My life began to change when I finally realized that I was making my husband the object of my happiness (or unhappiness) … searching somewhere in the midst of his life, to fulfill mine.

After years of living behind his identity, my own was nowhere to be found. I actually began envisioning my own funeral, wondering what people would have even said about me. I wondered if anyone would have even known that I was gone, being that I didn’t ever do more than to just merely exist. I knew this was a morbid thought, but it actually made me realize I wasn’t even close to being everything I was created for … I wasn’t a woman who made a noticeable difference in the world.

My life had become nothing more than a misguided hunger for satisfaction. Nothing more than a moment to moment fix, and a hunger that was never filled. I had gone completely off course, allowing my life to veer straight into a ditch of my own discontentment. I knew deep down inside that I had given up on the authenticity of being myself a long time ago. As the years went on, the betrayal towards myself caused a relentless ache that gnawed a hole deep inside my soul.

There I was … staring at my husband under the magnifying glass of a jaded soul … deflecting the blame onto him for my own loss of identity. I was living day to day without a reason that fueled me inside. I was unsatisfied with who I had become … and it led to my unhappiness.

My husband had disciplined his entire life, honing in on his own gifts, talents, and skills, in order to make his mark in this world. I sat back and did absolutely nothing with mine … except live behind his success. For years, everything inside of me had just laid as dormant as an old worn out doormat … eventually, my resentment welcomed no one.

I was unsatisfied … blaming everyone else for my own neglect to discover what would truly fulfill my desires as a woman. I was far from being whole, and the disheartend result was filled with nothing but my broken relationships. My expectations were unreasonable, and a pressure that no one could ever endure. I kept running onto the next thing to fill this emptiness inside, believing that something else in this great big world could fill it. The emptier I felt, the bigger my demands on everyone else had become … it was never big enough to fill the empty hole.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the idea of being a wife and a mother, but upholdimg the roles seemed insurmountable. I was just unhappy with myself. I knew there was more, because I wanted more. I knew in my heart that settling for less wasn’t the answer, but expecting my happiness to come from my husband … wasn’t either.

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