Amber - posted on 11/10/2009 ( 10 moms have responded )
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Hello, I have a prayer request. Please help me pray for my children, my husband, my marriage and myself. My husband and I have been married for 3 and a half years and we dated for just over a year before we married. When we met I knew that he was a recovering drug addict, clean for over 2 years, but to make a long story a little shorter, I simply felt drawn to him in so many ways, despite my initial reservations. After a time, when we both began to realize the depth of our feelings for each other it came to light in our conversations that we each had prayed in the weeks before we met that the Lord would bring into our lives a mate. I truly believe tht the Lord brought us together. Our life together rapidly got better, we were very happy, our families blended well and we had a child together as well. Then late last year he began drinking quite a bit, which was a bone of contention between us. He was acting strangely and I feared that he was drinking more than I knew and possibly that he was doing drugs again after having several years clean. I tried to talk to him, I fought with him, I snooped to try to find anything, I could find nothing to support my suspicions, I only knew that he wasdrinking more than I was comfortable with. Then in February he got pulled over for not signalling, and being on parole, the office wanted to search his vehicle. He was in possession of 100 valium. He was arrested, his parole was revoked, he is in prison and faces further charges for having the pills. In the months since his arrest it has come to light that he was drinking nearly all day every day, he had switched to wine outside of the house so that I couldn't smell it as easily, a well as using breath mints so that he could claim he as only having a few beers at night at home, even though his few was a six pack or more in a short time. In the months prior to his arrest we hadn't gotten along well, he was extremely unkind to me in a many ways, and I know that was a symptom of his disease, but it still hurts.
This year has been hell. I don't work, and have been living on our savings and some things we had to sell, which is lucky for me because I don't know what kind of work I could get. I have been a stay at home mom for several years now and physical and health problems prevent me from returning to the only type of job I have ever had experience in. I have applied for some jobs, but I always get turned down. Our youngest daughter(there are 6 kids between us ranging in age from 2 to 27) had just turned two when he got arrested, my stepdaughter who we had custody of had to return toher mother's home, and life was in such turmoil and full of so many changes that the first few months there was no way I could even consider taking myself away from her 30-40 hours a week as well. She is coming up on 3 now and I have been looking for work to no avail. I havvve two mortgages and two utility bills, the condo we have that could be rental property has been flooded twice due to the neighboring condos, there has been problem after problem with getting it repaired and has been sitting empty for a year now. It is almost finished and has been for months but I've been having problems finding anyone to do the last of the work on it, it seems that ether th job is too small for most profssionals to want to bother with and the ones that do consider it are way out of my price range.
My husband will get out of prison in January, but still faces more jail time. His lawyer seems reasonablyconfident that he can get him a plea bargain that will keep him out of jail. If this doesn't happen I don't know what will become of us. Even if I lose our house I know that I can move back into the condo, provided I can get the repairs finished. So mostly what I worry about is if our marriage can survive all we have been through. I love him, and I know that forgiving him is key to my inner peace, and while I have made some strides in that direction I am still so challenged. Particularly when he takes his frustrations out on me like he sometimes does. I have a hard time feeling sorry for him like he wants me to because he, sick or not(because addiction is truly a disease) he still knew what he was doing, he had resources to go and chose not to use them, he made his bed and now we all have to lie in it.
I have talked with my pastor, and trusted others. Some people, both those close to me and those who aren't, have advised me to leave him, to divorce him and take everything I can and start a new life. I know that this is the path for me. You don't abandon someone who needs help, especially someone you love. I have prayed on this very subject numerous times. I always have the overwhelming feeling that doing so would be WRONG. And the thought of not being married to my husband just makes me heartsick. If our marriage does not or can not survive I will not leave him while he is behind bars, if nothing else that seems a dirty rotten thing to do.
But my physical and mental health are suffering. In the weeks before and after his arrest I rapidly dropped from a size 9 to a size 0, I have had trouble sleeping and eating. My weightis slowly coming back to normal and I have come back up to a size 5/7 now, but I still look terrible, and feel terrible. i am in the grip of a horrible depression, which I fight daily in various ways, I have been to the doctor regularly, I take medicine and I talk to my pastor and my friends, but most days I just put on a face for my kids. ANd I don't do a very good job of it sometimes. I can't bring myself to enjoy things very much, I hate to leave the house and though I force myself to do it more than I absolutely have to it is such a relief to hide here, I know that I am not as emotionally available to my children as I was, but so much of the time i am so miserable that it's hard to even smile when they talk to me. I am struggling so hard against all of this but a lot of days if I could stay in `bed I would. I pretend most of the time, smiling and doing things and making conversation trying to be normal, but it is exhausting. I have much to be thankful for, my children first and foremost and I remind myself of this daily, and still I can not keep from sinking further into this depression.
Please pray for my family and me. I know the Lord is with me every dtep of the way, I don't doubt that in the least, without Him I would have already lost everything, without Him I wouldn't be able to even pretend to smile, much less smile the genuine ones, I know that He is listening to me and that He has blessed me with the wonderful friends, family and church family that has helped me through this terrible situation. I know that and I am so thankful for that. I know He is listening to me, but I also know that, try as I might, I am somehow missing something that He wants me to hear or do and so I'm asking please, for help praying that the cloud in my head be lifted so that I can better hear our Lord. And please pray for my husband tht he can come home to stay and stay sober when he gets here, that he works a sobriety program that will help him with his sobriety, so that we can rebuild our marriage and our family, which once was so happy. Our marriage was good for longer than it has been bad, and I refuse to jump ship at the first real 'worse' to come our way, because I truly meant my wedding vows or I wouldn't have taken them. But right now I am struggling, floundering, drwoning in doubt and fear. I need prayer please.
Thank you.
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