Therapy or Divorce: Childhood Trauma, Miscarriage and Family, Becoming Co-Parenting Roommates by Anonymous

“Either go back to therapy or I want a divorce.” Words I never thought I would say or truly mean. I’ve never given an ultimatum before. I don’t like ultimatums, they can seem like manipulation. But I had hit my limit.

My husband and I have been married for 5 years, and they’ve been some of the best and happiest, as well as some of the hardest years of my life.

When I met him, he become my best friend. We spent every day together and had so much fun.

All I had really wanted was a friend, and we were for a little while. Then our relationship progressed and we fell in love, got married. You know how it goes.

After getting married I wanted to wait to have kids but felt like we should try. So only after being married a few months, we tried for a baby.

I got pregnant right away, due on January 1^st. We were beyond happy. 12 weeks into my pregnancy, I had mild spotting and went in to get my blood drawn. The next day I miscarried.

That was the hardest thing I’d ever been through. It shook my world.

It shook me emotionally, spiritually, and physically. I felt broken. I instantly became jealous of any new parent or any expectant mother.

I had been someone who didn’t cry, but after losing the baby I would break down and cry at different times. I questioned God and His plan.

I realized I didn’t understand faith. My testimony in God as a loving Heavenly Father seemed misplaced.

I hadn’t told many people I was pregnant so no one really knew I miscarried. And the people I did confide in about the miscarriage didn’t react how I expected or wanted. They would sweep it away or just talk as if it’s something that you need to get over.

Miscarriage is very lonely. Even though my husband was physically there during it all and we were going through it together, it changed us differently.

God is a big part of our marriage and life, and he wanted to pray and read scriptures together, but I didn’t see the point. God’s will is so intangible and it took my baby from me.

God told us to have a baby and then took it away before we could even physically have the baby. It was hard on our marriage -my husband pushing to continue praying and worshipping when I had little interest. I believed, but I didn’t think it was necessary to go through the motions.

This attitude stuck with me and sometimes is still with me. God used to be something that brought us closer, then it became something we would fight about since I wouldn’t push for prayers or scripture study like my husband did.

My husband grew up with abusive parents, mostly emotionally and verbally. When we first started dating was when he was able to finally get away from his parents.

But the 20+ years of abuse had still taken its toll. Right after getting engaged, he realized that he had some very unhealthy habits that he had learned from his parents and that he wanted to go to therapy to work on them.

 I was supportive and encouraged him. Therapy takes you on a rollercoaster. There are so many memories and emotions you finally have to deal with and it beats you down.

For him, he had to relive a lot of the trauma from his childhood in order to get better. While he was dealing with his own personal hell, we were also dealing with the miscarriage together.

He was trying to be there for me, and at the same time he was trying to deal with his childhood. After over a year of therapy, he was finally done. And we were both picking ourselves back up as well.

We were eventually able to have a baby. A few babies.  After a total of 6 pregnancies, 3 of those being miscarriages, we had 4 healthy beautiful children, all under the age of 3.

It’s amazing and such a blessing to have kids. But young kids require a lot of attention. It felt like all our time and energy was focused on them.

We made sure we were giving them everything they deserved. I was surviving, going through life, making sure my kids were happy. When not working, my husband dedicated most of his time to our kids, and then exercising and interacting with friends.

I was pregnant with our last baby at the time, and I was very sick and tired. For me, whatever wasn’t dedicated to my kids, was dedicated to sleep.

But then I started to get blamed for things. I wouldn’t give my opinion as it seemed I was shut down a lot.

We didn’t have familial support as they all lived across the country, so it was all up to us. It was just my husband and I, with our 3 kids and 1 on the way.

I was just numb. I loved being with my kids but any moment not with them I felt lonely. I was alone.

My husband was there but he wasn’t. I brought it up to him a few times, and in the moment, we would see where I was coming from. He saw that unfortunately, he was putting me aside like his parents always did to him.

He would do better for a few days, but then always go back to how he was. He would minimize me.

I suggested he go back to therapy but he would just do the same thing. He would try really hard for a few days, then go back to himself. We were co-parenting roommates. That’s what we had become.

I was sitting on my bed and finally let all the loneliness and hopelessness come. It crushed me. It hurt to feel that way.

I realized I couldn’t do it anymore. That it wasn’t good enough for him to “try” but that he had to “be” better. I knew I needed more because I wanted to be happy. I thought it out for a few days, realized what I needed to do.

I had been pushing him for over a year to go back to therapy and I knew that he needed help. I hated it because I loved him. I wanted him to change because he was such a good man.

He’s overcome so much and he had helped me so much. But the digs here and there, I couldn’t take it. I made a plan, either he would go to therapy and get help and I would support him while he did, or I would leave him because I couldn’t go through life blaming myself and feeling so small.

After a very difficult night I finally told him, “either go back to therapy or I want a divorce.” I told him if he didn’t start going within the week, then I was done.

It seemed to finally hit him how bad it was and how bad he was. So, he did.

Within the week he started therapy again. But because of our argument, I realized I was still dealing with some anxiety and depression that came on during my first pregnancy that I thought I had resolved.

I started therapy too. It wasn’t couples therapy. It wasn’t us having a problem with communication. It was that we both had so many problems personally that together we were doing horribly.

My husband is still doing extensive therapy because of his childhood. And I am doing therapy from trauma from my childhood that came up because of my pregnancies.

It wasn’t just one of us, it was both of us. We both had problems and we both had to deal with them.

The other person couldn’t resolve it, we had to resolve it ourselves.  Because we are working on ourselves, we are also able to work on our marriage.

I think that was part of our big problem. We lost part of ourselves in our marriage and we stopped being friends. Our main focus was taking care of our kids and STAYING married. We weren’t being husband and wife.

We had to start to do the same things that made us fall in love. We had to work on our friendship. And also spend time on ourselves so we could give more into each other’s lives. But I can honestly say this is the happiest I’ve been since the honeymoon phase wore off.

It wasn’t just my husband. He did need therapy and I’m glad he got it, but it was us. We now spend more time together, dating and being friends.

We both have trauma to deal with but that’s just it, we are dealing with it. We are changing and improving.

It is his willingness to put effort into improving that makes him such a good person. Because he really is. He is so caring. He puts everything he can into our family.

When it was just me and him, he didn’t know how to. He had gotten caught up in the patterns his parents had taught him.

Our marriage is working because I was willing to act for my happiness and my marriage and he was willing too. He is such an amazing man and he takes such good care of our kids. He is doing so much better by me. But I had to push for it. I had to stop being passive.