Out of the woods

This post is going to be different than my usual fare. It’s going to be raw and painful, so reader beware. Nevertheless, the story needs telling.

As hard as it may be to believe, David and I have had some pretty strong disagreements, and everything is not always as perfect as it may appear in our relationship.    

There. I’ve said it. I hope that’s not too disillusioning. Then again, that statement will likely be reassuring to some.

While I will always believe that David and I have a perfect love, we do not always have a “perfect” relationship. We are human, after all – which means we are flawed, fallible, and fearful in our own ways.

Sometimes, David’s and my triggers get pulled – never intentionally, of course, but it happens. Such a thing can be excruciating. Given the lives we’ve lived up until we met in the Fall of 2022, that’s only natural. The question is not whether we will ever hurt one another. The question is, what happens when we do?

David’s mother died when he was 15 years old. His parents never wanted to hurt him and his younger brother Jeffrey or cause them distress when their mother was first hospitalized with an unknown cancer. They didn’t tell their children things, and affection was never demonstrated in their household. David’s father was a self-made man who created a successful packaging business. His company made boxes of various types and sizes for other companies to ship their goods. He did well for himself and ultimately passed the business to David’s older brother, Bruce.

Bruce and Doug – David’s oldest brothers – and their sister, Char, the oldest of the Olson siblings, were all out of the household when their mother died. Leading up to his mother’s death, there was never a discussion of her impending passing. One day, she was just gone. Only David and Jeffrey remained then, and life was difficult for them afterward. His father hired a live-in housekeeper as a surrogate mother which ended up causing more harm than good in the home. Without a foundation of Jesus Christ in their lives, love was painfully absent. When their father re-married, the damage was already done. David and Jeffrey floundered in their brokenness after losing their mother.

David, in particular, took on the role of protector and defender of his younger brother, even while faltering in his pursuit of purpose and meaning in life. Without a father figure to guide him or even a strong faith at the time, David pursued happiness and meaning without ever finding it. He had friends, of course, and temporary fulfillment was attainable. Still, he never knew what true love was. After all, such a thing was never modeled or given to him – not as a child and never as an adult. David’s two previous marriages ended quickly and painfully, and any relationships he held were superficial and false. That’s all he ever knew; all he believed was out there.

While David attended church as a child, he never developed a relationship with God. It wasn’t until 1998 that he found a good church home to foster and grow his faith and become closer to his Savior. Only after fully surrendering to his Heavenly Father did David become the man I fell in love with. His previous lifestyle and personality would never have meshed with mine.

As for me, I always had an unbreakable relationship with God. That bond has sustained me through years of never being good enough for anyone else. In school, I was the oddball, the country girl from Nebraska who moved to a tough school in Baltimore County where I was not just in the minority due to my race but a pimply-faced super-geek with an antique saxophone that had to stand on the school bus because no one would let me sit beside them.

I took solace in my Heavenly Father – spending hours singing and pouring out my heart to my Savior in my grandfather’s woods next to his house that my mom and I lived in, rent-free. As tough as it was to be an outcast in school, I always felt complete in Christ. Surrounded by God’s creation, I experienced happiness and peace. Stepping out of the woods was another story entirely.

As the perpetual outcast, I was stunned when the man who would become my first husband demonstrated interest in me when I was 18. Having never known my father (my parents divorced when I was four, and my dad never had anything to do with me), I had no one to model what a good man was like. I was content to hear someone say he loved me – true or not.

My illusion of love shattered when I became pregnant at age 19. My boyfriend – the first I’d ever had – ran when a child came into the picture, leaving me to deal with the consequences. When he returned to the scene after my first daughter was born, it was only because his grandfather demanded that he marry me. More than once, I wish I’d remained an unmarried mother. My life might have been so much different had I stayed single.

Instead, I married a man who turned out to be a monster. Between his resentment at being shackled to a wife and child at a young age and his addiction to alcohol and pornography, my life became a vicious cycle of tiptoeing around a volatile man. I stayed in that marriage for fourteen years, giving birth to two more children from a man who alternately gave me sexually transmitted diseases from the prostitutes he slept with and then strangled me whenever I begged him to tell me he loved me.

His anger was always my fault, he said. I was never good enough, and he repeatedly told me that the love I asked him for only existed in fairy tales. “Life’s not a Disney movie,” he’d say. “Grow up.”

After leaving that marriage with nothing more than clothing for myself and my children, I filed a protective order and moved into an apartment in which I hoped to make a new home. Nothing turned out the way I’d planned. After picking my children up at school that first afternoon, my oldest daughter demanded I take her back to her father. As someone who always puts others ahead of me, I did. My daughter never looked back except to tell me how worthless I was and how badly I hurt her father by leaving. To this day, she still refuses to speak to me.  

Adding to my distress, my middle daughter soon told me she wanted to live with her best friend instead of me. When her friend’s mother agreed to the arrangement, she, too, moved out. For the most part, she’s chosen to live her life with barely a thought of me.

My son stayed with me the longest, but eventually, he, too, decided to move back with his dad – his football coach since he was old enough to hold a pigskin. After years of estrangement, my son and I established a close relationship about ten years ago, and I thank God for that gift.

After leaving my first husband, I met a man I thought was a saint. He turned out to be a demon. Our relationship began with gifts and him telling me that all I needed was for him to take care of me. I never imagined how debilitating a controller could be until I married one. As soon as the ring was on my finger, everything changed. Kindness was gone. Anger, control, manipulation, and fear became my closest companions – from our wedding night onward.

As the fourth son of abusive parents, my ex would tell me horrific stories of the violence he endured growing up, elaborating only to gleefully explain how he and his brothers ultimately extended their own savagery upon others in return. As a former boxer, I knew what my ex could do to me with his fists if he wanted to – and that was enough to keep me in line.

I’ll never forget the time he encircled my throat with his massive arm, tightening his grip enough so that his bicep pressed into my ear. I was deep cleaning our house then – a weekly task I performed to keep him happy. Focused on scrubbing the sink, I hadn’t even noticed my ex’s entry into the room when he appeared behind me and slowly encircled my neck with his arm – triggering a visceral memory of strangulation to consume my body. Looking at me with a sinister smile on his face, he said, “I could snap your head like a grape if I wanted to.” Desperately trying not to react, I still remember the fear I barely kept tamped down as he laughingly let me go and walked out of the room.

My ex thrived on power – forcing me to live a life of exile without friends and family. His anger was always just below the surface. Rather than hitting me, he would destroy my things – throwing dishes at me, refusing to allow me to eat, physically pushing me out of the house whenever he suspected I’d talked to someone at work, became too friendly with someone at church, or didn’t keep a spotless home. “Go,” he’d say. “I want nothing to do with you. Get out of my sight.”

I learned to keep a sleeping bag hidden outside my house during the West Virginia winters – never knowing when I’d be locked out. I slept in my car, on the deck, in the garden, and with my dogs – creeping back inside when he left for work the next day. He, too, told me his anger was my fault.

I attempted to leave him twice. Failing to do so, I talked to a Christian counselor to justify the notion that it was Biblically okay for me to walk away. While I expected she would help guide me in ways to repair my marriage; she instead told me I could have my ex arrested for the things he did to me that are too dark to mention here. She further said she feared he would eventually kill me if I didn’t go.

And still, I stayed. It took a dear friend telling me that I was putting my husband in the place of God before I was finally convinced that I could leave without disavowing my faith.

Enter David.

David was different. He’s the only person I ever met I felt entirely comfortable being myself with. David once told me he loved to hear me talk. I honestly never thought anyone would ever say such a thing to me. We never fought. We thrived in each other’s company. We never wanted to be apart. We read the Bible together every night and delight in each other’s encouragement.

Still, the Devil knows our triggers, and he’s more than happy to push them. Fatigue, financial strain, and fear are potent weapons in his arsenal. He’s more than ready to fling them at me – at both of us. We’ve worked together on David’s VA Beach house for a year and a half. It’s a miracle that the burden of all that hasn’t hit us sooner. When it did, it wasn’t good.

I won’t get into the specifics, but it suffices to say that David and I have had more than a few “disagreements” about resolving that situation. The more I tried to relay my thoughts, the more complicated everything became.

In my head, all I know is that I possess the unique ability to make men angry. That’s all I’ve ever known. It’s always my fault. In David’s words, he “can’t deal with [my] insecurity.” The angrier he becomes, the more I withdraw into myself. That’s how I survived for most of my adult life. I learned to be quiet and do everything I can not to anger men.

When David left the house one night after another unfortunate disagreement ensued, he told me I had “finally said too much.” As his car drove away from our home, I was broken. Crying on the floor in a puddle of abject sorrow at his words and my belief that nothing could ever be made right again, I began praying.

“Bring David back, Lord,” I cried. “Keep him safe, even in his anger, and bring him home to me. Please help us!”

As I repeated my prayer over and over again, the minutes ticked by. I remained on my knees and kept praying that David would come home.

Even while the tears continued to stream down my face and sobs wracked my body, I heard the garage door open. Miraculously, David came back. He was still angry, but he was home.

“God heard my prayer,” I told him as he returned to the living room, where I remained on my knees. “You came home.”

While neither of us could say much more that evening, I continued to pray. The next day, we woke up and talked calmly about our situation. Shortly thereafter, David decided to return to VA Beach to work on his house alone, and I remained in GA to restore the overgrown flower beds and yards I’d neglected over the past year and a half. As we both concentrated on our respective efforts, I believe God softened David’s heart to understand my thoughts and our situation better.

David has since decided to complete his house renovations to sell the property and move forward. When he surprised me by driving 9 hours to arrive home a day early from VA Beach, I felt like we were reliving the precious memory of his driving 8 hours from FL to GA to surprise me by telling me he loved me for the first time, back in 2022. I was filled with joy to see him again.

As for now, I can’t promise that I will never feel insecure when David gets angry with me about something. I can’t say that I won’t always get quiet when we disagree and withdraw to prevent an argument. I understand that David is sensitive about his decisions. Finances are a profound catalyst for distress in even the most robust relationships. That’s why we need to pray before making any decisions in the future.

More than that, I will never doubt that God always hears me when I pray. Sometimes, prayer brings an immediate resolution, as it did when David turned his car around and came home when I prayed that he would. While something like that may not always happen, it did then, and I’m forever grateful. Still, I know we are not entirely out of the woods yet.

Nevertheless, I know God is with us and hears our prayers. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3). I live with that reality daily.

Past wounds may make for delicate triggers, but with God’s help, our scars only remind us of what He brought us through. The Devil can’t win unless we let him. I, for one, refuse to let him do so.

I’m so grateful for all our Heavenly Father has brought David and me through– separately and together. We are strongest when we remember God binds our hearts, minds, and bodies together. May we never cease to pray, beseech, and listen to our Savior. He brought us here, and He will see us through.