Today I made a choice.

I chose to be happy. To live in peace and in freedom. Freedom to worship in the church of my choice with out being made to feel guilty or being mocked. Freedom to make new friends and not feel like I was ignoring or not catering to the needs of a spoiled child. Freedom to love my kids and show it by setting limits and boundaries without being undercut or "gotten around."

Today I chose my happiness over the neediness of my husband, who reminded me again how I had no right to feel stressed or burdened with working full time and going to school full time because "other people have hard lives and lots to do too." I was reminded of this just three weeks after I had shown compassion and support to a man in panic with tears streaming down his face worried that he was going to be homeless.

Today I woke up from a dream where for the first time ever in a dream that concerned him, I told him NO and walked away.

God sent me my answer at a time when I was ready to hear it.

While my husband continues to play on my affections, pulling me in just close enough to keep me feeling like there is a chance, then pushes me away when I seek him to make a commitment to heal the marriage, I have finally hit my limit.

I am seeing the lack of importance, the lack of concern, the lack of desire to not lose me. He doesn't want me, but he needs me to continue to feed his ego when the other sources of his self-esteem aren't around. I have and continue to be his back door.

Today I said no more.

There is a timing issue now, as I wait for disbursement funds from my school loan. I requested all of it, though I won't use all of it to pay tuition. The rest will pay for the attorney and then help my son with his bassoon costs.

I'm done now. I'm calm and I'm at peace. He mocked me, belittled me and held me hostage to his past for the last time. He needs help. He refuses help. By refusing help and rejecting me one more time, he has closed the door for the last time.

He can talk all he wants to whom ever he wants. He can sleep with who and what he wants. He can work where ever he wants. He can do it all with out me as his back up support and surrogate mother.

Being single is about having the freedom to explore and be myself. I'm truly happy for the first time, and I enjoy every day that I am here. No regrets.

I lift up my eyes to the hills from where does my strength come from? My strength comes from the Lord.

Tomorrow I will look up to the mountain that guards over my family. I will sing a song of joy that I am not alone, not abandoned. I have friends, family and a stable job. I am growing as a person and I am better now then I ever have been, and I look forward to a bright future.

God has been good and has blessed me and mine over this past 5 months.

Free at last..free at last, in my mind now, I'm free at last.

I am frustrated.

Today (Now June 3rd, though it still feels as June 2.) I was to hear from my husband if he is willing to commit to a healing separation, and use the time for self-growth and healing as we work to try and restore our marriage. Evidently, there were things that came up and he didn't leave for Memphis until later in the day, which meant that he never thought about or read the material I gave him. (Of course, he did have that time at the motel the evening before.)

So, having not read the material, or even thought of it on the road as he said he would, he has postponed his decision and further discussion with me till the evening of the 3rd. Assuming some other barrier does not come up.

So, I'm sitting here trying to "be still and know" that God is God, and he will work in his own time, and if it is his will that I move on alone, then I guess I will find out when he reveals it to me.

I said in a much earlier entry that I fully believe in angels now. That God does intercede when needed if we have a heart that is open to receive. I told of the young man's t-shirt that read on the back, "Lo I am with you always." (Matt. 28:20) It was that afternoon that I received a text by my husband to tell me a letter was left waiting for me.

Today, I walked out to the prayer garden on the college campus that I take course work at. A beautiful spot that overlooks the mountains. In the garden were three large rough stone that had passages inscribed upon them. I had never bothered in over a year to walk up and read the stones, but today I stood with my coffee and read the first one.

"Be still and know that I am God."

I stood and contemplated it a moment and moved to the second.

"I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where does my strength come from? It comes from the Lord."

I looked up at a perfect view of the local mountain framed by the trees in the garden.

God interceded today to remind me that he is God and he is in control. So as I sit here frustrated I reflect back on my experience in that prayer garden and I put it back onto God to control. I will have my answer soon enough and no amount of frustration or worry will change that outcome, because I can't control this outcome.

So I say it again,

"God grant me the serenity to change the things I can, to accept the things I can not, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Time to sleep now. I have a presentation tomorrow and I must shine.

Dear God;

Tonight I'm turning an important outcome over to you. I'm putting it in writing, because I need to see the words as I say them in my heart.

I spoke to my husband today God, and I'm trying to show love and compassion as well as forgiveness, but his noncommittal attitudes are pulling me back and forth again off my path to be sober and sane. The kids and I had happiness and stability for five months God, and then he began to panic about losing his job, and not having a home. So he crawled back a bit. He wanted me and needed me God, but it only lasted a few weeks.

He agreed to get divorce off the table God, but it feels like he has put it back on. He wants it all in his time Father, but in so doing he pulls my heart and plays with my head.

I spoke to him today about making a commitment to a healing separation as a means to help rebuild and make a stronger, healthier marriage. He runs at the thought of commitment. He doesn't want that, but at the same time, he doesn't want to let go. He wants to stay in limbo where he doesn't have to make any decisions.

Today God, I told him he had to make a choice. That nothing we did to work through a healthy separation would be of any gain unless he had and held in his heart a willingness to see this through. He has to do the work Father, because I can't do it for him. He wants people to tell him what to do, but then resents when he gets what he asked for.

So I have told him only one thing, choose which side of the fence to be on, and then stay on that side. It's wasting our time and hurting us longer to not choose, or in another way of saying it, "to not decide, is to decide."

I should have my answer tomorrow Father. My heart is sick because it knows that deep down, he doesn't really want us. He'll write checks and support us, but he doesn't want to be with us. He doesn't know how to be with anyone.

So God, I pray for him that something I said today, or something in the reading that I gave him will help him make a well thought out decision. I watched him fidget and get up and move about and be distracted. He was highly uncomfortable with the idea that he would have to "do something."

I never thought that he would be so unable to make decisions for himself or be so disloyal to so many. I honestly do not think he has maintained any friendship once it out grew him. He shared with me that he had brought a girl home to visit when he was in boot camp. A girl that was very much in love with him but he was not in love with her. I guess when he brought her, he just dropped her off with family and then went off and did whatever he wanted to do. His sister had tried to tell him how wrong that was of him to do but he never "got it."

There are so many things he does that point to narcissism and I honestly don't know if he is going to be able to make changes in his life that will include me and his kids.

So tonight God, I don't have the strength to worry and I've pretty much run out of tears again. I cried for him this past weekend, because he more or less just blew me off after two positive weekends when I thought he may really be coming around. It was when I asked for that commitment in clear language when he started pulling away again. Running away, one more time. Breaking my heart, one more time.

So I get up and brush the dust off one more time. I remember that I'm healthier and stronger and much more independent then I ever was before. I do deserve better and if I have to finish this then I will. Before this year is out, I with either be on my own, bankrupt and most likely in foreclosure but I will have ended what he started on my own terms no longer dictated to by his whims OR I will be working on my own healing while he works on his.

God I want that later outcome more then anyone knows and probably more then my husband even knows. But it is no longer in my hands. It never was.

So I'm back to quoting the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me serenity to ACCEPT the things I CAN NOT CHANGE
CHANGE the things I CAN
and the WISDOM to know the DIFFERENCE!

Living one day at a time,
enjoying one moment at a time,
accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.

Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is and not as I would have it.

Trusting that you will make all things right if I surrender to your will.

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with you forever in the next.

AMEN