Denial

It was the last week in October when we brought our baby boy home for the first time to our rented two-story townhouse. New parents sitting on our red and green tribal (?) print, unattractive but incredibly comfortable, yard sale couch…staring into the face of a perfect little byproduct of the two of us. Thoroughly amazed but equally scared to death. We didn’t have money, but I was young and naive and didn’t really care about wealth. I thought that love was all that mattered, and I loved the man beside me. I’d loved him for years. But as I sat there a little later on, holding the baby, watching as my husband – this first-time father – carved “It’s A Boy” in our jack-o’-lantern for the front porch…well, I knew I loved him even more.

For all of our good married years, I’d find myself watching him with our boys, loving him more and more when he wrestled them in the floor or stood at the edge of the ocean jumping waves or explained things to them.  It was as if I could physically feel my heart soften and expand.  I loved him with a sweeter, more complex love because of the father he was to my boys. 

Because of this – because of my enhanced love and desire for my husband due to who he was to our children, it was impossible for me to understand how he could separate the two and come to believe that he only ever loved me as the mother of his children.  Not as a wife or lover or…anything more than who I was to them, not to him.  I remember the absolute denial I felt and pleading with him, trying to make him see all the reasons why his claim couldn’t possibly be true.  

At first, the denial was more than a stage of grief for me.  It was obstinate refusal to even entertain the idea that my life might not be what I’d thought it was.  My entire married life a lie.  Every memory and emotion misinterpreted and marred.  It hurt too much to think that the most intimate parts of me hadn’t been valued, that love was never made, just children…

Self-preservation wouldn’t let me accept that.  I was too wrecked, too broken already.  Denial allowed me some time to heal enough in other areas that I might eventually work through what it meant if my ex was right and I was wrong.  If he never loved me the way I loved him.  If he was truthful when he told me that he treated me well because it was the right thing to do, not because he felt the right thing.  

It is hard and hurtful to allow those thoughts close.  They strip you bare and expose your every insecurity.  They mark you a fool.  They mock your judgment and taunt your self-worth.  They cast doubt on every relationship you’ve ever had – not just the one that failed, and they leave you untrusting of everyone, especially yourself.  

But I had to face those hard, hurtful things, even if over time and in small doses, if I was ever going to heal in the deep places.  If I was going to trust myself enough to trust someone else again, then I had to let the hurtful thoughts close enough to wrestle with them, no matter how many rounds it took for me to come out the victor and with victory looking a lot different as time went on from what I thought in the beginning.  For me, personal victory meant my soul finding peace, which meant sometimes I had to choose being at peace over being right.  Some arguments weren’t worth having.  Some questions were better left unasked and unanswered.  And I had to find peace with that.  I had to accept that God might not give me the insight and understanding I wanted so badly on this side of eternity.  The answers might hurt me worse than wondering, and my peace in this life could not depend on figuring everything out.

I still have questions.  These days, I fluctuate in what I believe, but my peace and sanity don’t waver (too much) with my varied thoughts.  I can recall memories like the ones above and so many others through the years with a fondness now, rather than searing pain.  I can share those memories with the children with a smile or laugh, rather than tears. Sometimes my heart will squeeze, knowing the way I remember it may not be the way it actually was…that things I thought were sacred may have only been superficial. But I can accept that possibility now.  I can accept that perhaps maybe I’ve never been truly loved, but that thought, which I fought so hard to deny, now gives me hope for the future.  Because if what I thought was love wasn’t, then all I stand to learn is something even more.  More patient, more kind…more protective, trustworthy, unfailing, enduring…hopeful (1 Corinthians 13).  

Thank God that my denial eventually led to hope.  We see denial as a bad thing typically, but as a stage of grief, denial is a self-protective, natural thing.  It allows you time and space to heal, but it is not life-giving.  You can’t stay there.  You have to work your way through it, wrestle as many rounds as needed, until you find life and hope on the other side.