Well, the last week has been quite an emotional one for me. To put it bluntly, last Wednesday I was ready to just quit my marriage. I wrote a three page letter to my husband airing all my grievances and complaints and just generally let him have it with both barrells.

This wasn't something completely out of the blue....it's something that has been in the back of my head for a few years honestly. However, it was put into motion the previous evening in bed. Now, I'm not going to go into detail, but I found myself in a panic Tuesday night when my husband wanted to hold me. I was terrified and couldn't move, nor could I speak. I do know that this was what my therapist called a "body flashback". The next morning I decided I was done. I didn't want to do this anymore, try anymore.....it's too much work and too hard.

I gave my husband this letter just as I was leaving the house to take our three boys to youth group. I didn't come home until after I'd picked them up when youth group was done. At that time, then my husband asked if we could take a walk to talk. We walked and talked and then he finally asked me if I even wanted to try anymore and I just said NO, I was done. Well, early the next morning at 4:30am, he came into our room (he'd stayed up that night because he works nights and needed to sleep the next day) and just lost it. In the 26 years that I have known my husband I have seen him cry only once and he has NEVER lost it emotionally like he did that night. He begged me to think about my decision - he didn't want to lose me or our boys. All I could do at that point was say I'd think about it. And I did and have.

The next night he wrote me a long letter by email and something he said really resonated with me. He said that he had given up trying on so many things in his life and he didn't want to give up on me or our marriage. That was what made me take notice. I've been much the same way.

For me, though, I believe the reason I've given up trying on so many things is because I didn't believe myself worthy enough or deserving enough or good enough for many of those things. I was sexually abused as a child. There, I said it out loud and the world didn't crash in on me. Because of this abuse and other things in my childhood, I pretended to the world, to be this happy go lucky girl. Unfortunately, behind that happy face was a girl/child/woman who really wasn't happy and didn't know how to express that she wasn't happy. So she went on pretending until last Wednesday when she finally couldn't pretend anymore.

What this HAS done for me, is somehow opened the gates that have been holding back all the words for so many years. I've never been able to tell my husband/mother/friends or anyone else in my life how I was really feeling. I've always guaged my own happiness on whether or not the important people in my life were happy. If something was wrong, I'd try to fix it and not worry about how it was affecting me.

My husband and I have had more productive talks in the last 10 days than we've had in our 26 year friendship (15 years as a couple). I believe we can make it through this. I'm going to go back to the therapist/psychologist I started seeing last November and he's going to make an appointment with someone in the same office for himself. Eventually we'll work into marriage counseling together after we've had some individual counseling sessions.

We have also made a committment to get back to church together. We have both drifted away from this important area of our life and both feel a need to make it a priority for our family. It always amazes me that God knows what we need to hear and when we need to hear it. We went to the service a week and a half ago and heard some things that were very relevant to where we are right now.

So, that's where things are in my life. I'm still running and trying to be healthy. I'm officially down 15 pounds since June 10 and dropped a dress size. I haven't weighed this weight since I was pregnant with my youngest in 2002. My next goal is to get under 200, which is only 11 pounds away, by the end of September. My goal after that is to drop 19 more pounds by Christmas and be able to fit into my wedding dress again. I KNOW I can do this. I know that part of the reason I'm succeeding is because I'm finally allowing myself to take care of ME and telling the little abused girl in me that it's okay to be pretty and attractive.