the days past, trying to address the subjects at hand but needed more time alone together.
The conversations were hard. Like rrrrreeeeeaaaalllllllyyyy hard. For both of us
There was pride, humility, anger, silence, sadness, raw heartbreak, tears, confusion... there was everything. It was a journey to the top.
It hurt.
Marriage can't always be easy.
There was a moment when Jake was so hurt that he confessed he was 'done'.
But we're not done. We'll never be done. It's almost like we're just getting started.
So the first 14 years weren't extra ideal?, but we made it.
We've made changes, learned how to talk, how to be open.
How to not always get our way.
How to not always keep the peace and shove feeling aside.
We've grown up a little, together.
And I really, truly, SO DEEPLY feel like my Dad was there the whole time.
I can feel him on the other side. Leading me, guiding me, helping me find the right help. I truly believe Heaven was on my side when I finally found the right doctor who recognized my symptoms, who had access to such an in-depth test.
I believe that (somehow) Jake and I are still together because of my Dad's belief in us.
There were SO MANY times I wished (so badly) I could talk to my Dad just so I could talk to someone who understood me so completely and wouldn't judge me... someone that would give me advice and love me no matter what.
I feel like it was my Dad who prompted Jake to read my journal entries, listen to my Marco Polo's with my sister and read text messages on my phone that confirmed his suspecions that we were growing apart. If Jake hadn't done these things, we wouldn't have worked so hard to save our marriage.
I strongly believe that we've had Heaven's help saving our marriage.
We are about to head into our 15th year together and we've never been better.
We've never loved each other more.
Nobody could ever love me like Jake does.