Hope Deferred

I have no great explanation for why I held on to hope for so long.  Maybe it was the huge amount of confidence I had in the man I married.  Maybe it was the tremendous faith I had that God was going to break through the darkness at any moment and make things right.  Maybe it was pure stubbornness.  I had never given up easily on something or someone I believed in.  I didn’t mind hard work, and I was willing to keep holding on and fighting for my family.  

Looking back, reading through my journal entries from that time two years ago…it was abundantly clear that my husband wasn’t coming home.  His actions made clear where his allegiance was.  Who his concern was for.  Who had his time, affection, and support.  It was evident and plain, but I just would not – maybe could not – accept it.  If I had taken the lack of response as a response the many times I should have…or if I’d believed he meant the hurtful words he said…or accepted that he didn’t feel the ones I longed so badly to hear.  If I had walled off my heart and shielded myself early on, I might have avoided some of the pain, especially in those first couple months after he left, when I was so certain that his leaving would open his eyes, bring him out of the fog, and bring him back to us.

But I didn’t wall off my heart.  It wasn’t my way.  I believed whole-heartedly in 1 Corinthians 13:8, “Love never fails,” so I kept trying to live out real love, according to it’s definition in 1 Corinthians 13.  “Love is patient, love is kind…It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”  ALWAYS hopes, ALWAYS perseveres.  I suppose my love was the reason I held onto hope for so long and lay my heart bare over and over, enduring pain for either my husband’s sake or the boys or even the baby. 

I lack adequate words to describe the internal debate or the torment I felt leading up to the baby’s birthdate, weighing whether to have my husband in the delivery room with me or not.  It didn’t seem fair to me that he would get to be present for that experience when his affection and concern had been absent the duration of the pregnancy and he had been absent even in body the last six weeks.  I didn’t want to look at him and feel hurt or rejection or betrayal.  All I wanted to feel on that day was joy for my beautiful baby girl.  I didn’t want to think of where he was coming from, where he was going after, or whose scent was on him while he was there.  

And yet, I couldn’t imagine excluding him. I  couldn’t think of what I would tell my daughter one day if she asked why her daddy wasn’t in pictures the day she was born.  I didn’t ever want her to think that it was her he didn’t want. 

So I allowed it.  I allowed my daughter to have her daddy present for her birth, but it was not easy for me.  And it didn’t seem easy for him either.  He was emotional.  Upset that I had someone else drive me to the hospital.   In tears when she was born and afterward while holding her.  Attentive to me and seeming to care more that one day than in the nine months prior.  My heart softened, and it made me hope yet again.  

Maybe I’d had that subconscious hope anyway.  The thought that surely if anything was going to change his heart and bring him home, it would be the birth of his daughter.  She was healthy and beautiful, with her chubby cheeks, perfect little mouth, and her daddy’s darker complexion.

The delivery was rough on me although it was a cesarean.  Her head would not fit into the birth canal and had lodged in my pelvis.  I felt a lot of pressure and tugging, and the assisting physician told me that my OB was working to get the baby’s head out.  This caused bruising from the inside out, along with the usual pain of C-section, and the unexpected pain noone had warned me about from having a tubal ligation with this delivery.  Add to this physical trauma the emotional trauma of the affair and a deep exhaustion from months without sleep, and you get a woman who could barely keep her eyes open.  It was a struggle to stay alert, but I did my best to push through.  I wanted to soak up every moment, to nurse and bond with my baby, to spend time with her and the boys as they got to know each other, to visit with the friends and family who came to celebrate with us.  It was joy to watch the boys with their sister.  They were completely smitten with her and fierce protectors from their first meeting.  

Seeing my husband with the boys and the baby was bittersweet.  I had always felt that watching him with our kids made me love him more.  At that moment, I just wanted to forget all the hurt and go home and be a family.  If things had continued the way they seemed that day, this story may have had a different ending.  Instead, in the weeks after my daughter’s birth, I learned the truth of Proverbs 13:12.  “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”  And heart sickness is one of the worst feelings in life.