Iamthird,
I just read your thread for the first time tonight. You have received so many beautiful replies, it is as though the Holy Spirit has spoken through each response and I am overwhelmed at the outpouring of compassion and the belief in you. And I know you must have moments when you ask God why so much loneliness and sickness, so many moments of fear, why, not one crisis, but so many. Why is this part of your life's long journey. And after so much hope, too, for you had real hope, I'm sure, when you were working to save your marriage in therapy, and praying your husband would sober up and become a loving man to you. So this is a very deep blow to you, to be where you are this day, fighting to get well and also to find your self-worth again.
If your husband is an abuser today, then that is what he is. Whoever he was in the past, is in the past. Today he is an abuser. Do not look to him for anything resembling kindness. He is living in darkness and controlled by it and you are much too precious to sacrifice yourself. Much too precious. God made you beautiful, and important, and you must honor your calling. Your calling in this world is to love. To love your children, to love yourself, to love any lost and innocent soul who crosses your path. When you get well, you are going to radiate your calling more than you ever have. You will have that intensity and passion for life that only those who have descended into the deepest labyrinth have. I have met a few people like that, those who have a shamanic understanding and depth that can only be earned by being alone in the wilderness. This is your 40 days and 40 nights. And when it is concluded, you will use it to heal. You will be one of wounded healers, and it is a high and difficult calling. But it is your mission.
Many of us, myself included, live in parts of the country far from where we grew up, far away from family of origin. And some here have had to walk away from family of origin. Many of us know what it is to be isolated geographically and emotionally.
I was raised in the South but here I am out on the West coast, have been here for 2 decades, and sometimes when I go back to the little town where I grew up and see the people who never left, living down the road from mom and dad, still pumping gas at the same station they used in 1972, I admit I am envious. It is not easy to be a pioneer. An astronaut. I tell you, out here where I am, I had to find a way to take care of myself emotionally, for I had no one to run to like the people back home do. And it is not easy to make friends when you're a grown-up! It's not like high school or college!
I have found a few here. Not many deep ones. But a few. And this Christmas, they were off here and there and my son was out of town and I was by myself. I could have invited myself to a few houses in the neighborhood but I decided not.
There is a bookstore here which is open 365 days a year, huge place, with a coffee shop, too. And I decided I wanted to go there Christmas morning. So I did. I was one of the first through the door. And I had a lovely time, browsing. And I had coffee in the shop and looked around at all the other solo artists having their coffees, reading their books and laptops, and I felt blessed. And proud. I felt, actually, pretty cool.
I was very popular in high school, Miss Everything, and I could never have predicted that my future held that kind of Christmas in my life. But it has made me grow. And you, too, once you have regained your strength--and you will--and made your way back up to the light, you will find your companions, those whose hearts are deep like yours, people who are not superficial, but who know what a rocky road life can be but still, they think, there is enough worth living for. And they find it. They find all the beautiful and so will you. I have seen people like you be transformed, and you will be a wonder.
SR will help you on the lonely days. Post here when you need support, because people here, new and longtimers, they have been broken, too, in their own lives, and they can walk with you.
If you will do as suggested and go to support groups, you will also find that the life force of others in the room will flow into you and help you.
God bless you and may his angels wrap their wings around you wherever you are in the coming days, crowding into the examining room with their awkward wings, tagging along behind you at the grocery, giving you kisses on your forehead at night before you sleep. They love you.
Think about where you and your children will go, someplace amazing, when strength and joy have returned. And open up the map and trace your route there. You will deserve all it has to give.
Sorry I am late to this amazing thread. But I wanted tonight to send you one more message that you are a figure of grace and your destiny has so many more stories you cannot imagine and will want to live for. So just do what's on the calendar each day, and listen for the whisper of wings.