A love story after losing it all and gaining a marriage and family. How my husband and I put the sex back into our marriage after being laid off. We husband saved me by showing an inner strength I didn’t know existed.
I was laid off last year and it has cost me almost everything. My husband and I have been married for 14 years and have 3 children ages 12, 10 and 3. Due to my layoff there is not enough income to support ourselves and are in the process of foreclosing on our home and debt consolidation program. Like the thousands of other people, we have severely cut-back and will move to a a rental apartment and change the kids school.
The stress of my unemployment on our marriage is the same as everyone else who was laid off. My self-esteem is in the toilet, can’t seem to communicate with anyone rationally and I’m having vivid nightmares. My husband Craig has no idea what else to do to help me and is walking on egg shells careful not to set me off. The first four months after being laid off were the worst emotionally for me. Now, I’m numb to the feelings of grief and loss but I still cannot have a real conversation with my friends and my nightmares are getting more and more horrific. My nightmares have gotten so bad that I’m waking up to bloody arms and legs because I’ve picked my skin off like in my nightmares. It doesn’t take a doctor to see that I am still struggling tremendously with being laid off. I feel as if I was targeted and attacked by some invisible monster that has come in and ripped out my heart and destroyed my home and family. The monster is destroying over 20 years of the life I dreamt of having since I was a little girl playing with my doll house.
After the second one of these bloody nightmares, my husband was really worried and scared. Craig woke up with me that second night pleading with me to tell him how to make this stop. As he bandaged the scratches and wounds he began to cry. I haven’t ever seen Craig cry from sadness. He was more than worried, he was lost. Craig couldn’t fix me and so desperately wanted me back to normal. Craig held me close, slowly rocking me and asking me to tell him what was wrong so we could fix it together. I just couldn’t explain it because I didn’t know myself. I felt heart-broken, didn’t know who I was or what I was doing here anymore. How could he possibly make my loss of identity and self-worth go away? How do I not break my husbands heart by forcing him to watch me change into this depressed woman going through each day in a blur?
As Craig and I held onto each other, I finally told him everything I was feeling. I had to tell him. Craig is my best friend and I had to lay it all on the table and take the chance I dreaded – that he would leave me if he realized how little I am now. I talked and he just listened. The more I let go, the more he held on to me giving me the strength to keep going. My heart became unburdened and I felt as if I really breathe. Craig silently stroked my hair, kissed me on my head and wrapped my legs and arms into his as if to protect me from the world. I felt safe for the first time in almost a year and a once familiar feeling overcame us. Deep stirs of emotion and passion began to run through us both, it seemed like we were one person wrapped around each other. That night we made love like we did when we first met. I ached with missing him. I missed my man – not just the sex but the feeling of his masculine strength. That genetic quality all have, the reflex to protect their loved ones, the inner strength they posses to ward off threats. Like a growl warning predators to keep away.
Since that night, my husband and I make love every day and we talk. We talk about everything and anything. I had forgotten who my husband is and have been reminded why I fell in love with him. How could I have forgotten? What kind of person am I that I enabled (as Oprah would probably say) our marriage to be dismantled and managed like a business that had to be done rather than a marriage of two people that loved each other? The answers are that I am a fiercely independent and competitive woman and approached my job and family like ‘things’ I had to win. Win by dragging them to the finish line if necessary. I still don’t know what that finish line actually was. Perhaps it’s a status or financial security. During all this race to the finish, I managed to alienate our family from one another by choosing for them and forcing them to do what I thought was a way to winning. Driving the kids all over town to to this class and that sporting event. Scheduling activities for my husband without even asking him. Maintaining a jam packed color coded activity calendar with tasks I physically checked marked off.
Not only did I lead my family into a position of a job assignment but I emasculated my husband by usurping his role in the family. Men are genetically built to be the hunters and gathers and provide for their family and demonstrate their ability to do this. This sounds prehistoric but what I mean is that men’s pleasure and self-worth are derived from their ability to achieve success and, grow and maintain their family. Each individual man defines success differently, it’s not just about money. My running of the family, removed Craig, the father and relegated him to going to work and a once a week golf game. Craig didn’t have the opportunity to share in the love of a family like tucking the kids or kissing boo boo’s. He didn’t even get to take the kids to golf to share in activities he loved because I was shuffling them around town. It was all about me.
In the me-centric world, I lost time to look after myself as a woman. The femininity I once possessed had been switched out for comfortable mismatching clothes, the same hairstyle in 10 years and a bit of lip gloss. I used to love dressing up and wearing necklaces and hanging earrings. During one of our nightly conversations, Craig reminded me of all the dresses I used to wear, that I had a new hairstyle every two months and exercised everyday. After a few glasses of wine on one our new date nights, we teased that since we didn’t have money for a haircut that Craig could trim it for me. The trim was horrible but it was fun and harmless – just cut more off. What’s important is that my husband realized that by pointing out what I don’t do anymore hurts my heart and only adds to our stress. By joking about it and talking over old times he has gently reminded me of the person he wanted to ravage. Our sex life is great and I want to be the woman that drives him crazy. I have to find ways to reduce the stress of being unemployed.
Our solution to continuing our new way of life post layoff with very little money is that we enjoy the local area parks, beach and free activities. We take the kids to the parks and to the beach at least 4 times a week. We teach them how to play sports and learn what they like to do. With the extra time I have, I create little courses for them that are filled with challenging tasks like bouncing the ball or throwing it into a bucket. We spend a lot less time in-front of the TV or on the phone and bond as a family. We know everything about our children’s budding personalities, likes and dislikes and can openly talk about situations at school and pressures from friends. Now, there’s consoling, hugging, listening and two-way conversation. Not to mention sleep. They are so worn out that there is no more fighting over eating dinner or at bedtime. A much happier home.
Each week the kids have play-dates with family friends so Craig and I can have date night. We always go to the beach. Sometimes we go swimming or chase each other down the beach in mock races or make-up silly games like the one with the most seashells gets a massage from the loser. We made a pact not to force anything like time or resolving collector phone calls. In just a few weeks, our date nights evolved into real dates. We forgot about everything and everyone else and focused on the other person, just like we all do when we date someone new. I also think this is because now we rediscovered sex we both want to fool around and don’t want to ruin the chance. Its working.
My husband and I are in love again! I am so excited to be making love again and fantasizing about ways to entice him the next day. My nightmares have gone away and I catch myself smiling again. I have learned that the tighter I tried to hold on, the more I lost. I learned my husband has an inner strength I never knew existed, I just needed to give it a chance to come out. Most of all, I now know that my husband wanted to leave the closed off, frumpy, basket case, and now wants to keep our family together. This was a two-way effort that has created a love story after being laid off.
