Clear Vision

There are all sorts of things that make my vision less clear.  Experiences.  Hurts.  Opinions.  But I have struggled greatly with why I am so very convinced that where I am not even God will really be able to stay and love me.  Don't get me wrong, I know He does, I just can't believe it.  I know of His mercy.  Of His great love.  Of the fact that He was willing, knowing everything beforehand, to die for me.  To live in me.  To be my friend and counselor.  To stay.  I KNOW, but really letting it sink down into my heart has been hard in this case. 
Today, as I was looking back and thinking and kind of praying...you know, that running dialogue during getting ready and all....I suddenly remembered something from childhood. 
I had been living with my stepmom.  Things were not good, to put it mildly.  I had a babysitter, who was one of her ex brother in laws, who was abusing me.  My stepmom was gone until late every night with school and had to leave for work before I even got up at 6:30 to go to school.  Life was horribly hard.  I was helpless.  Nothing I could do.  I went and spent a weekend with my grandparents; my real mother's parents.  As time drew near to take me back, the dread was overtaking me.  Grandma and I were sitting on the bed reading.  And I told her what had been happening.  I also told her that my stepmom was mean to me.  She left and talked to my grandpa.  I fell asleep.  They woke me up.  They took me home.  I was antsy in the car.  I pretended to be asleep when we were almost there.  Then, I got out of the car, walked in, and nobody ever spoke of it again. 
So, I see why I don't believe anyone will hear me now.  I told the only people I could think of that could possibly help me in a moment of great courage and trying to get help.  That's how I feel now.  Like there is no help.  Like I'm just going to say it all and then feel completely worse because I said it but everyone who hears will just think that I just have to go back and do it anyway. 
But, as I was praying THIS morning, I realized that there is a huge difference.  I am no longer a child.  I can, and I must, be my own voice.  I must guard my heart.  Diligently.  With great care.  I must learn to give myself the grace I show to others.  I must be merciful to myself.  Even when nobody stands by me.  Even when I am shaking and nearly unable. 
He has spent his life working to be a good guy.  Trying to do the things that look right.  The problem does not stem from how he looks to everyone else.  I get how he looks.  I noticed it too.  Obviously....I MARRIED him.  But there is no object for his goodness beyond himself and his pride.  It is misplaced.  It is not to make his children feel necessary and wonderful.  It is not to make his wife know that she is his treasure.  I laughed when I wrote that.  Seriously, his treasure.....no way, I am more like a possession.  And while he suffers from jealousy, it's not because he ever wanted my time or wanted time to let me know how much he cares....it's because he wants people to see that he's important.  Doesn't want to be embarrassed.  Doesn't want to look wrong. 
It used to be that if we were home, if I wanted to talk to him or be with him, I seriously had to follow him around at whatever project he was doing.  And sometimes the tv too.  There has never been a time that he simply wants to be with me where it doesn't involve touching my butt or boobs or having sex.  I get that those things are important too.  But I, as simply a person, have a right to be seen and to be important because I am.  Wow.  That's amazing for me to say.  To be able to say.  Because I have never believed it.  I have always known in my marriage that in order to be accepted, sex was expected. 
The good news right now is that during this sexual reprieve, I am learning to be stronger.  The one thing he really wants is sex.  And, sex is not a bad thing....making love would be nicer, I think.  Having that aspect be an expression of the other parts of life would be amazing.  But the other parts don't exist.  The rut is that he acts nice and "butters me up"--no, not literally--so that he can have sex.  Then he is done.  That's it.  Until he wants it again.  Then he acts nicely again.  Bleck.  Now, these months later, it gives me the shakes and shudders just thinking about it.  Just remembering how those moments made me know that I was being expected to perform...to come through.  And, the funniest part, he was really only happy if I would initiate.  I quit awhile back....just couldn't bring myself to play the game anymore.  But then it became him asking.  And letting me know that a wife isn't supposed to say no.  Then he would try to praise my "good behavior" to get it to be a repeated action......like he learned from a parenting book.  He didn't read it.  We went to a class on it. 
And all the while everyone is telling me how lucky I am.  And I keep sucking it up, literally AND figuratively, trying to be worthy, trying to meet the expectations, trying to show that I'm good enough to be the wife of such a catch.  Well, I'm not. 
If I  have to drink to stand sex with him.  Take pills to sleep.  Write in secret.  Pray with great fervor that he goes away.  Have panic attacks when going home.  Shake.  Tremble.  Freeze.  Worry.  Well, perhaps my body and mind are trying to tell me something.  Perhaps it is time for me to listen instead of running from it.  Even if nobody else can understand.  Even if they behave like my grandparents did....doing nothing.  I don't need anyone to do anything on my behalf anymore.  Well, I mean, it's nice, but what I mean is that I'm an adult and can make decisions about things that affect me. 
I want to go back to all of my doctors and say, "you got it wrong.  It wasn't five pregnancies in seven years.  It wasn't raising stair step kids.  It has nothing to do with the kids.  It's the husband." 
My vision is clearing.  Like the fog burning off in later day at the coast.  The Son is shining, taking the fogginess away.  Giving me clarity. 
Yet, still.........I don't feel like I'm worthy of anything better.  Because I allowed this sham.  And that is what disgusts me most.  My ignorance.  My denial.  My wishing. 
But, that is who I am.  Not ignorant, but willfully overlooking faults in order to love.  Willing to be hopeful.  Willing to wait.  Willing to have compassion.  My willingness to be what he needed has nearly robbed me of my own life.  He always likes to say how biblically I'm his.  That it's not my own body.  Not my own life.  Very recently I refuted that.  Told him even if I was a heathen, it was my body.  It is my life.  Maybe it didn't go over well, but I felt better for having said it.