He doesn’t say “I love you” anymore.
He calls me only by my first time.
He is cold and curt.
He answers the phone with, “Yes…”
I am a stranger in my own home.
It’s an uncomfortable, icky feeling that covers every encounter.
Is this just another phase, another facet, another compartment yet unveiled?
Or is this what he means by “only a parent partner”?
I am once again in the dark—but this time I can see.
I was in the dark for 14 years of marriage…but I didn’t know I was in the dark.
Then for 2 more years I was in the dark, and I knew—this is darkness—as I began to discover and search for answers to–what is this darkness?
Then light was brandished in the 16th year of marriage, with the confession: “I am a sex addict”…but I had to wait for 1 MORE YEAR for answers…
In the 17th year of marriage, I entered the LIGHT through a therapeutic full disclosure…but was immediately hit with an enveloping darkness—the reality I had never known existed…throughout the duration of our marriage. I set out to heal from this darkness.
18th year of marriage, I am in the light. I know my reality. I have done the hard work to heal, but it’s no fairy tale. There is a new darkness, but I see it, I feel it, I experience it with my eyes wide open. I know, “This is darkness.” I am no longer blind. I can see light in my darkness.
LORD, you light my lamp; my God illuminates my darkness. Psalm 18:28 (CSB)
