After the Wedding.....

So we began our married lives struggling to make ends meet just as we had while we "shacked up", "lived in sin" - whatever you wanna call it. We moved into a slightly bigger house that actually had heat just before our daughter was born. Chris got a job at Six Flags as a roller coaster mechanic's helper and I continued working my way through my highschool studies. I suffered in silence with severe post-partum depression as I cared for my daughter and tried to be the perfect wife. Chris worked nights so when he came home at 2-3 a.m. he would have dinner ready and me waiting up for him. Because he was away he always wanted to wake our daughter up to play with her before he went to bed. Because I breastfed, I got to stay up with her until I could get her back to sleep. I saw my friends going to prom and getting ready to start their lives away at college, and my crazy idea that I could have a baby at 18 and be married just began to seem like it wasn't such a great idea after all. Compound that with stretch marks that looked like I had been run over by a plow, saggy breasts, and hormones raging - let's just say it was not pretty. Only Chris knew of my deep depression and my tears. No one in the outside world could know because that would make me less of a mother, less of a wife. I had to prove to them and myself that I could be perfect. I look back on this now and laugh, of course. I began having thoughts of suicide and homicide. One night, Chris had woken the baby up to play, yet again...I fed her and as I tried to go to sleep all I could hear was his incessant snoring...I climbed on top of him with pillow in hand and tried to smother him. Of course, he was stronger than me so he was able to stop me. He asked what I was trying to do and I told him I was trying to kill him. He just laughed it off. I didn't find it amusing in the least. I hate to say that I have seen the depths of depression which lead some mothers to kill their own families, but I have. It is a very bad place to be. God watched out for me and I survived - as did my little family. I graduated top of my class with full-ride scholarships to any college in the state of Texas that I wanted to attend - I gave the most depressing valedictory speech in the history of man thanks to the postpartum issues. I told my mother on the last day of highschool that my pregnancy was not an accident. She said, "I kinda figured that." and that is all that was said. My husband was not able to attend my graduation because he was new at work and someone else had requested off for that evening...I am still kinda hurt about that, but there was nothing he could do. They made fun of him at work because he was 26 and his wife hadn't graduated highschool, yet. The depression finally lifted somewhat, but as I sat around the house not feeling like I was contributing to the family income, or to school, or to life in general I got lost in daytime TV and all of its drama. It was a pitiful existence for someone who had so much potential, I kept saying to myself. Chris and I would fight - mostly because I would start fights. We separated once for about 2 days and I was completely and totally miserable without him. I still, to this day, don't understand how that man could love me enough to stay when all I kept doing was push him away. I had it in my head that there was no way he really loved me, only married me because I was pregnant, wished he was back living the free life with his college friends, etc. I tortured both of us daily, it seemed, with jealousy over his previous girlfriends - most of whom he had not seen in several years. I guess I just wanted him to PROVE to me in some way that I was the ONLY one for him. I had never had that kind of love from anyone and did not think I had found it with this man. I just knew he would leave eventually so I pushed and pushed at him so that he would leave on MY terms - not his. After all, no man had stayed in my life for any length of time and if your own Dad doesn't want you, who else will? By the way, Chris had never met his father, either - almost the same story as mine except his mom was 19. My mom had always told me about my dad and answered any of my questions, where his mom refused to help Chris find answers about his father. Neither of us really knew what we were doing as parents or partners for that matter! My history with most men was that I was an object of their desire - unfortunately from the age of 3-4 when I was molested by my babysitter's teenage son. I learned early on that men can be controlled by sex and that was all they wanted from me. Chris was different. He was not pawing at me all the time to have sex. This led me to believe that I was not good enough or I was too ugly for him to desire any longer, but he would reassure me he was just not that kind of guy. I would pick fights with him when he was exhausted, I would pull the hair on his legs with my toes - anything to annoy him and let him know I was annoyed. The man had the patience of Job, I swear! I wish I could've trusted God more back then that He sent Chris to me - he was "the man that you will marry" and although God had spoken to me many times either in dreams or in an almost audible voice, I did not trust Him on this. How could ANY man love me for ME? I pushed and pushed and Chris held firm - he was NOT going to leave me....so we had our 2nd child, bought our first house, and I decided to finally use the brain God gave me for good instead of evil. I enrolled in college!