I have heard someone say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. In that case, hi - my name is Karen and I am insane.
I have been really struggling this week to wrap my brain around who my husband is. I believed that my husband was intrinsically good. That he was loving and kind and compassionate, faithful and honest...full of self control. I believed that if there were a problem in our marriage, it was probably my fault. I believed our lack of emotional intimacy was because I was unable to love or be loved. I thought I was just too needy and I needed to just be satisfied with what I had. That all turned out to be a lie. Not only was he not those things, he was making me feel like I was the crazy one.
I cannot tell you how hard it is to convince myself that he is not at all the person I thought him to be for 30 years. I know it now by factual evidence, but my heart and my soul are in complete denial. Over the past few weeks, I have been stunned by his coldness and callousness. I have been shocked that not once in 6 months has he asked how I was doing or if I'm okay...if I'm healing or hurting. He cannot bear to look at the decimation in my eyes or hear it in my voice. He cannot believe that he is the person who was capable of all of this. And, quite frankly, neither can I.
The thing that I am struggling with the most right now is that I keep giving him chances to show me he is not this uncaring man, but time and time again, that's exactly who shows up. I heard Dr. Phil once say, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them.". Why am I having such a hard time wrapping my brain around this? Why do I keep going back to the same dried up oasis expecting to find water to quench my thirst? I have come to realize that he does not have the capacity to even try to give me a drink of water to quench my thirst for compassion.
My counselor tells me that this longing...this thirst...is the best of me. It is a God given gift to desire love and beauty and wholeness and redemption. God is longing...all creation is longing...I am longing to see a softened heart and a glimpse of repentance. Instead, I get contempt, anger, retaliation. And yet, I go back...again and again expecting to find someone different, desperately holding out hope that the mirage of a godly man is really an oasis. There it is...insanity.
As hard as it is to let go of the mirage and make myself believe those things, it has to be better in the long run than holding on to the hope of thirst quenching drink from him only to be left with sand in my throat. I am going back to the age old truth that only Christ can give me living water from a well that never goes dry and if I fill myself up with him...allow him to truly quench my thirst...I will never thirst again. Does that mean that I will never long to have a man love me the way I expected my husband to? No. But, I will not look to another man to quench the thirst for love. I will try to recognize when I am trying to draw water from a well that is dry and turn to the one who placed inside of me a bubbling spring that I can drink from continuously.
Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But
those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It
becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
John 4:13-14
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