Life Altering Events

Have you ever had a life altering event? I'm not talking about a change of a job or a brand new house. The kind of life altering event that I'm referring to is a "make it or break it" or a "live or die" type of event. In my 46 years, I have had several life altering events, but none compares to that of which came to a head only 3 months ago. This event has lead my husband and I down a road I don't want to explore again. A road that has been like one of those god awful, pothole filled, grass covered prairie trails that feels like a roller coaster that has gone off the tracks. A road that I am proud to say is getting much smoother and more like a newly paved highway. A road that has been life altering. A road that initiated a change in both my husband and I individually and a road that has had a great transformation in our marriage.

Are you intrigued yet? Have I caught your attention? I am going to condense this event the best I can and use the blog to share more of what we have learned along the way, what we are continuing to learn, and resources that have been lifesavers (literally). Just a fair warning-positivity and religion will be mentioned and testimonies of faith will be written.

I'm going to give you a condensed life story. My husband Mark and I were married in 1994. We were very young and in love and there was nothing and no one that was going to stop us. I was just 19 and he was 22. Did we have people who tried to talk us out of it; obviously. Did we have a lot of doubters; of course. But guess what? It has been 27 years and we are still together. I am not saying that marriage is easy by any means. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Marriage is extremely hard and it takes an enormous amount of work. I wish it was easy. I wish there were never life altering events that could cause massive destruction. I wish we were immuned to tragedies and trying times, but we are not.

Along the way we had 3 beautiful daughters; Justine (23), Bailee (22), and Kalli (15). I will tell you more about our daughters in a later post (other life altering events). But this is mine and Mark's condensed story of a life altering event. So here you go. Over the course of our marriage, we have always enjoyed having a good time. What I mean by this, is going out and drinking or drinking at home or the lake with friends. We live in small town USA (population 2,065) and grew up in even smaller town USA (population 200 and 100). Mark's dad owned a bar until he was 87 years old. Drinking was always a part of our marriage. I don't say this lightly when I say, it is VERY unfortunate that it was a part of our life at all.

Over the years, Mark continued to drink to what one would call "excessive." My personal definition would be that of one drinking at least 3-4 times a week and doing so to get drunk. After all, drinking to get drunk on the weekends is fairly normal and common in small town USA. Again, I don't say this lightly when I say, it is VERY unfortunate that it was a part of our life at all. From time to time I would have a talk with Mark and confront him about his drinking and he always seemed to take it to heart and decrease his drinking, or so I thought. I knew the last 4-5 years had been so difficult on the both of us and our marriage. My dad died unexpectantly in January 2016. This posed a lot of stress on both Mark and me. I was the only child who lived close. We were responsible to help upkeep the farm, and we had our own home and a lake home. Mark's drinking increased. There were times that things went wrong at the farm and Mark and I had to leave work to deal with it (especially in the winter/spring when my mom went South). It would be 10am and Mark was cracking a beer to ease the stress. I brushed it off. In fact, the last few years I nearly gave up and I started drinking more with him after all; drinking helps relieve the stress right? Unfortunately drinking may seem to temporarily relieve stress, but it did nothing but create a plethora of problems for our marriage. Drinking caused unnecessary fights and added even more stress to our marriage.

About 2 years ago I began praying for Mark daily. I prayed that he would stop drinking and I prayed that our marriage would be saved. Even though I prayed for him and us daily, I continued to give in and drink with him from time to time and more often than I care to admit. I knew Mark had a problem, but I truly did not know the extent of it. I mean, Mark never ever missed a day of work because he was hungover, NEVER. On April 9th, 2021, Mark had his last drink. I came home and quickly realized he "must be at the bar" again. When I called, he declined my calls. When I texted, he ignored them too. He showed up around 5:30 and we left for the lake with our 15 year old daughter Kalli. Against my better judgement, I let him drive. I knew he was already drunk, but I let him drive any way. He continued to drink the entire way to the lake. We went out to eat and he continued to drink at the restaurant. When we were done, Kalli drove us back to our cabin. Within an hour of being back, Mark was passed out. Not even me yelling at him woke him. I finally shook him so hard he woke up. I looked at him and asked him what was going on with him. He sat straight up and stated, "I have a problem with drinking and I need help."

These were the words I longed to hear for so long. This was what I prayed for for years. This was the beginning of changes that would occur individually and in our marriage. This was the beginning of an emotional rollercoaster that I believe will be a ride of a lifetime and a ride that is and will be so worth it.