Happy Easter! Christ has risen, hallelujah!
I hope that each of your holiday festivities were Christ-centered and included lots of great tasting food.
Yesterday was an interesting day, or should I say, an interesting new mix that was created in this so-called, Ochoa experiment, otherwise known as my life.
My husband and I weren’t on great terms to begin with, starting the day. As usual, he woke up cranky and took awhile to snap out of it. And then we went to get my grandmother to take to church with us, complete with her wheelchair and oxygen tank, and that frustrated him because it was taking too long. Then when we finally made it to church, he was upset again because I had to leave him and my grandmother alone in the pew while I mingled around, the “job” of every church staff person come Sundays.
Actually, putting it down on paper like this, I now see how many times he gets upset during just a morning. Very sad. Clearly he isn’t happy either…but more on this later…
The Pastor’s sermon during the service was one of his better ones. He spoke on the importance of a woman being the first to the grave on Easter morning (huh, I reflected on that too just days ago!) and how we are to now go out and celebrate the resurrection.
But there was a point in his sermon that sounded my internal alarm.
Pastor was trying to make a connection between changing points in our lives vs. the changing point in the world’s lifetime (Christ’s resurrection), and that was it. That was the only spark I needed to change my outlook for the rest of the day. No turning back.
You see, Pastor asked, what one influence in your life to this point has completely changed it for the better. 9 times out of 10 people said their spouses. I know this because he asked 10 random people in the congregation, and 9 of them said their spouses.
I was floored because that wasn’t my answer.
Actually, thinking about it the rest of the day, my husband would never qualify for this answer. This is very bold to say, and it is easier when behind a computer screen, but in the name of online therapy, there it is, I actually would say the reverse about him…things have gotten much harder in my life after meeting him.
And how horrible is that to say?! A spouse is supposed to be the enabler in your life, not the disabler. He is supposed to be the answer to the Pastor’s question, and that’s why 9 times out of 10, it was.
Where did I go wrong?
I have been working feverishly for three years now trying to create a great relationship with my now husband, and here it was, smacked in my face on Easter morning, that in fact, what I have been working for, well, it isn’t working.
Things got more complicated as the afternoon progressed.
After church we headed home where I prepared a six appetizer spread, and a five course dinner. Adrian’s mother and sister came over about an hour earlier than the main course would be finished, and decided to leave during this time to visit some friends then come back when the main course was ready.
I wish I could say that I was surprised by this. But I wasn’t. Here I just spent the last two days, shopping for, cleaning for, prep cooking for, a blessed Easter spread with family, and they can’t even stay during the first part of the party? But, whatever, who I am to let this bother me, right? So, I quickly brushed this off and continued to cook, this day is about celebrating Jesus, not them.
After the hour was up, they still weren’t back. Again, no big surprise. And we waited. Waited some more.
Then my husband gets a call from his sister that she was at the park and somehow hit her head and was bleeding. It was decided by the people at the park to take her into the emergency room. However, in the efforts to not worry their mother, she was not told, and she was on her way back to our house for dinner.
Well, somewhere between my mother-in-law driving to our house and my husband hanging up the phone, she found out. She walked into our house, as we were eating our main course, and no more than a minute later, my husband’s sister calls again and wants her mother to go to the ER to be with her. So my mil goes into freak out mode, as she is known to do, and jumps back in her car and off she goes to the hospital.
Ten minutes later my husband gets a call that he too needs to go to the hospital.
So off he speeds to the ER. Dinner plate still full of food.
My grandmother and I are left with the most confused looks on our faces. Like, “What just happened?” Seeing that my sister-in-law was the one to originally call my husband in the first place regarding her accident, I was not too concerned of any life threatening problems. I figured at best, a few stitches?
Grandma and I finish eating our lunch. We talk some. Then I drive her home. Unload the oxygen tank and the wheelchair and get her settled in for the night.
I drive home, put all the food away, do all the dishes, put my house back together (it was in “party” mode of course), and change into my pjs.
Still no word from the hospital.
Time goes on and still no word, a few texts now and again that say, “We are still here.” (Go figure, seeing that they are not home…)
And around 8:30pm (remember, they all left for the ER around 2pm), I get a text from my sister-in-law in LA, the one who is married to my husband’s brother, asking if her husband is coming home tonight.
Wait a minute.
You mean to tell me that the brother (there are three siblings total), came all the way down from LA just to sit in the ER with them?
Are you kidding me??
The sister is 27 for goodness for sake – AND has her mother by her side AND my husband.
And to put a cherry on that side story – the brother told us weeks ago that he and his family could not come to spend Easter with us because he was the only one working that day at his job, and no way in a million years would he be allowed time off Easter seeing that he was the only one.
So knowing that, and knowing that he probably left in the middle of his shift, and knowing that my sil was probably in not that bad of shape, I just couldn’t believe it.
And to add fuel to the fire. My bil didn’t even tell his wife he was coming. I guess his phone is not working, so he drove all three hours here, and then called his wife from his mother’s phone telling her where he was and what happened.
Are you freaking kidding me?
This whole hospital story just floors me. Yes, going to the emergency room is traumatic. But as far as I could infer, she was a little banged up, but not dying, not needing emergency surgery. And again, she is twenty-freaking-seven!
After my sil from LA’s text, I lost it. Putting together the entire day with my husband, and seeing how his brother treats his wife, I lost it. This is a family thing. Treat wives like shit. Ok, not like shit. I’m getting overly emotional. But, you get the point. They don’t treat us wives not very well.
For the first time in our relationship, even counting way back on our first date, this was the first time I didn’t feel that we belonged to each other. And that was the weirdest feeling of all. Here I was. In a home in which we created together. Sitting with our two beautiful dogs, that we adopted together. And I felt like a complete stranger to him. Separated from him and his true family. His true family being of course his brother, sister, and mother.
I have been only kidding myself to think that I was his family.
I spent the next three hours overly dramatic, I do so confess. But once that separation theory got into my head, there was no turning back for me.
I mean, how did I get this so wrong? How did I get to this place?
I dialed my parents in need of their thoughts instead of mine. And God love them, they are only looking out for the best of me, but by the end of that conversation I felt further separated then before.
My parents told me that this would never change, that his family will always interrupt our Easter parties, our lives, it will never change. They reminded me that the last two holidays were ruined as well because of the same reasons (well, not the ER story, but you get the point, ruined due to him and his family). So I need to mentally prepare myself that holidays, and regular days, are just going to suck and I need to suck it up – or make a change.
The change I am guessing they are referring to is the “d” word. The word that I swore up and down that I would not even consider in my marriage, which was going to last a life-time. (Did you notice that I just said, was? This is bad…)
My parents, people of the same concept of mine above, suggesting this to me?
Needless to say I took notice.
Maybe this isn’t the best situation. I mean I already said that my husband is a disabler not an enabler.
That’s not good.
But maybe I am just too caught up in recent events and not seeing things straight?
So by 11pm they were finally home. And when they got home, I decided to just go to bed. Not see any one. Not talk to anyone. I would hate to say something then, at that hour, that I would regret the next day, and I knew I would feel better in the morning.
Well, here it is the next morning, and I feel the same…
I have always heard it said that marriage is one of the hardest things you will do in your lifetime. And before I met my husband I always wondered if that was the case then why do people get married?
In the Bible, Christ refers to marriage in a different sense than woman and man. Christ says that He is the groom, the husband, and the church is the bride, the wife, and the relationship that Christ has with the church is marriage.
Praise God for that, because right now, that’s the only marriage that I am happy to be a part of.
And only by the help of my spiritual husband, may I come to better terms with my earthly one.
