When you marry someone, you have this idea that you should be ONE, meaning think the same way, react the same way. Do the same things, and enjoy them. Laugh at the same jokes and sarcastic humor. This may be correct for certain areas, but I am learning that everyone handles grief in different ways. gasp. Even your spouse.
Pregnant with our first boy, 7 weeks.
It’s very easy to accept differences of opinions with friends and family, but your spouse is someone you rely on to side with you. To uphold YOUR beliefs, and to ” feel ” the way you “feel”.
Because you are so intimately involved, it becomes a difficult mindset to understand that they do in fact think differently from you. React to tragedy in a different way than you do. They love differently, dangit. They eat differently, unfortunately. You have to learn early on to ACCEPT those things about your spouse, or you will eventually go insane.
I got past our differences early on, I’m talking teenage years and learned that in the end we complimented each other. We grew together with grace and acceptance, and lots of irritation to agree on subjects.
I knew with time the Lord would use our differences for good, and He has. Oh has He used us. Oh has he grown us to be more like each other, yet separate souls. We’ve learned it’s important , and OKAY that we have different passions, as long as we find a way to intertwine them into the love that we have created. Together.
When It comes to an early, and unexpected miscarriage, it is often difficult for the man to comprehend what the woman goes through. Emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually. We , as women are the ones that in pain, labor the tiny baby, and pass the tiny baby in a way that never leaves us. It comes up during daily activities in ways that we cannon control. The grief consumes us, as we care for the other children we have here on earth.
While the woman is still experiencing the physical effects of losing a baby, the man is moving on to different things, as often it doesn’t effect him as deeply.
In our case, I was only 7 weeks along. Not aware I was even pregnant, not until I got very ill with nausea, and the next day, passed our son. Alone in my bathroom, late at night I said my goodbyes to him as I felt his soul leave my body. The details are beside the point. I lost a baby. We lost a baby we made in love.
I carry this daily. Although Matt grieves the baby we lost, we doesn’t show it like I do.
I’m learning that this is ok.
During a breakdown session today, alone in the car I shouted to the lord:
” WHY CAN”T HE FEEL WHAT I FEEL?!”
He responded to fast:
:: Are you asking me to allow him to hurt like you do?::
I realized right there that I was praying for my husband to ache as I do.
Thats a selfish thing, a selfish act on my part. I love my husband, why would I want him to experience my hurt, pain and deep loss.
The fact is that one of us has to be strong. I cannot be me at this time, so it might as well be the one I chose to spend forever with. It might as well be the one I’ve given my whole heart to . To love, to protect and to cherish all the days of his life.
If there is anything I could say about my husband right now, it’s that he is faithful to love me. He isn’t going anywhere, He strives to love me, and to reestablish our love for one another. He is my encouraging man, and my safe place.
He may not cry himself to sleep at night with visions of our Jude boy, but he sure loves me. He loves the fact that we make beautiful babies together. On earth and in heaven, all the same.
So where you are grieving, just remember. It is not love to ask the Lord to show them how you feel. You are asking him to bestow hurt upon them.
Instead, ask the Lord to give them joy that overflows into your life. There is no gain in self pity .
Pregnant with our second child, Rhema Zoae.
