It All Makes Sense....

I think it's important that I am honest and transparent in this process, it's only fair to myself and my family - especially when we look back at this time.  Sometimes it's hard to talk about the things that aren't going right in your family, and it's so easy to hide those from others. 

For me social media is really a double edged sword - it's a great way to keep up with everyone near and far, but it's also so easy to compare your life with others. We never post the bad stuff that is happening (I mean, we are going to post about a brain tumor, that's a little different), and when marriages struggle, we all fight the battles quietly, even though many of us are all going through the same struggles. 

The last few years of our marriage, I have felt that Kevin and I had grown apart. Our interests had changed and what we enjoyed doing for fun had changed. I knew that as marriages went on, that people would evolve, but in my opinion, I felt that we had really taken divergent paths. I use the phrase "I" a lot here, because I had asked Kevin 5-6 months ago if he would be willing to do marriage counseling, and he told me that he didn't think that there was anything wrong. This was a read flag for me, and instead of insisting that we go to marriage counseling, I let things fester. I started seeing a therapist by myself, in hopes that if I could change my attitude and how I reacted, that maybe I could change my marriage alone. That didn't help and I found myself even more frustrated and alone then before. I had reached out to a friend of mine who I knew was going through something similar, and they really encouraged me to try asking for marriage counseling again.

And so I did

Right when Covid hit Kansas I had asked Kevin to consider going to marriage therapy again, I found a therapist after a lot of research, and we settled on Dr. Stephanie Wick (Andrews and Associates, Inc - if you ever need a good marriage therapist, this is the lady to see - I cannot say enough good about her). We went every week, and we talked about my frustrations (Kevin never had any frustrations, he was fine with things the way they were). We talked about how I felt that Kevin didn't help enough around the house, that I felt like we didn't have a lot in common anymore, that I felt like I was parenting alone and that I didn't feel like I was getting enough support from him. We both agreed that we loved each other, that we wanted our marriage to work, and that we were committed. We went on a weekly basis, things started to improve. Stephanie then told us that we had graduated to every two weeks - I was nervous, I feared that we would do great for a bit and then we would slide back into the old pattern. That's exactly what happened. 

After two weeks we went back to see Stephanie and we all agreed that we were concerned that this would happen, that it was expected and that we had to be more intentional about asking for what we wanted, what we needed and I needed to realize that Kevin couldn't read my mind.  We struggled over the next few weeks, trying to be more intentional about taking a night out for a date, trying to be more intentional about communicating, this was hard. Kevin and I are both Communication Studies majors, we are both talkers, but when it came time for me to talk to him about what I needed on a day to day basis, in life, in our marriage, it was freaking hard and challenging.  Marriage is hard folks. 

And then Bartholomew was discovered. 

We were visiting with the neurosurgeon on Sunday, she had asked if Kevin had changed.  Many times people who have this type of brain tumor become agitated, angry, and verbally aggressive. I assured her that this was not Kevin, in fact, he had probably become quite the opposite if anything. Then I told her about marriage therapy, and the conversations that we had with Stephanie. Dr. Crabtree says "so he's become more apathetic?" and yes, over the last 5 years that is exactly what had been happening and that apathy was been part of the problem. I had chills, it had explained so much.  She told me that he will return to normal eventually. It won't happen over night, but in 6-12 months I should have the same man who proposed to me with a scavenger hunt across NE Kansas.

Don't be afraid to share your struggles on social media, it's not easy - but you will be shocked at the number of people who are going through something similar. 

I asked Kevin if it was okay to share all of this information, he told me that it was - followed up by "this may be Bartholomew talking".....