While I have no real intentions of leaving you all “hanging” and waiting to hear what has turned my marriage around so abruptly for months to come, I do plan on waiting until some time next week to give you the details and from there, my intentions are to keep you apprised of our progress over the next few months.
So, for all of my friends interested in the details, no worries, they are coming.

Now then, there has been a huge adjustment that was necessary within myself as well to help get my marriage where it is today.
I have fought and fought changing certain things about myself mostly out of pure stubbornness but have finally come to a place where my own happiness was never going to be sustained without me being willing to just really look at myself and admit that I needed to change.
And not just for me. But for Russ too.

And, to be honest, that is where my stubbornness really swept in and took hold.
I was completely willing to “fix” myself for me but whenever Russ would complain to me about things he felt I should “work on”, quite frankly, I would just look at him and think,
” Really? Really? YOU want me to change?”
I didn’t feel like he had a right, a say, in anything about who I was or who I should be.
And I have fought it,
fought him.
Sadly.
My stubbornness kept us from being completely happy for a long time,
especially when Russ has listened to everything I have asked of him these past two years and just done it,
no questions asked.

I made him feel
worthless.
And made myself
worth more than he is.

The truth is, I know God is a forgiving God.
I know when Russ asks for forgiveness,
God forgives him.
And while I was saying I forgave him,
I wasn’t.
Not really.
I was trying to move on,
but not forgiving
and definitely not forgetting.

And so, I finally “woke up” one day after writing this post
and I just decided that I could no longer just live
unhappily ever after and neither could Russ.
That it wasn’t fair to he and I and it wasn’t fair to the kids.

And I made the conscious decision to work on me.

I joined a gym and I work out,
every day now.
I joined Weight Watchers
and I’m eating right.
I go to bed at a decent time,
I’m making time to read and write,
I’ve even picked up my sketching again after years of leaving it aside.

In short, I am making real time for me,
for my soul to heal.
And for the first time in a really, really long time
I’ve found worth in myself besides being a mom and a wife.

And it’s reflected in everything I do,
including my marriage.
No.
Especially my marriage.

I have said before that Russ and I are happy,
but I can honestly say,
we are happy.
Truly.
And that makes all the hell, self reflection, and change worth it.