Are you someplace that you don't want to be because you are too afraid to leave?
Feeling like you are stuck somewhere is not a good feeling.
I was there once and I am here to tell you about it so that maybe it will help you go through or get out of your own stuck situation. I am not a counselor or doctor or anything like that. I am just a normal person who lived through a situation and faced her fears and if my story helps someone then that is great.
A lot of people stay in bad relationships for many different reasons. Many because of children. Some because of religion, some because of finances, some because of ties to their things.
I was in a 25 year relationship because of all of it. Now I am out I can see it more clearly. It took a few years to get here, and a lot of heartache, but I made it. So I want others to know they can do it too if need be.
I am not saying run right out and leave your partner, job, friendship or whatever has you feeling stuck I am saying you can do it if push comes to shove and you need to leave, YOU CAN DO IT!!!
You see I met my husband when I was 25 years old. He was great, a really nice guy and we were very compatible. I already had two children and was married
and divorced from my ex husband. Things happened in our relationship with my second husband that I couldn't handle and it caused damage in our relationship and I should have left but because I had already been married before and my children were very attached to my second husband who was very much like a father to them, I didn't have the heart to tear them apart from their life again. So I stayed.
My feelings for my husband though, didn't. They left.
The details why our marriage didn't work are not important. I am not trying to point fingers but saying the bare minimum to explain the predicament I was in.
I remember that day very well, like it was only yesterday. I was walking down the road as I often did and when I was almost ready to turn around to head back, I was deep in thought and looking out on the ocean and wishing so hard that I didn't feel because he was breaking my heart, and all of a sudden I felt something detached from deep inside and it rose up and left through the top of my head. I was delivered of my romantic feelings for him. I was free....or so I thought. My romantic love for him had left, it was gone and it was a deep relief at the time. Did I hate him? No not at all. We actually got along really well but he didn't have the power to hurt me as he did before. I was safe. I still loved him but as a best friend with benefits way. Not as, your my all, my love, the one I dream of. That is the way I thought I wanted it but it wasn't. I kept trying to bring it back after a while because I was feeling unfulfilled. Like something was missing in my life, and it was. It was my emotions for him. Nothing was making me happy. I was sad a lot and I would get very depressed and sick and sometimes grumpy.
It affected my children because they didn't understand that it wasn't them that I was unhappy with, it was my situation. You can only fake being happy so much and then it comes out every once in a while. And it is not that I was faking as I was really trying to be happy and make things work but the problem was that I, we, were in trying mode for 20 something years. There comes a point when you have to say, ok, I don't think this is working...ding ding ding...
Years started going by and we started going to church. I thought, there, this will do it. We had just met God and were head over heals for Him and everything was looking up. That is when we decided to get married as we had been living in sin for 8 years. Everyone was for it and even though some knew the situation between my husband and I before we got married, we were counciled by pastors and Christian friends to "do the right thing" because we were living in sin....
Had to make things right now that we were Christians. Now God was going to make everything right. After all God is all powerful right? He can do anything, even bring back my love for my husband right??
Well that didn't happen. God even gave me a very powerful nudge in my spirit to not marry my husband which I totally ignored because of my great fear. It was as if my heart jumped inside my chest. As if he shook me and said "Lee Anne, WHAT are you doing???" But I, in my paralizing fear, ignored it and talked myself out of even having heard Him speaking to me and besides that my "mature" Christian friends must know God's will for me more than I did, right??
Meanwhile as time went on,
I tried. I cried, I begged and begged and pleaded and prayed to God to make me feel again but for whatever reason, it didn't happen.
More time went by and things kept getting worse and I asked him to go to counseling as it was getting bad in the house between us with a lot of bad arguments.
We went for counseling and that didn't work. I was to the point that I was almost breaking down in front of people who had no idea the hell I was going through internally.
18 years or so later and I was still in the same position I was when my feelings had left. Here I was, much older and still feeling trapped in a loveless marriage and no one knew it. Everyone thought we had a great marriage. I acted well and so did he and not that it was all an act as we were best friends and trying to be happy with each other. We loved being together and doing things together despite everything else but there was always something between us or something not between us...
How did so many years go by like this?
I remember going to a bible study and being so close to a breakdown right in front of everybody. I fought back the tears as much as I could. After all I was a good Christian lady. My faith was very strong and I did my utmost to be respectful and responsible in my Christian walk but inside I was failing and I knew it. I was living a big lie and I didn't know how to get over it. I was as trapped as trapped could be. Paralyzed by fear. I had never been alone in my life and I didn't know how and if I would ever be able to.
By now my children are both on their own living their lives and here I am, still trapped and feeling like dying. I got to the point where I was praying and begging God to take my life as I could not tolerate the lies I was living any more and I couldn't come out and say, hey, by the way, friends and family and acquaintances, I have been living a big fat lie all these years and you guys thought we were so in love... surprise!!!
I just couldn't do it because of this paralizing fear.
So I had a choice between dying or asking God to send me something to help me get out of this situation and so I asked for exactly what I needed... Well that worked!!! That prayer was answered within weeks to my great amazement!!! Did NOT expect that prayer to be answered.
And don't be asking me to tell you what that was. It is between God and me. He is the one who sent it to me. He answered this prayer but didn't answer the many many times I asked to have love for my husband. God does work in mysterious ways and not always the way you would expect...and in my experiences, seldom in the way you expect, and thats fine by me as it has taught me a lot about God and the way he is so Merciful. He is there when you are trying to be good and he is there when you are not doing so well. That, is comforting. Its called unconditional love. We could all have a lot more of that....
Some people are not going to agree with what I am going to be talking about from now on. That is ok, YOU ARE NOT MY GOD!!! Should I listen to men or to God?
I need to do what I know is in my heart NOT to what outside chatter is saying. I am an inside girl all the way now. I don't want to listen to the fear anymore or to other people's opinions(not saying I don't take opinions into consideration when making decisions but what I feel Spirit is saying first) if i can at all help it AND I need to help others understand what the heck they are going through. You need to know that it is alright no matter where you are at. God is STILL by your side and guiding you through. Whether you are in paralizing fear, or that you feel trapped, or are free and feeling so vulnerable and not knowing where life is taking you now. You are in a perfect place no matter where you are. God or spirit if you prefer is always leading you, encouraging you, saying, come on honey, just a little step, you can do it, I know you can and is mega happy and proud when you just take one tiny step by yourself. He is there with both arms stretched ready to catch you if you fall. He loves it!!!
Just like when you, if you are a parent, watched your kids take their first steps. Remember how exciting it was?? How proud you were?? It's the same for our spiritual Father. I just had the extreme pleasure of seeing my grandson take a step by himself and was so excited for him. 😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍😍
God knows it is good for us to just try and take a tiny step because he knows it is the beginning of taking off and becoming able to run where we need to go and making us feel good and strong and independent.
Much more to come, stay tuned.
If you need help praying, I'd be glad to help.
PS. Don't get help from someone who has never been there. Seek someone who knows what they are talking about, always.
How can someone who has never been in your situation help you?? Do you go to and english teacher when you have math problems??
