A Lesson Still Learning

In 2007 John and I got married; life was grand and not so grand. Most people say the first year is the hardest and well with us, I think the 2^nd year was. We needed someone to talk and help us through some of our own issues, so we went to see a counselor. We are still happy and in love almost five years later and though marriage isn’t always a cake walk, we are in it for the long haul!

Fast forward a little bit to a few nights ago when we were re-decorating our living room. Adding new couches opened up a lot of space and the walls needed some pictures and pizzazz. As John was hanging up our “wall words” we began to chat about moving into our first little apartment back in ‘07 and just reminiscing about how far we’ve come in such a short time. I mentioned our short stint with the counselor and John says:

“Oh I hated her.

Remember that time she asked you to leave the room?

She kept trying to get me to admit that I wasn’t

 attracted to you and that’s why we were having issues.

She told me she was surprised that we were together

because I’m so good looking and then she saw you.”

For those of you whose mouth has dropped and you are saying “WHHHAAAT”. I know…I know…I know!

Now, I can be stoic and hold my emotions pretty well…so we continued on with the night; put up the wall words, made dinner, ate dinner, and watched TV. Then I secretly escaped for a 15 minute cry in our bedroom. Later John noticed that something was wrong and we chatted about it. He apologized for even telling me and tried to console me.

This happened Saturday night and since then I’ve been replaying the entire talk in my head over and over. I am not over it; even as I write it to you, I’m still not over it. There are so many things that can be said about how unprofessional she was and all that but more. I’m concerned about how I reacted. The strong hold that it had, and still has, on me is what I’m trying to work on. I have lots of women who tell me how handsome my husband is, LOTS, but I’ve never been insecure about it. I know he’s handsome and I always thought it was a compliment. This completely changes what I thought about the role I play next to John. Do these other women we run into think the same thing when they see us together?!?

It’s been a rough couple of days. Those comments kind of linger in my thoughts and I have to shake them off. I try to replace those negative comments with the ones John tells me all the time. I replace them with the ones God tells me. It isn’t easy. It’s never easy trying to heal a wound. This situation, it created a wound...one that feeds into a lot of other insecurities and moments of self doubt. I’m still trying to heal and I honestly don’t have a cute little, glitzy catch phrase to help me get over this one.

All I do know is that my husband loves me and tells me I’m beautiful. God created me in his image and made me beautiful. I may not feel beautiful at this moment in time but that doesn’t mean I will allow someone else’s thoughts to hold any weight over how I view myself. I will continue to try not to wrap myself in the thoughts and comments of others. Here’s to learning this lesson so I can teach it to my son one day.