Our 5th Year Anniversary – Turmoil and Separation
As romantic as our story is, it’s still real life and as in all life’s journeys there will be problems and bumps on the road.
Oddly enough, right as we were turning the corner and coming closer to our fifth year anniversary our roads took totally different directions and we almost divorced before hitting the five year mark.
It’s so hard to think about all that led to the horrible period of our lives, but now in retrospect it was definitely the best thing that ever happened to us.
When I was going through this period, which I refer to the worst and most horrifying time of my life, I had a chance to really consider the factors of what drove us apart and made us forget what brought us together in the first place.
It really started with us living in Costa Rica and I was determined to invest in real estate. Which isn’t a bad thing at all, however, my husband was there for another reason he was studying for his masters degree. I on the other hand, insisted he assist me with this endeavor.
He is not a business man and even less interested in real estate, and for all of you who know about building a house anywhere, this alone can bring you to divorce!
This is what I say about building a house: “At one point in my life, I voluntarily said it was a good idea.” I had no idea that I was setting myself up for one of the worse ideas that I voluntarily decided on!
With this catastrophe many other troubles started to pile up. We were running out of money, we had a little baby boy that needed our attention, we fully stopped hanging out with one another and slowly became zombies rather than young people in love and enjoying life.
My husband’s thesis wasn’t going anywhere and he was delayed because of the house we were building and we also bought a piece of land that I thought I wanted to develop, but with each new wall added to the house we were building, I was quickly hating that idea. Yet the land was already bought!
However what put the nail into the coffin was my husband’s parents were in the midst of Jerry Springer style divorce! Which alone rocked my husband to a core. When we met, his family seemed to be perfect. I kept on saying that I have never met a more functional family in my life. It turned out his whole family ideals were built on lies. I won’t go into what happened with his parents. But instead of bringing us together, he totally gave up.
He started treating me badly by not talking to me, not wanting to be with me. In turn, I began hating him and didn’t want to be anywhere near him. We moved into the new house and the problems mounted, we shared different rooms and slowly began to not enjoy each others company. We yelled all the time, I lost my respect for him more and more each day.
I never thought of divorce as way to end it, but then one day he told me he wasn’t in love with me anymore and wanted out. Yet, he had no money and he had to live in the house! It was horrible, because with those words I woke up and realized that I still totally loved him.
I started to see how horribly I have been treating him. I have wanted him to become a different person. I actually started to turn him away when he wasn’t pulling his weight with the building, when he really didn’t have any interest in it and instead stopped going after his dream and was fully delayed with graduating from the masters.
It only got worse and worse. For 3 months I begged him to stay with me and how we can fix it all. All the while he was going further and further away from me.
Finally, I had to get away. I needed to breath to stop the crying, to stop hurting my son by not being emotionally available to him. We went to NYC to visit my parents.
Maybe it was the cold air, maybe it was the change in pace, maybe it was that I just lost 20 pounds from all the heartache and actually looked HOT! But I felt reborn. I felt alive. I realized that in almost 5 years, I haven’t even gone shopping for myself. I went crazy spending my last cents. I didn’t care. Life can change so fast and without any notice, that I started to live again.
During the time away from him, he all of a sudden realized he can’t live without me and his son. He went into one of the worse depressions of his life. Almost suicidal. He realized he made the worse mistake of his life treating me like that and wanted me back – desperately.
But it was me, now, away from it all and I started to really reconsider all the pain I was put through and was it worth it for me to return to him.
He begged and cried, until I gave in and said I will try. No promises, but I won’t sign the divorce papers just yet.
When I returned back to Costa Rica, he did all he could. He took us away to a great hotel, he was great. But I couldn’t let myself open up to him.
During that time, he graduated and since he couldn’t find any work in Costa Rica, he was offered a job in Guatemala. We decided, that we will still be together, but this separation will do us both a lot of good.
While he lived in Guatemala, he missed us more than words can describe. He visited every chance he had, and slowly, VERY slowly I permitted him to enter my heart again. That’s when we moved to Guatemala.
Read the whole series here:
Love Happens – How I Met My Husband
Sequence of Events Leading up to How We Met!
10 Year Anniversary – Stronger than Ever
