Shipwrecked

Part 1

Have you ever experienced a shipwreck in a relationship or marriage?

It's devastating and painful. It can leave you sinking in the depths of ice-cold water, in shock and confused.

Overwhelmed with anger, grief, self-rejection, and shame. It leaves you questioning everything about yourself.

One week into my marriage

One week into my marriage. I opened up my husband’s laptop and found numerous pictures of women from his past, or so I thought, in compromising positions, semi-dressed leaving nothing for the imagination.

My heart sank and my head started spinning.

My first thought was, “Oh no! What have I done?”

I immediately thought, what's wrong with ME. What have I done?! And most importantly how did I get myself here?

It was at that moment what seemed like a movie reel started flipping through my head of every red flag I ignored or tried to turn pink.

You see, when we met, I had just been divorced from a 7-year marriage.

I was in a bad place. I was so full of shame for being divorced. I felt so much guilt that my daughters now had to travel between homes. That I was only with them every other week.

My self-esteem was just about non-existent at this time. I felt rejected and abandoned. I felt worthless and I felt lonely.

You may ask me…now Leah, did you take the time to heal and work on your self-esteem and shame issues?

Negative.

I cannon bombed right back into that dating pool.

I joined a couple of dating sites, and they were the worst. I quickly found out most of the men there weren’t really interested in a relationship or even in talking.

It was a disaster!

I did some dumb stuff like having a few of these men, I knew nothing about, over to my place. I at least had enough sense to not have them over when my girls were home. All because I wanted to feel accepted, valued, and seen.

I wanted to experience love & connection on my terms.

It’s only by God’s grace that nothing bad happened to me.

Then one day

Then one day at work this super cute guy kept walking by my office. He seemed very shy and quiet.

Typically, the type of guys I’m drawn to.

One afternoon, I was at our shared office printer retrieving some documents I had printed when I happened to notice an email he had printed off was there too, so I decided to take it with me. Then I proceeded to message him to apologize for “accidentally” picking up his paper and offered to bring it to him.

He had already left for the day and told me I could just throw it away, which was a real bummer.

The next day at the office, a message popped up on my computer. Guess who it was?!

You guessed it! It was the cute shy guy from the day before.

He wanted to thank me for picking up the paper he printed off since he had forgotten about it. And that was the beginning of our relationship.

Now let me just pause this love story to remind you, that I had still not worked on any of my stuff. I’m still feeling worthless and rejected, ok?

So, now this extremely handsome, professional, nice man who is now talking to me is feeling really good. And that void, & emptiness in me started to feel less painful and empty.

So not long after that email, we started talking, I asked him if he has a girlfriend. (first red flag) He said he was in a long-distance relationship with a woman in Arkansas. In the moment I couldn't help myself so I responded, "Ok well let me know if you guys ever break up" and end the conversation.

Well, I thought that was the end, but he kept pursuing me daily.

Because I hadn't taken time to heal, I thought to myself, "You know what, I think I can handle a casual intimate relationship." No harm in that right??

But what I soon realized was that casual and intimate cannot coexist.

As you can imagine as we grew closer and my feelings for him increased, I could no longer be ok with our arrangement. My conscience was getting to me as well. I knew what I was doing was wrong and so horrible to his girlfriend so I broke things off with him.

A couple of months

A couple of months had passed before he reached out to me again. He told me he had broken things off with his girlfriend and wanted to be with me. So at that point, he was free and I was free so we began dating.

It wasn't long before I would find out that he would begin having secret conversations with his ex-girlfriend.

Devastated, I ended the relationship.

Once again he starts pursuing me and tells me that there is no more communication going on between him and his ex-girlfriend.

And you guys... guess what? I TAKE HIM BACK!!

This was how low I was. Like this is bad and I’m not even registering how unhealthy I was. I was just so desperate to feel wanted and worthy Ugh…

So many other things took place while we were dating. We eventually get engaged and marry.

This takes us back to the beginning.

One week into my marriage

One week into my marriage I opened up my husband’s laptop and found numerous pictures of women from his past, or so I thought, in compromising positions, semi-dressed leaving nothing for the imagination.

My heart sank and my head started spinning.

My first thought was, “Oh no! What have I done?”

Stay tuned for part 2

Hi!

I'm Leah

Wife, Mother&

FLRSH blogger.

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I look forward to connecting with you!