A few weeks ago, I was in a funk about my marriage.
My husband and I have had issues with certain things over the years. Nothing I need to get into here, but enough that I found myself wondering:
What do I do about my relationship?
Am I supposed to be with this person?
Is this really where I’m supposed to be?
So I did something that may sound a little cheesy.
I asked the universe for a sign.
I basically said, if I’m supposed to be with my husband, I need you to show me.
And then…
Nothing.
At least not right away.
A couple of days went by.
Then one day I was standing in my kitchen making food.
I wasn’t thinking about my marriage.
I wasn’t desperately looking for my sign.
I was actually really grounded and present.
And suddenly, I remembered something.
About four months before I met my husband, I was dating another guy.
And this relationship was FAST.
It was passionate.
He told me he loved me really quickly.
I was young and completely swept up in it.
And then, almost as quickly as it started, it ended.
Except it didn’t even really end in a normal way.
He basically started ghosting me.
This person who had supposedly been so in love with me suddenly wouldn’t answer my texts.
Eventually, he finally responded and told me he was moving and didn’t think the relationship was going to work.
Except he wasn’t moving across the country.
He was moving like an hour away.
I remember being completely heartbroken.
And confused.
Because the ending never made sense to me.
I never really got closure from it.
And honestly, I hadn’t thought much about it in years.
Until that day in my kitchen.
Because suddenly, I had this thought I’d never had before.
Maybe it ended because it was supposed to end.
Maybe I wasn’t supposed to end up with him.
Because four months later, I met my husband.
And standing there in my kitchen all these years later, I could see that old relationship completely differently.
I’m so fucking glad I didn’t end up with that guy.
Not because he was necessarily a bad person.
But I was young.
I didn’t really know myself yet.
And looking back now, I can see how incompatible we probably would have been long-term.
The kind of person I would choose today?
Funny enough…
He’s a hell of a lot like my husband.
And suddenly I just knew.
This was my sign.
Could someone else call it a coincidence?
Sure.
Maybe it was.
But I had asked for a sign about whether I was supposed to be with my husband.
And a couple of days later, this memory came back to me in an entirely different way.
It was exactly what I needed.
It felt like something was saying:
Look.
And I did.
I looked at that relationship.
I looked at everything that happened afterward.
I looked at the man I married.
And I made a decision.
I’m in.
That’s it.
I’m in this marriage.
I’m choosing this man.
And I don’t think I realized until that moment that I had never completely made that decision before.
Even though we’d been married for twelve years.
I had spent twelve years with one foot out of my marriage.
Just in case.
Just in case he hurt me.
Just in case I needed to leave.
Just in case I let myself love him too much and something happened to him.
That last one is probably the biggest.
I’ve always been afraid of needing my husband too much.
Of letting him become too important to me because… what if I lose him?
What if I let this person become my world and then I’m left without him?
So I protected myself.
Or at least I thought I did.
I held him at arm’s length from my inner world.
I didn’t always tell him what I was really thinking.
I didn’t let him know all of me.
I resisted intimacy.
I kept this little piece of myself tucked away where he couldn’t reach it.
Because if I never gave someone all of me, maybe they could never completely break my heart.
And I didn’t realize what that was costing me.
I was so busy trying to protect myself from potentially losing my husband someday that I wasn’t letting myself completely have him now.
So I made the decision.
Both feet in.
No emergency exit.
No waiting to see if the marriage becomes good enough for me to fully participate in it.
No waiting for him to become the perfect husband.
No waiting until loving him doesn’t feel scary anymore.
And something happened after I made that decision.
I changed.
I became more affectionate with him.
I started telling him what I’m actually thinking instead of keeping everything inside.
We’ve had deeper conversations.
Things he does that used to annoy me make me laugh now.
My attraction to him feels deeper.
And when I feel myself wanting to resist intimacy, I don’t automatically listen to that feeling anymore.
I feel it.
And I move toward him anyway.
And apparently my sex drive was hiding behind that wall too.
Because holy shit.
For a long time my interest in sex was basically…
Meh.
Now?
Very much not meh.
I’ve been wanting my husband.
I’ve been enjoying sex with him.
I’ve been allowing myself to experience that closeness instead of immediately putting a wall around myself.
And something else happened that I wasn’t expecting.
He changed too.
Or at least something between us did.
I don’t know how much of that is because I changed.
I don’t know how much of it is because I’m finally noticing things about him that were already there.
Probably some combination of a million things, because relationships are complicated.
But he started showing up for me differently.
He became more understanding of what I need.
And at the same time, I started seeing so much more of the good in him.
I think I spent a lot of years waiting for my marriage to feel safe enough for me to go all in.
I wanted proof first.
I wanted to know I wouldn’t get hurt.
I wanted some guarantee that if I handed someone my whole heart, I wouldn’t someday regret it.
But there is no guarantee.
Loving my husband wholeheartedly means he could break my heart.
Life could break my heart.
Something could happen to him.
Something could happen to us.
And that’s terrifying.
But I finally realized I had a choice.
I could spend my marriage trying to protect myself from the possibility of losing him.
Or I could actually let myself have him while he’s here.
The fear still comes up.
I just don’t let it make the decision anymore.
I already made the decision.
Maybe that memory in my kitchen really was the universe answering me.
I believe it was.
But the universe didn’t magically fix my marriage.
It gave me exactly what I needed to see.
And then I made a decision.
After twelve years of marriage, I finally put my other foot in.