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PLEASE NOTE: This rambling contains themes of emotional abuse and mental health decline.

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People say it like it is romantic.
Like the words are not empty.
Like they would actually have the opportunity to jump in front of a bullet and prove it.

But what we don’t talk about is what it looks like to bleed out slowly — one day, one sacrifice, one excuse at a time.

We don’t talk about the testimony of those who have actually lived out that expression of love — those who have silently died giving all of themselves to another.

This is one of those times that we do.
To her, it is not just an empty metaphor.
To her, it is her reality.

This is the time we talk about a wife who quite literally was dying for her husband. The one where her brain was shutting down because she was in a constant state of fight or flight — and still, she continued to choose to fight. 

She chose to fight for her kids, her husband, their marriage, their family. Never mind the fact that the enemy itself was her husband. 

She kept fighting. 

Until the day she could no longer. Her brain was losing function and physically she was incapable of carrying on. Doctors said she would die if she continued living the way she was. 

What good would she be to anyone if she was dead?

She didn’t take a bullet for him, but just the same, she died for him. Slowly the mental abuse and the responsibilities he placed on her ate away at her self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem — every form of self she had — until it was all gone. 

She was left with a shell of a person. A person who did not feel alive. Did not feel wanted. Did not feel loved. Did not feel anything at all. 

She stopped living. She stopped wanting. She stopped loving.

Even then she was forced to carry all the pieces of their so-called “perfect life.” But how was she to manage that when she couldn’t get out of bed most days, couldn’t even breathe around him, and her memory was rapidly declining?

She couldn’t.

But how could she not? His abuse and his responsibilities consumed her life; she had nothing of her own. Even her identity was consumed by his.

She had given up. Her life was no longer. 

The only thing keeping her in this realm were the two most precious gifts that God had gifted her. She knew she had to stay for them. They needed her — and she needed them.

The nail in the coffin came through a small voice, spoken in a moment so loud it shattered her, asking, “Why are you so mean to Mommy”? 

The last of her died that day — but a new person was born. A person that had to do better.
She had to do better for those two precious gifts from God.
She had to do better for her.

And so she did. 

It has taken years to crawl out of the pit of despair she was in. Years of doubting, crying, failing. Years of hoping, smiling, rising. The person she was died for him — but the person she is now lives fully, loves abundantly, and laughs contagiously.

She lives for those two precious gifts from God.

She lives for herself!

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– sorry NOT sorry –

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