Pulled

 

Pulled

I get asked a lot about being a foster parent. What advice do I have for people considering it for their families? Parenting is hard. Parenting foster kids is harder. Parenting when you break birth order can be harder than foster parenting needs to be. My advice to families considering foster parenting with biological children still at home: Decide carefully if birth order issues is what you want to struggle with.

We love our girls; they add so much joy to our family and we don't regret bringing them into our family, but the struggle with birth order is real. Remember back to how conflicted you and your first born felt and struggled with the adjustment of an added sibling? Yea, like that, but worse and more complicated. Although we have made it work in the past and committed to making it work now, too, I am stating it here so that I can hold myself to it: this is the LAST time we are breaking birth order if we continue to foster after these girls find permanency.

When we accepted this placement, we knew their might be issues because Miss S is smack dab in the middle of Maybel and Charlie (although we didn't realize she was developmentally behind Charlie) and Miss E is only two years older than Maybel. We anticipated issues with the four youngest. We figured the 4 year age gap between Maybel and MR wouldn't be an issue at all. WRONG. The conflict between the others was present in the beginning but minimal now 9 months in. But the first borns seem to be in a constant, unfixable battle for first status, and it's affecting both their self-worth and self-esteem. Is there someone in your life that makes you green with envy every time you look at them? Now imagine being forced to live with that person in a makeshift sibling relationship competing for the attention of your parents. This is what I am dealing with with these first borns. Sooo much jealousy over every little thing.

These three girls are so attention seeking, demanding, energetic, with more needs than Maybel... the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right? Sensitive, quiet, independent Maybel is the one getting lost in the shuffle of five kids. Charlie is unaffected by this placement and the birth order-upset I think because he is the only boy and he is home with me half days while all the girls are in school so he gets plenty of one on one time with me still and gets father/son time regularly which the three girls aren't that interested in. No jealousy is directed toward Charlie at all - just Maybel.

Maybel recently told me that she feels less important than the foster children and wants more one on one time with me and her dad. Talk about a punch to the gut - we never wanted our foster parenting to be detrimental to our biological kids. So, we have made some changes to meet her emotional needs to make sure she feels seen and heard in all the chaos of these three girls. Now, MR is saying she feels unloved and unliked because we are giving Maybel what she needs (and because of underlying trauma details I wont go into here). We just can't win.

The counselor has reassured us meeting Maybel's needs is what we should and need to be doing and she will do her best to help MR understand and cope with it and address the underlying trauma issue behind it, but that its also obvious this is a birth order issue that we just need to keep pushing through. But gosh, do I feel pulled in two opposite directions and stuck in a losing war of the battle of the wills of the first borns.

Where did all my good friends go?

I try not to be lonely, but I am. I was never without a friend as a child. I have always been one to seek connection. As a child, I found it in many friendships,relationships, and mentorships throughout the years. If I outgrew a friendship, it was because I was growing into another. I was never the most popular person but I always had a group of friends, usually one or two I was especially close to, and usually several casual friends I would regularly spend time with. I like to think I am a very good friend. I will bend over backwards for those I care about. However, I also hold high standards, so its definitely caused people to walk away. I have also made mistakes as a friend, because I am not a perfect person. Mistakes or not, I almost always felt, with the exception of maybe two people, that I was only their first choice when I could do something for them ( i.e. homework help). Every close friend I ever had eventually dropped me for someone they found they liked better, which I don't hold against them. Even my bestest friend dropped me for drugs. And as much as I understand and empathize with the struggle of addiction and pretend she didn't hurt me, it hurt to watch my friend choose drugs over me, twice, even if it had nothing to do with my worth as a friend. Even though it hurt, I was willing to wait for my best friend to come back. Hurt or not, I was willing to understand that friendships grow apart. But when all my friends dissipated along with my youth, and my one final bestie began using the first time or was relapsing the second time, I found myself asking over and over, “Where did all my good friends go?”, and feel quite a lot of despair over being so easily discarded.

As an adult, I never stopped seeking connection. When I met and married my husband, I really tried hard to fit in here. I tried really, really hard to make new friends. For a short while, I did. I had my village. But for mostly reasons that I am just different, I was shooed away from that village. I only belonged there while I was still pretending to be someone I was not.  But I kept seeking. I went to any mom group or activity I could attend. I tried forming my own mom group. I tried really hard to socialize at the parks. I invited people and tried scheduling play dates, time and time again. And I have met some really nice people along the way, but I have not made a friend I can hang out with, that calls me up for a walk, or that I can call when I am having a really hard day. A few times when I really started to like someone, they moved away. I do have some really awesome people, mostly on the internet, but as I have discussed with them.... its different. It's different from having a friend that can just to come over to your house and BE there. I have friends twice or more my age that I genuinely like and feel very similarly too, but the age gap is a stumbling block to creating a close friendship. Maybe its myself that gets in the way, as I just can't imagine that they really want to be good friends with someone so much younger or maybe its me and my desire to have even just one close friend my own age.

Most people go off to college and make life lasting friendships there. I spent my time in college trying to hide that I was being abused by a boyfriend. Most people start their careers and make good friends at their new jobs. My jobs post high school have been hanging out with dogs or teaching people how to better hang out with their dogs, so barely any co-worker interaction there, so not a whole lot of friend making opportunity there. Dog shows were a huge blessing and have met some wonderful people, but again, they are not local and there is a generational gap. The few people my age seem to already have their own clique that isn't accepting new members and even if it were, being a mother whereas they are childless, once again I am just different.

So here I am 30 years old without any remaining childhood best friends, without any college friends, without any close friends from my career or job, wondering if this is the way its just going to be for the rest of my life? Lonely. Because I feel like its too late. Because I feel like I missed my friend-making window of opportunity. Because I am just too shy and too different to make local friends, now. So, I start feeling pretty melancholy without any hope of getting rid of this lonely feeling.

And I feel guilty anytime I start feeling lonely, because I really do have a lot of wonderful people in my life, even if most of our interactions are through text or online or they are not from my own generation. I am also blessed to call my husband my best friend. I am so very grateful that I have such an amazing person to spend life with. I tell myself this all the time.

But I am lonely, nonetheless. Lonely when I think back to what I had with Kelli back in my life. Lonely when I see others with their best friends or friend groups. Lonely when I am reminded what I am missing.

Each and every time I see someone enjoying time with a friend, in my head I am asking the question, Where did all my good friends go? I go through each one of my friends in my head trying to analyze why we grew apart until I "get it" all over again. And when I am done distracting myself with that, I eventually wind up at this last question: Why did my best friend have to die?

Which makes me realize that I am probably the problem. I don't really want to make new friends. I am still holding the space for the friends I have loved and lost, especially for the one that never  really meant to discard or leave me at all.

Where I Belong

 

Dog shows are where I belong.

Honestly, I have been unmotivated and reluctant to go back to dog shows this year. After Kelli's death, I really struggled with guilt and anxiety and doubt.

I have struggled with guilt because I spent so much time at dog shows instead of with my friend when she was still alive. Since starting the Poodle breeder journey, being back in the dog world has done wonderful things for my mental health. In the background, I was really struggling with my friendship. Watching your loved one struggle with addiction is a special kind of hell. When she passed away, the guilt of spending so much time at dog shows really consumed me for awhile, as if I could have done anything that would have changed the outcome. If you thought the guilt stopped at Kelli, you would be wrong. When I lost Kelli, it made me realize she was not the only person to get left behind while I was off at dog shows chasing my self-care. Over this past year, I have come to understand the guilt is not fair to myself. I was doing my best, even if I wished I could have done better in hindsight. I have come a long way in forgiving myself this year but I will never stop wishing I had spent more time with her and losing her has made me fear losing anyone else.

I have struggled with anxiety because I have fixated on this thought, “If God would take her just a few short years after I got her back in my life, whats stopping him from taking someone else?” I find myself worrying all the time that I will get another phone call, another text that will shatter me all over again, so I dread leaving my family to do anything fun for myself. I have avoided dog shows. I have avoided and skipped dog training classes. It was a big reason behind leaving my dog training position. I went to one dog show in the summer, and ended up leaving it early, relieved to be on my way back to my family. So where before I was focused on dog shows and self-care, I reversed direction this year to put my family first. I have really enjoyed all this time this year with my family and believe it was exactly what I needed. However, I also know at this rate, I will burn out and feel like running away to dog shows again. I hope next year is the year I finally find balance between the two. Ultimately, I never want to feel like I did not spend enough time with someone important to me while they were alive ever again while still taking care of me, too.

This entire year I have struggled with doubt, not knowing if I was going to continue my journey as a dog breeder and showing dogs. Because of the guilt but also because of the feeling of not belonging. The first time I opened up to someone about the guilt of dog shows, about my regrets, that person misunderstood my words and said certain things, and our relationship never repaired, which made me feel like I wouldn't really have a future or a place in the Poodle breeding community. That person's reaction made me doubly struggle with my guilt. I worked so hard and spent so much time earning those wins and titles on my dogs to impress people and to belong just to see it all come crashing down around me – atleast that is the way it felt at the time – when I could have been spending time with people I cared about. I didn't quit like I wanted to, but I definitely took a step back this year and doubted my journey, doubted my decisions, and doubted my future in Poodles. The year of Covid gave me a great cover as I waded through it and processed all of it. Over this past year I have had to readjust my vision and work towards being okay with it if all my hard work ends up going to waste.

This weekend, as we sat together watching the Best of Show and my kids were blurting out names of the breeds they met and learned about this weekend, I thought about how I was raised at dog shows and all that it taught and gave to me. Although it gave me endless knowledge of dog breeds, it gave me so much more. As I volunteered to steward the dog show, watching my kids interact with club members and exhibitors, and develop a work ethic and new skills, and show dogs, I felt like I was giving them a piece of me. As I watched my family help tear down and clean up after the dog show with the club, I thought about all those dog show teardowns with my childhood dog training club and all the people I was blessed to grow up knowing and the friendships I formed, because of that club, including meeting my best friend Kelli.

Even if my kids only enjoy dog shows with me for a little while and decide to do something entirely different with their futures, I hope my kids find meaningful relationships and form friendships at dog shows. I hope my kids can take something from these experiences and take those lessons with them wherever they go. Just as I did.

I needed this weekend more than I knew. I needed to get back to a show, and I needed to get there with my family. I needed to watch my kids grow at a dog show. This weekend I was reminded dog shows are where I belong, and my family belongs there with me.

Good Riddance ?

TL;DR : We are raising our kids to be non-racists, and they are mad.


Some people care enough about you to have the difficult conversations to work through hard feelings and differences; some people just block you. It is hard to find out which one people are, but I think it can be beneficial to learn which one people are. After all, I am an INFJ and prefer to have relationships that are real and deep in my life as opposed to fake and superficial. I prefer to know where I stand with people so I can manage my expectations. I prefer to know, even if its hard to know.

This year, I have unfriended people that I felt no connection or a bad connection with, who made it known they were not enjoying my points of view, or who wouldn't respect my boundaries on the facebook platform. Those I unfriended that I wished to keep in my life, I messaged immediately to make them aware that I meant to maintain a relationship – just one off facebook. I have blocked, and thus removed from my life, some people who showed really bad behavior. But mostly, I had just carefully and silently restricted people's access to my facebook profile; if I did so, it was because I did find value in them being in our lives. It is because I cared enough about our relationship to censor what they saw that they could not understand. I failed at my censorship recently, and have apologized for that failure. So, for a relative to be unwilling to forgive that, skip the unfriending part and jump right to the unnecessary action of blocking without warrant, warning or explanation, really feels like a shunning to me.

Earlier this year, my husband and I made a decision we would not be attending any more extended paternal side family functions while we have our children of color in our home, maybe indefinitely. At my husband's request, I did a lot of friend removing and blocking of people on that side of his family as well because it seemed like any time I made the choice to express myself it became a problem with them. We thought, at least we still have the family connection we feel good enough about on his maternal side so our children could still enjoy a big family and know some of their relatives.

It is important to me, because I grew up without extended family, as they were in another state. My grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles were strangers to me, and it pained me. It was hard to see my friends have these relationships I did not have in my life but wanted desperately. I never wanted to be the cause of that pain for my own children which is why we have stayed in my husband's hometown so distance would not be an obstacle for those relationships to form. When I met and married my husband, I had hoped my children would experience a childhood more like my husbands than my own. Now as an adult, knowing my husband grew up with a big, involved family that met for every holiday, which he still felt disconnected from, I am not sure that not having those relationships were really as big as a loss to me as I once thought. It is hard to say because most of my extended family are still strangers to me even now. But I have seen that knowing extended family, growing up with them around is not some magical loneliness cure that I once thought it was.

So, one of the people who had always felt the most welcoming toward me on my husband's maternal side has blocked me because she misunderstood and/or could not accept something I said.  I am not taking it personal, but it does hurt. For the past decade I have gone to every extended family holiday and gathering, sat mostly alone or mostly quiet until the one of the few people who usually speak to me finally do. I went even though I was so out of place. Ten years I pushed aside my social anxiety, sweated in my shirt, feeling lonely in a crowd of people, and I did it knowing that at least one or two people may talk to me to make me feel included, and that was good enough. And now one of those few people has blocked me.

 I am not taking it personal because although it was a mistake that she saw the feelings I wrote about, I know I didn't say anything wrong. Hearing honest feelings can be hard. I understand her grievance that I made a family issue public. I completely understand that previous generations hold the cultural norm to keep their secrets, sweep it under the rug, and suppress feelings that could rock the boat. I empathize for them as I imagine how hard it is for them to see a younger generation breaking from that tradition. I give that understanding, but I am not going to succumb to the shame she wanted to impose on me for being willing to speak my mind. Afterall, although it is her family's norm, it is not the norm for me. I was raised by a strong woman who spoke her mind, and the older and wiser I grow the more and more thankful I am of it.

So tonight, my husband and I will be sitting down to discuss again our involvement in extended family gatherings on his maternal side with the topic being led by this question: How much do we want to be somewhere where we feel we are not truly wanted or welcome – assuming we get invited at all? Whatever decision we come to, I know my children will have a blessed life filled with fun memories and meaningful relationships with the people that do love us and welcome us. Although we learned one person in particular found us discardable, my husband's mother sat down face to face with us to work it out, proving that she thinks our relationship is worth the work. I hope she continues to do so. My children have the blessings of their Nana and Papa and on my side, Grandma, Aunt and Uncle and their three cousins. Even without extended family holidays, my children already have so much more than I did growing up. I think I turned out okay with a lot less, so I know my kids will turn out even better.

But alas, my thoughts come back to the bigger picture. I can't help but to feel some sadness about how easily others will discard people who think, feel, or believe differently. My husband and I had no other choice to grow up our entire lives in an environment where we were different, a political minority, so we were always bombarded with opinions different than ours, grew use to hearing the feelings and beliefs of others that would hurt our feelings or our hearts, and we just had to learn to bite our tongues, accept those differences and get along. And we have gotten along for so long, but we primarily did it by hiding our authentic selves.

So it is interesting to watch these people who hold beliefs that we never liked but we tolerated for so long, now shun us at the first mention of our own feelings and beliefs that they don't like. Okay, wait a minute, lets back up. We all now I have been sharing my feelings and beliefs publicly and loudly for quite awhile. But the first declamation we gave saying that my husband does and has always agreed with me and that we are raising our children to believe like-wise, is apparently the straw that broke the camel's back. We liberal minded corn folk grew up in  red homes, red communities, and churches hearing that our beliefs make us sinners that will send us to Damnation but we can't grow up to tell them without the consequence of shunning that we are uncomfortable with the way they voted against the very Christian principles taught to us by them?

I cannot make someone understand me that wishes to misunderstand. Nor can I live a happy, healthy happy life feeling stifled and mute about my feelings, beliefs, and principles. My husband can, but we are not the same in that way. I apologized to my husband last night, for being the way I am, and not enough like him to create more harmony with his family.  My husband looked me in the eye and he told me, "I knew this before I married you and I still chose you." Now, normally, I would be thinking in my head, "He is stuck with me and just trying not to rock the boat like he was raised to; he is only saying that to calm me down." But now I know different. Because he is who he says he is. He was who he was before he met me. Because even if he has quietly hid who he really was to his family, he has always been real with me. Yes, my husband chose me. Yes, my husband loves me, all of me, even the parts his family of origin don't. Yes, my husband is happy with me. And I, with him.

If we are to be shunned or discarded for our honest feelings, for believing differently,  and for having the audacity to speak our minds, if we cannot be accepted and loved as we are, my husband says, “Good riddance.” Good riddance sounds harsh. I don't know if we really feel this is a welcomed loss or not. But if it a loss, it is one that happens as a result of being ourselves. So maybe won't welcome the loss of the people, but rather we would be welcoming the permission we will give ourselves to be our authentic selves all the time without fear of their criticism.

If it is good riddance as a result of being ourselves and speaking our minds, I cannot help but to point out the irony of it, seeing as they voted for a man that Republicans praise lavishly for speaking his mind.

Love Wins

 

Trump losing the election is something I feel relief about, but I also worry that that relief is fleeting because when all the excitement or relief fades away and we are left with a “nothing will fundamentally change” president, something even more disturbing will still remain. I saw the phrase “The rot runs deep” the other day and it resonated. As I tucked my daughter into bed last night - comforting her as she cry because her grandparents made the mistake of announcing to my kids that they voted Trump while they were babysitting during our recent date night - that phrase bounced around my head. Trump will be leaving office by the will of Democracy, but the rot runs deep and the rot remains.

When my daughter was three, she saw me crying while looking at the photo of Alan Kurdi, the three year old Syrian boy whose image on the beach went viral after his drowning during the refugee crisis. I did my best to explain the what and why as delicately and child appropriate as I could, but seeing that picture stayed with her, because to this day, she still talks about Alan unprompted and out of the blue. I can still hear her say in her little toddler voice say, “3 like me?”. She cares deeply for his memory.

As she's gotten older over the last four years and asked more questions about Alan and why he died, I have tried to explain the complicated politics, specifically the policies of the Trump presidency regarding refugees and immigration, in terms she could understand. She has gotten it in her head that Trump killed that boy, a boy she cares deeply about (and although each time she says it, I explain to her he did not literally kill him, I can't argue with her that he isn't at fault). She cares about people of color. She cares about Black Lives Matter. She cares about the brown kids in cages. In our house, love is not only a feeling, it is a verb, and we tell our kids we use our right to vote the way we love. So, she wanted to know why- “Why doesn't Nana love dark skinned people?” i.e. why didn't Nana vote to help people of color. I did not have an answer for her that wouldn't further damage her relationship with her Nana that the vote for Trump disclosure already caused. But I did tell my child, even if the people around us don't love as they should, love as Jesus tells us to, WE always can. And if we believe in God, we can choose to have faith that Love Always Wins at the end. When I told my children that Biden officially and finally won today, she jumped up and down with glee, and shouted, “Love wins!”

I love that my children will grow up the next four years knowing love won this time. But I will never forget who the people in my children's lives are that decided to vote for such a man. I will never trust them fully; I will never respect them fully; I will never feel fully safe to bring my children of color around them; I will never feel fully confident in their influence on my children's moral development.

The first election, I gave a lot of understanding to people duped by the man. This election, no where in my understanding, root for the underdog, devil's advocate, don't be a sheeple, walk a mile in someone else's shoes part of my brain could I find any excusable reason to vote for a man such as him after watching him the last four years. Vote for a Libertarian? I can understand and even respect that during the Trump era. Vote for Biden, of course I get that. Vote another third party, write someone ineligible in, leave the top of the ticket blank, sit out the election entirely.... again, I can understand all these people. Maybe its a failing on my part that no matter how hard I try, I fail to understand a second term Trump voter, or maybe there really is no goodness or logic to understand in it.

Whichever it is, I am left with a deep regrettable feeling that people my children know and love have rot somewhere inside them. My family will know that some part of their heart was willing to vote for such a man so unlike Christ and filled with hate for others. The rot runs deep, and I am nowhere near done forgetting where that rot had laid hidden until a Trump presidency brought it out in the open.

Sometimes, people act in ways that make relationships never the same again. I really wish my daughter had remained ignorant to how her Nana voted. I am sad for my child, who loves so deeply, and now knows the hurt of watching a person very important to her make a choice that breaks her heart. Trump will be leaving office by the will of Democracy, but I will know the rot remains, and I sit here and wonder, will the knowledge of the rot that exists in the people she loves stay with my child, just as Alan has stayed with her? As much I know it will stay with me, I hope the only thing that stays with her, is the knowledge that Love Wins.

Happy Together

Something significant happened last night. I had an emotional breakthrough. And it didn't cost hundreds in counseling fees – just a $25 date night (oh, and a decade of unnecessary struggle). Apparently, 30 is the year I'm supposed to get all my shit together. ha

Most of my lifelong struggle with depression stems from my feelings of loneliness, which of course is a result of being so different from the people where I live. Feeling lonely and depressed over being different has just been my normal all my life. One of my first memories of feeling different was during a 5^th grade mock presidential election. I was one of the very, very few people who voted Al Gore. Anytime I wonder how I turned out to be so politically different than the community I grew up in, I always think back to that 5^th grade election – how badly I wanted to save Earth and how alone I felt when I learned I was the minority. It has always been a significant memory for me.

Anyone that understands the struggle with depression knows about intrusive thoughts. Unfortunately, I have an intrusive thought that has always led me to struggle in my marriage and mental health. That intrusive thought is that I feel that my husband would be happier with someone else. This intrusive thought started early in the relationship when he told me that his parents told him that they thought I was changing him into someone he wasn't. He was upset because he felt like his parents really didn't know him at all. I was upset because he told me he left without saying anything to defend me or himself, which made me believe that he agreed with his parents because I cannot fathom not telling someone they are wrong about me when they are wrong about me. I remember this clearly because it was one of our first big fights, of which there are so few, and I nearly broke up with him because of it. Ever since, the idea that I changed him into someone his family doesn't like, and therefore he would have been happier and better off marrying someone else, has been an intrusive thought I struggle with. Anytime I start thinking suicidal thoughts, its always been around this intrusive thought. My insecurity about this has come up time and time again in our marriage; he has told me probably a million times its not true but I have always needed repeated reassurance and still never fully believed him. I cannot imagine how frustrating that is to him, to not be believed, for years!, yet he patiently reminds me each time that he is who he says he is, he has always been the same and he didn't change for me, and he is happy with me.

Tonight we had a date night. We were discussing the election, talking about where we might dream of moving to where we may better fit in, when I asked him what was the very first election he remembered. Although my husband is a sensitive, feeling man, he rarely likes to discuss or dwell on the past, and besides sharing that he never felt like he belonged or that he was generally not liked by others, there was never anything traumatic, nothing so particularly significant from his point of view that needed discussed about his past, so it wasn't unless I thought to ask a pinpointed question about his past that his past was discussed. So, back to the question I asked him- what was the first election he remembered, and he said, “When I was in middle school. I voted Democrat.” He couldn't even remember the name of the guy, but he explained that he remembered because when his friend found out, he teased him relentlessly. When he asked about it at family holiday that year, he remembered an aunt telling him that if he was a Christian then he should vote Republican, a significant memory for him in feeling shamed for being different. Then, he told me that in his first presidential election, he voted Obama. I asked him, “How did I not know that?” He reminded me that he had told me once before. I sat and thought about it for a moment, and then the memory came back suddenly and clearly. It was on our second date. It was significant because I was prepared to not continue dating him or vice versa when I decided to tell him that I was a Democrat. Although I remembered the conversation, remembered that was the first time he shared with me how different he felt from his family, and how he told me it absolutely was not a deal breaker for him that I was a Democrat … I forgot his disclosure that he voted Obama. Strange how the brain forgets. So as I have been sitting here typing this I am asking myself, how? how in the world could I forget that? And the answer is trauma.

For those that need catching up – when I met my husband, I had just gotten out of a very abusive relationship. The interesting thing about that relationship is that the boy I was with was not the only person to abuse me. His parents were as equally emotionally abusive to me as he was, if not more so in the beginning of our relationship. His parents, especially his mother, constantly accused me of not truly loving her son and of trying to make their son be someone he was not not only behind my back but to my face. There was a reason for this – I was a vegetarian and told him I wasn't willing to date a meat-eater when he asked me out, mostly because I wanted an easy “out” or way to say “No” to him. I was in no shape to be in a relationship as I had just had my heart broken by someone I had loved for years. I never expected him to offer to adopt a whole new lifestyle but he told me he would become a vegetarian, and so we began dating. Very stupid on my part, I know. So, although his parents' abuse was inexcusable, nor did I force him into that decision, it was based in reality that our relationship started terribly and it certainly could seem to an outsider that I was forcing him to be someone he was not. So I had it thrown at me quite frequently, first by his parents, then by him, and even by his friends. So, his mother cursed at me and insulted me quite regularly. As the abuse worsened over the course of our relationship, when my ex would begin gaslighting me and insulting me, his parents would join in. His mom even stood by as he locked me in a dark closet without a light once as they both shouted insults at me through the door. Just to give you a very clear picture that it was way more than just a parent that didn't like me.

So, I had a significant amount of trauma wrapped around a boyfriends' parent having this false idea that I forced or manipulated their son into changing who he was in order to be with me. So when my now-husband told me in our very new relationship that his parents said the same thing my ex'es parents said, my trauma brain reacted in a the way trauma brains react. So, I understand that my previous trauma explains why I have lingered on my intrusive thought: “He would be happier with someone who didn't made him to be different” for so long, forget that important second date memory, fixate on the memory of the fight my husband and I had about what his parents said, secretly doubt who my husband really is, and convince myself that I cannot trust my husband's word. But now, I do.

After discussing this all with my husband last night, he asked, why does him voting for Al Gore in middle school or Obama before he met me make such a difference, when he has been telling me our entire relationship who he is. Quite simply... its proof for my logical brain. Concreteness. It is more than him just saying it, which could be a lie, but rather, it's an action – two actions – that validate what he is saying. No, I don't have the actual votes he cast in my hand as physical proof, but he gave me very detailed recollections of these memories that tell me they are the truth. When you spent as much time being emotionally abused and gaslighted as I did, you don't fully trust others and you don't trust yourself. There is always that little voice in the back of my head saying, “Too good to be true. That's not the truth. This isn't real.” I am just waiting for the tables to turn, for my husband to stop pretending to be nice and loving, waiting for the abuse to come. Each year of our marriage, the voice has gotten less and less loud, but as irrational as it is, it is still there. See how trauma works? Creeps into so many cracks everywhere in your life for years to come.

I digress to say that I have struggled with this for ten years, which probably would have been fixed a whole lot earlier had my husband and I had affordable health insurance that covered mental health services so we could have gone to marriage counseling. Instead, it took ten years and a simple date night conversation inspired by the presidential election loss of the worst president in our lifetime. Ironic.

So, learning that my husband voted for a Democrat as a child in a mock election, that he was feeling just as lonely and different as I was after that same election, that he voted for a Democrat again in his first presidential election as an adult, despite his upbringing and classmates teasing, despite his extended family insinuating that in order to be a Christian you have to vote Republican and knowing how important his faith is to him and the pressure that must have put on him.... I know now my husband has always been who he is. I know now that I did not force, persuade, or influence my husband to change his political ideals in any way. He has always been him, just as I have always been who I am, and we were just lucky enough to be introduced so that we could marry and be lonely Democrats(ish) in a highly conservative area, together.

Knowing with certainty that I did not change him is going to allow me to believe him when he says he is happy with me. Why? Because even if he had never met me, he would still be who he is, still feel like he doesn't belong, still feel different, and I am not the reason for it as I have thought for the past ten years. I am not naive to think that the intrusive thought that I have spent the last 10 years listening to and struggling with will disappear just like that. But this new and remembered information, with its concreteness, will help me challenge and defeat it each and every time it pops into my head, and trust me, it pops up a lot. I don't even know how to describe the relief I am experiencing to have such a powerful tool that may finally give me the upper hand in battling my depression.

There may be some people who get upset if I share this writing. So here is where qualify it. I am not writing this to cast any shade, but I am telling my whole truth as I experienced it. I am telling my truth for others to know so that I can make it real not only in my mind but in the minds of others, incase I ever need to reach out to a friend or simply re-read this published writing, when I begin doubting again. I am telling my truth and sharing it with others because I think it may have some value to others. I think this piece of writing shows a very real effect of trauma and how it continues to impact lives decades after the fact. I think this piece of writing tells a story of a successful marriage. I think this piece of writing is an applauding piece that shows just how amazingly patient, loving and committed my husband has been to me despite me and my baggage rarely making it easy on him. I am sharing it because it is pivotal. Pivotal in my marriage, pivotal in my mental health going forward, and I want to shout it from the rooftops that I am on a journey to being free of something that has imprisoned me for far too long.

And lastly, this is where I give my advice to parents of sons and daughters that are entering new relationships with people you may not like – your opinions about your children's relationship or significant others don't need to be said to them. Do not meddle in their relationships unasked. Just don't. If you raised them well and have a good relationship with your child, they will come to you when you are needed or your opinion is wanted. If you don't have a good enough relationship for that to happen, then you really don't have a place to stick your nose into their relationships. Although my previous traumas made something said to my husband into something much bigger than it was, what was said was still completely unnecessary and unsolicited. If that something unnecessarily said had just never been said in the first place, my trauma could not have snowballed into an intrusive thought that would effect my marriage for a decade and lead me to struggle with suicidal ideations. Or maybe the same intrusive thought would have developed, but it certainly would have had a whole lot less fuel to burn. Now obviously, I have been through much, much worse than a boyfriend's parent making the mistake of telling their son they don't like his girlfriend from a place of misguided love and concern. I stopped being mad about it and forgave them a long time ago and feel I have an amiable relationship with my in-laws; they don't have to like me for us to be kind. But, I have never forgotten that they don't like me, and obviously it has had long-term consequences of which they could not have predicted. I don't blame them for the snowballing effect my trauma had on what they said. They didn't know it would have that effect. But that is the point – you just don't know what an uninvited opinion about your child's relationship will turn into. I repeat – Do NOT tell your children that you do not like their significant other. Just don't. If they are happy, you are happy for them. The end.

And for the record, we have always, always, always been very, very, very happy together.