Florida Healing

Just tuning in? Please start at post 1 of this Series “Surviving Infidelity”: Shattered Hearts, Broken Promises.

July 20th, 2011: 10 days after “The Truth”:

  We just got back from an AMAAAZING 2 weeks in Florida. Talk about the Lords PERFECT timing! A concentrated time with no phone, no interruptions, no “real life”: Just rebuilding our broken marriage.

  How incredible that we were supposed to go in May, yet had to reschedule for July. We were so disappointed to move our vacation around  back when it occurred, but God knew in His infinite wisdom, that we needed the trip at the EXACT moment we rescheduled it for…..a mere 10 days after the truth came out.

  We were reeling!  We were hiding from the world, because surely they could see the pain and raw emotion on our faces. Our world had collapsed around us, and our Heavenly Father knew we needed time to heal. Right away, Dale called my dad and Drea, tearfully telling them what had occurred. He begged their forgiveness and told them he understood if they didn’t want him to come visit. They sobbed, naturally, then went on to encourage Dale to still come, they’d welcome him with open arms and thanked him for being upfront with them.

I shared a series of Florida posts from this summer…..

A beautiful wedding for my baby brother & his lovely bride, fun at the beach, Disney land, birthday parties and dinner cruises.

  It was the best Florida trip we have ever had, the timing was incredible!  The healing it brought, more than I could ever explain!

  I LOVE that the Lord orchestrates things as He does, knowing far better than we do what we need and WHEN.

The night before my 30th birthday, Dad and Drea offered to babysit, so we could walk on the beach and watch the sunset. Remember how I told you that I gave Dale my wedding rings back, and told him he’d one day put them back on my finger, because our marriage was worth fighting for?

  Well, at this point, it was literally only 3 weeks that I had been ring-less. But I tell you what, it is HARD to not wear it after you are used to it. I felt robbed of the privilege, ashamed it was gone and did my best to try to hide that fact at church, and then on our Florida trip, pleading with the Lord to keep anyone from asking me where my rings were. They were, at the moment, safely back in Kansas, waiting for “someday”…..or so I thought.

   

We walk the beach, hand in hand, crying and talking, then finally, returning to our picnic blanket just in time to watch the sun sink lower and lower in the sky, until it appears to melt into the ocean.

RIGHT at sunset, Dale pulled out my wedding rings! He spoke beautiful promises to me of our future together, and asked me if I’d wear his rings again as a sign of my willingness to remain in our marriage. My heart leapt for joy at the site of those rings, but I accepted the engagement ring only.

Not the wedding band, I just couldn’t do it. To me it’s as broken as the vows, my goal and desire is to melt both of our old bands to form new one day. Beauty from ashes so to speak.

  I was SO thankful to have it back on my finger. He said every time I look at it to remember we are in a fight for our marriage, that it represents my choice to stay even when it’d be easier to give up.  

This is one sunset, I will NEVER forget…….

Written August 2nd, 2011 

-BACK HOME-

  Dealing with “real life” after 2 weeks in Florida was a bit difficult to say the least. Reality has quickly set in, and with it, a Tonya who is acting “normal” doing normal day-to-day things, yet inside is a totally different person. It is such a weird feeling to be “walking in her shoes,” yet not be her anymore. Everything has changed.  Everything is different. That happy person died and with it, all her hopes and dreams.

   We are home just in time to jump back into the daily grind of life with work, a new school year starting up again and ALL the busy meetings and supply shopping that entails.  I feel as if this is the part after the “Plane Crash” of life as we knew it, where the deep pain of bruising from the accident is setting in. Maybe no longer open gushing wounds, but deep, painful bruising to say the least.

  We are returning to a life that didn’t know the world stopped for us July 10th.  A world that doesn’t have room for outbursts, tears and sorrow.  A world that needs us to be ready to smile, give of ourselves, and “be normal”, whatever that is.  I am scared that people will take one look at my face and know sometime is terribly wrong, and I don’t want to talk about it.  I can’t, not yet.

  We knew we needed some tools in our tool belt, some outside guidance to put back together the pieces of our shattered marriage, so now that we are home from Florida, we will begin counseling.

  Picking the right Marriage Counselor can make it or break it for a hurting couple!

More on that next,

~T