Email of the Day: I Was a Mess

I am a stay-at-home mom, and I always have dinner ready for my husband when he comes home. I’m happy to see him. I thank him for “knockin’ out that rent.” And I have always made sure we were intimate. I THOUGHT I was my husband’s girlfriend, but boy, was I wrong! I now understand what you really meant when you say to be his girlfriend.

I met my husband when my first daughter (who I had when I was 19 and unmarried) was 6 months old. We got married a year and a half later, when I was 21. The marriage took place against the wishes of his family because I was a MESS! We fought all the time. I didn’t know how to treat him, and I didn’t know how to be married. I read “The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands,” but I still couldn’t get over some issues that I thought were his. My dad ran around on my mom all the time, and she would always take him back until one day she was served divorce papers. I told myself I would never be the fool who takes back a cheater. My husband was the total opposite of my dad. That’s what I looked for, but then I treated him like my dad. I was always suspicious of him, waiting for him to be unfaithful, and always on guard so I wouldn’t be the fool.

In your book, “Bad Childhood, Good Life” you encouraged us to look ahead and not backward. I finally decided to change myself. My husband was not my dad, and he chose to marry me. It wasn’t easy, but from the moment I started telling myself that my marriage changed for the better. My husband is now happy to come home to me and stares at me with love and desire that I haven’t seen in a long time. I married a good man. He just didn’t marry a good woman.

With your help, Dr. Laura, I will be able to stop the cycle of dysfunction and not pass it on to my three daughters. They are worth it, my husband is worth it, and I am worth it.

Janine

I Was a Mess