Mary June Miller3 Comments

Why I Stayed

Mary June Miller3 Comments
Why I Stayed
 

After the confession, Patrick looked at me tenderly and said, “I know this is grounds for you to leave me. I will get an apartment if that’s what you want.” 

My heart had just been crushed as I had witnessed the man I love, take a journey into the darkest part of the forest, and slay the thing he feared the most. I had seen courage. I had also experienced him as a changed man for over a year and had watched him live in love and speak the truth. I felt like I had been given that last missing puzzle piece that had been lost and now things made sense to me. 

The feeling of strength that I felt the night of the confession was a new feeling for me. Over the past year, I had started to feel more whole, more strong, and more true. After Patrick’s awakening, we began speaking the truth, and I realized how many ways in my own life I was trying to bend reality by ignoring areas that needed attention. God brought healers into my life that year and I experienced healing emotionally and physically. There were opportunities to practice the strength I was praying for. Then the big one came.  And I felt so strong and carried. It felt (almost literally) like I was wearing a wonder woman suit. 

The download from the confession was massive. The following months were intense. It felt like strength would come and go. I believe that the suit was given to me by the Divine and never left me, but instead, my perceptions (lens through which I was seeing the world) were more cloudy some days and it was hard for me to remember the truth about what I was experiencing in Patrick. There were many times that I needed reminding about the healing we were already experiencing.  

Some days the pain and fear became the lenses I was looking through instead of the lenses of love & truth. I learned to allow myself to look at the pain and fear, to face it head-on, speak it out in confession, and hold no shame against myself. Layer after layer after layer was being exposed. This was my work to do. Patrick held space for me. He would take those opportunities to remind me of how loved I was, he would also remind me of how sorry he was, and he never ever shamed me for my grief and questions. 

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Since the confession, I have been asked several times why I stayed. It’s a valid question. And I want to remind you that this is our story, this is not a prescription in any way. I would have to go a long way back to explain how connected I have always felt to Patrick. I mentioned in my last blog post that our connection feels ancient and it’s undeniable to me that Patrick is my person. He is my best friend and has always been. There were years that I didn’t feel known by him, but we were still connected. So when he said to me that he would get an apartment I knew if that would happen it would be for a short time and never long term. There were the kids as well. Our 4 children mean so much to us and I couldn’t imagine putting them through a separation.  

“The only way to love without holding record of wrong is to know the same love from the Father, otherwise, we will “love” with a false love bound in judgment. Without a revelation of the Father’s love, we will continue to condemn the way we think he condemns us. This keeps us in darkness. ”
— Ted Dekker | The Forgotten Way

The confession happened at the very beginning of March, and in May Patrick started traveling to Texas every week for work. May-August he was gone from Monday - Thursday.  When we first realized that this was going to have to happen for work, I was tempted to let fear creep in. What would happen while he was gone? Was he really healed? Was that risk one that we were willing to take? What if he messes up again? It was another opportunity for me to either walk in the strength I was already given by the Divine or to pick up the lenses of fear and look through them for a while. I chose Love. I was beginning to learn that it was the only way to live true. 

We discovered that those weeks of forced separation were healthy for us. They gave us time alone to work through our individual fears and grief. Thursday night would roll around and I would get dressed up and drive to the airport at midnight to pick him up! Although the reunion was sweet and we always looked forward to being reunited, we would often find ourselves in some sort of fight or disagreement soon after he got back home. 

I remember one night, in particular, we were headed home from the airport and something set us off so much so that Patrick asked me to stop the car so he could get out and walk home. I wasn’t finished saying what I wanted to say so I kept driving. We can laugh about it today, but at that moment it took both of us being willing to listen to the other, speak truthfully, take responsibility, and then makeup. We were able to have these conversations and ‘fights’ because we had made the commitment to stay together. I wasn’t afraid of him leaving and he wasn’t afraid that I would leave. Tension in a relationship is healthy. When there is a space where you both feel safe enough to say hard, painful things there will be tension and also the opportunity to keep becoming more true. 

“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior. Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”
— Ephesians 4:32-32 NLT

There was a time in my mind when I had to make the decision to stay. But it’s hard for me to pinpoint that. I do hold my vows to him very seriously and yet, this experience shook them. I knew on the night of the confession that I had spent a year with a man who was living completely different than he had been and I sensed he was speaking the truth.  I knew if I was in his shoes I would want my soul mate to stay, and I knew there was nowhere I would rather be than with Patrick. He is my person, my soul mate, my lover, my very best friend. I sensed that we were just getting started and that the best was yet to come!  And when there is a party about to happen with Patrick in it - that’s a party I want to be a part of! 

If there is something I want to leave with you it is this - I want you to hear that there is hope. There is hope when you release shame and judgment towards yourself and your spouse. People can and do change. Love is such a powerful force - more powerful than the forces that keep us in shame and darkness. So have hope and let love be your guide!