When Life Hands You Lemons

I was tagged last week by Lynnae at Being Frugal for a meme about making lemonade when life hands you lemons. I have actually written a post before titled just that, When Life Hands You Lemons. I’ll pull a quote from that post I wrote back in December.

Living simply has proven to be quite fun and fulfilling. Living in a home that is 100% your own and your taste is so valuable. I think back on the projects we’ve done, with kids underfoot, and what wonderful memories those are going to be someday. Showing Bug pictures of her putting tile down in the laundry room, painting our bedroom, helping with whatever she could. That’s home.

So that post was all about our home and what we went through to end up here and how we’ve made the best of it, but more than making the best of it, we’ve made something really truly wonderful. Not like those things that you hear like “wow, you look great for just having had a baby!” or “your house looks fabulous for having once been a crapshack!”. Crapshack once or not, we’ve made a wonderful and beautiful home with no need to even put a little footnote about what it once was.

I don’t want to write all about my house today though and how this lemon of a house turned into quite a gem that I have become very very attached to.

I want to write about my separation from hubby a year and a half ago. I don’t want to write about it, but it’s a part of me and it’s cathartic to do so. I still think about that time every single day. I think about how hard it was on him, on me, on our daughter, on all of us as a family. As I have said before, my hubby has depression. Last year, the lovely little life I had and the world I knew as rosy and wonderful caved in when his depression turned to anxiety, sadness, anger, and resentment at me, the house, our life, everything around him. It was a very dark time in our life together. It all came to a head when I packed up our daughter in the middle of the night one night and we drove 45 minutes to stay with my parents.

I was scared, I was sad, I was angry. I can still remember laying in bed at my parents house that night, curled up with my then 2 year old in my arms and sobbing myself to sleep. I had no idea what I was going to do. I was 7 months pregnant and had myself, my daughter and soon another baby to take care of. My mind raced with thoughts of going back to school to get another degree, finding a job to support us, where would I live?

Time passed. I didn’t talk to hubby for a while – probably only a few days at the most but it seemed like an eternity. We started making arrangements for what I would do and how we would amicably part ways. We had been seeing a counselor together for a couple months before this all happened and he decided he would start going to her again by himself. And then, finally, he admitted to me one day that he did indeed have depression, that I was right all along and that he wanted to get help for it.

I know that was so hard for him, admitting that he had a problem. He wanted so badly to just be able to say it was everything around him causing him pain and that he himself was fine. If only he didn’t live in this house, work at that job, or wasn’t married to this woman. But he knew, deep in his heart that it wasn’t any of those things making him miserable. It was his depression talking.

As he slowly picked up the pieces and started putting himself back together, everything else started to fall back into place also. He wasn’t so tired anymore so he had energy to work on the house. He wasn’t angry anymore so he wasn’t wasting his evenings arguing with me. He wasn’t resentful anymore so he started showing appreciation for what was around him again.

It took about 3 or 4 months which doesn’t seem all that long but it sure felt like it to get everything back together. He got the house into condition for us to move back home. He was a new person that day that we came home, me and Drew and baby Eli who was 2 months old at the time. It was a long and very hard time for me, our kids, him, all of us together. I take nothing from that time but gratitude. I am so thankful to have a man in my life who wasn’t too proud to get help when he needed to. Thankful for a marriage that has become much stronger because of what we’ve been through.

We still have our stumbles and we still have changes and transition ahead but in the end we know we want to be together and we want to make it work whatever it takes. Not everyone gets to see what we did together and have a bright and happy ending that results in a respect, appreciation and understanding like we have. Many people take for granted that their relationship works. While I think that is great, I think that what I have learned is that no marriage will work day in and day out for all of two people’s days without a lot of effort, a lot of respect and no taking for granted.

Me and hubby, we have a long life together ahead of us. I am confident if we made it through that, we’ll make it through anything. If that’s not lemonade, I don’t know what is.

Other bloggers have shared their own When Life Hands You Lemons posts as part of this meme, including

Skimbaco. She started the meme after having a sad event happen to her a couple weeks ago but wanted to see the bright side of it.
Mommy Gets PAID shared a heartbreaking and heartwarming story about her grandmother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.
Debt Kid shares his story of losing his home.