I inherited my stubbornness from my Swedish ancestors. Grandma Johnson lived to be a hundred, even though she was nearly killed in a car accident, had a bad heart, and was a widow for over 39 years. Her mother, Mormor, delivered her own baby, endured persecution and years of alienation for her faith, and emigrated to America when she was 60 years old. My own mother persevered through pain, discomfort, boredom, loneliness and loss, enduring to the end with graciousness and faith. With a heritage like that, how could I possibly give up? I made up my mind the day Sheldon asked me to forgive him that I was going to make our marriage work, and since I'm just as stubborn as my ancestors, I meant it.
If you'll look at the very beginning of this blog you'll find a story called "Six Months". It's the third story I posted. Brother Killian, our Marriage Relations Sunday School teacher, told it to us, and though that was 33 years ago I've never forgotten it.
"A good marriage takes effort and work on both sides, or else it has little reason to succeed. We have to have an immovable desire, or intention, to make our marriage work," Brother Killian also said, a few weeks after Sheldon told me about his infidelities. I recorded it in my journal because it made such an impression on me. He taught us that we can only change ourselves, no one else, no matter how hard we try.
I wasn't the best wife in the world, but I wanted to be. I was sometimes selfish, wondering, "Why me?" and "don't I deserve some love and understanding, too?" but I really tried to forgive and make myself into a good wife. After awhile I was able to put Sheldon's discretions in a figurative box, high up on a shelf in the closet of my mind; not forgetting them, but also not taking them down to look through anymore. Life went on.
Someone gave me a book of poetry written by Carol Lynn Pearson at this time. I recorded some of the poems that meant the most to me in my journal. One that really helped was
To One Who Has Been Done Dirt
Cry or curse or call it unfair,
But be grateful 'til the grave
That in this hurt
You're the one who received,
And not the one who gave.
Another that stuck in my mind was
Compensation
Enormous grief
Has leveled me-
Welded it's bulk
To my back
And will not let
Me rise.
Yet-
"I'll give
No burden that
You cannot bear,"
He promised me.
I am amazed-
How strong my back
Must be.
Yes, it was really hard, but little by little I worked my way through the hurt and life got back to normal. We never talked about Sheldon's infidelity, I because I wanted him to know I'd forgiven and forgotten, and him? I don't know why. Maybe he didn't want to hurt me any more by bringing it up. Maybe he figured "what's done is done, and I'm off the hook now," and he completely forgot about it. Or maybe he just thought if we pretended it didn't happen eventually I'd forget.
Once we almost talked about it. He was late coming home from someplace, and I asked Sheldon where he'd been. He got really cross and told me if I was going to treat him like a child and have to know his every movement I'd cause him to turn back to his old behavior. That scared me. At the same time I knew he was using me as an excuse for his bad behavior I was also afraid I'd chase him back into it. I bet I made the wrong choice, but I didn't ask him where he'd been after that.
I heard once that men get their self esteem from their job and how successful they are at work. I wondered if part of Sheldon's problem was that he wasn't successful at school, you know that is a teenager's work, so being able to pick up girls gave him a sense of self esteem he couldn't get anywhere else.
Women, on the other hand, seem to get their sense of self worth from their home, their family, and their husband. If they don't feel like their husband likes them or finds them attractive they will assume no one else does. If that's true, maybe it explains why some women with philandering husbands choose to live in a make believe world where they think everything is OK.
For me, I think I got my sense of self esteem first from my relationship with my dad and with Heavenly Father. I wanted most of all to make them proud of me. Marrying Sheldon added someone else to base my self worth on, but even when he rejected me I still had them. I wanted, I needed, to be as good as I possibly could so I would feel good about myself. Does that make sense?
On the one hand, I knew that Heavenly Father and dad loved me no matter what, that I was their daughter, and had intrinsic self worth. But on another level, I really, really needed to gain their approval by keeping the commandments and doing the very best I could. And keeping the commandments meant forgiving Sheldon and loving him unconditionally, so I did. Like I said, I'm stubborn
Dad decided about this time to help us out by going into partnership with Sheldon, starting a print shop out east of town. It sounded like it was going to be a successful venture, and it kept us busy. At first I helped in the front, bringing Linnea to work with me every day, but eventually we hired an older lady to run the office and I was able to stay home. That was good, because I was pregnant with our second child.
Holly was born a few weeks before Christmas that year. She was an adorable baby! By now Linnea was a year and a half old, grown up and talking, and so happy to be a big sister. She just loved her new baby and they were so cute together.
Right after Holly was born I also began babysitting for a friend of mine while she taught school. Her daughter was six months older than Linnea, and her name was Holly, too. So I suddenly went from having one child to taking care of three children, and it was a lot of fun. The only draw back was that we only had one car, so I was stuck at home all day with no transportation while Sheldon worked. That was OK, since even with the extra babysitting income things were very tight and I had no money to spend. Still, there were days when the most exciting thing that happened to us was walking out to the mailbox to see what the mailman had brought.
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