The Honeymooners

A couple points that I forgot to mention in my last post. In November of 2001, Michael decided to give his life to Christ! I was so happy that my new best friend had just become a Christian!  As he was growing in his knowledge of Christ, I became more and more attracted to him!  He started attending Liberty University online and was taking courses in the New and Old Testament!  We had so much we could talk about through that time!  We were close before, but with his growing faith in Christ, we were as close as anyone could possibly be!

When we announced our engagement, we announced to each of our closest friends and family members in person, rather than a big announcement!  When we called to tell Michael's parents, they said they had news for us too! So, we asked them to go first.  They told us they were going to get a divorce. The separation didn't prove to be helpful, so the next thing that needed to happen was the divorce. Michael was greatly disappointed, but we had both seen it coming. Then, we told my parents. Of course, they already knew because Michael asked my dad for my hand in marriage. Then we told my best friend, and then His best friend.  His best friend lived an hour away, so we had him down to Michael's apartment for supper.  His friend said that he had news for us too. So, when he got to the apartment, Michael told his friend to tell us his news first. His friend had been married for 12 years at that point. He announced that he and his wife got a divorce two weeks ago. How discouraging is that!?!?! Michael goes to announce he is engaged and his parents and best friend announce at the same time, that they are getting a divorce! Oh well, we charged on anyway.

So, back to 2003, we got married. While we were looking for a church to get married in, we decided to attend this cute little church.  During the service, the pastor handed out lollypops to all the kids in the congregation.  He came up and handed one to both of us!  Even though we were thoroughly embarrassed, we loved the look of the church and chose that church to get married in.

On the day of our wedding, I refused to wear shoes. I couldn't be towering over Michael in all the pictures!!! So, we have these cute little pictures of me and my flower girl showing off our bare feet! While were getting ready, I was drinking my daily Diet Dr. Pepper.  I spilled a couple drops on my wedding dress. I thought, "no, big deal. I'll just get a paper towel and wipe it off."  So, I went into the ladies room and found a paper towel.  The paper towels were white with a green ivy print on them.  I wet the paper towel and started to rub it on the spot that I had dripped.  That place on my dress turned from light brown soda color to bright green!! I was horrified!  The spot was just above my belly button and would be seen in ALL of our wedding photos! The good news.. I had a HUGE bouquet. When I held my bouquet, it covered my stained dress. Whew! What a relief! Until... I held it for a couple minutes... The florist later told me that my bouquet was between 15 and 20 lbs! There was a bazillion pictures to take. Needless to say, my arms were sore the next day!

I had the perfect wedding! The weather couldn't have been nicer! The decorations fit perfectly on the rows just as we had imagined! Almost everyone that I loved was able to come! There were no kids wailing throughout the service. It was just beautiful...until...during our "I do's" my best friend's mother's cell phone rings!  AND she answered it!! The good news was, she left the room and we were able to continue on with our beautiful ceremony.

We went to Cancun for our honeymoon!!  It was beautiful there!! It was the first time I had left the country! In Mexico I was legal to drink, even though I was only 19! So, I tried some of my first alcohol.  They put it with all kinds of juices and it was awesome!  I didn't want to get drunk or even feel tipsy, so I didn't have many, but they were really yummy! My husband, yes, it felt super weird to call him "my husband",  drank more than I thought was necessary. However, I didn't know how much was too much, so I didn't think much of it! We stayed down there for a week. The day before we came home, we went snorkeling.  It was a lot of fun looking at the coral reef and all the different colored fish swimming around us! To get to the snorkeling sight we took a ferry to a dock. Then at that dock, we got onto some jet skis and rode out to the reef. We had lunch at a little cafe, then we rode the jet skis and the ferry back to our resort.  I had forgotten to wear sunscreen that day.  Well, I have red hair and super, super white skin!  So, as I'm sure you can imagine, I got a sunburn!  But it wasn't red! It was beyond red, it was purple!!!!  By that evening, I was in bed shivering with a temperature!!! I had sun poisoning. The last day we were there, we had planned a parasail ride. We paid for it in advance, so we couldn't get out of it.  We went on it, but all I remember about it was how much my sandals hurt my feet and how cold the wind was on my skin.  It was a disappointing in to a super fun honeymoon.

Soon after we got married, my mother-in-law came for a visit. She was just as nice as she could be!  While she was visiting from Nebraska, our wedding photos came in.  I thought of a great idea!  My father-in-law was going to be visiting from Nebraska 2 months after she left.  So, I suggested that my mother-in-law take my wedding photos back to Nebraska and order the ones she wanted. Then she could give them to her parents to look at them.  Her parents were still great friends with my father-in-law, so they could give the pictures to him and he could show his parents the pictures.  Then, when he came back to our house, he could have what everyone wanted to order and bring my wedding pictures back to me!! :-)  This sounds like a great idea...right??

Well, it WAS a great idea until it backfired.  My mother-in-law not only didn't get along with my father-in-law, but apparently she didn't get along with her parents either.  She didn't tell me this when the pictures were here.  She just took the pictures as if she agreed with the plan even though she had no intention of getting them to any of the rest of the family. Two weeks before my father-in-law was going to come out to visit, I gave her a call and kindly asked why she hadn't gotten the pictures to anyone else yet.  She told me that she just hadn't gotten around to it and that she would get the pictures out to the rest of the family soon.  I was ok with that answer and went on about my business. A week later, no one had seen the pictures.  I called and the same exchange happened.  Well, three days before my father-in-law was supposed to leave Nebraska and come back to Tennessee, I called up my mother-in-law.  I said to her, "You have two choices right now. You can get them to your ex-husband TONIGHT. Or you can put them in the mail to me first thing in the morning.  What's it going to be?"  I said it quiet and calm, yet very direct. Her tearful, whiny response was, "I need to talk to my son."  She cried to Michael for hours upon hours!! I finally told him that he needed to wrap it up about 2am. Thankfully he did and he came to bed and asked me what I had said to her. I told him.  He wasn't to happy about it...

The first year of our marriage was HARD!!!  I couldn't seem to do much of anything right!! My mother had done so much for me that I didn't know about!! Trying to keep up with the whole household was a lot harder than I thought.  But even with all my efforts and striving, I was unable to keep it clean enough for my husband's expectations.

When we got married, Michael decided that I couldn't go to my parent's church anymore because the guy that raped me continued to attend that church. I understood his concern, so we started church shopping. At that time in my life, I was very easy going and could fit into almost any church he wanted to attend. I would get settled into a church very quickly.  He would be ok with going to a church for a few months and then he wouldn't let me go anymore. We changed churches every 3 to 6 months until we had tried every church in the area and none of them were "good enough." He said that there just wasn't a good fit for him. So we stopped attending any church all together. This was a very depressing time in my life.  Strangely, I didn't know why I was depressed. Looking back, it was obvious that I wasn't in fellowship with ANY body of believers! And because of that, I wasn't being held accountable for ANYTHING!  My devotion time with God took a big hit too.

Since Michael was a pilot, he kept all kinds of crazy sleep schedules, but I needed my normal beauty sleep!  I would go to bed early and Michael would stay up late watching the news or doing who knows what.  After a few months, I found out that he was staying up late in order to drink enough to put him to sleep.  As time went on, he stopped hiding it from me altogether and only hid most of it.  I still didn't really know that he had a drinking problem.  I just didn't like him drinking, so I thought that I was overreacting...because that is what he told me...I was overreacting and that he had it all under control. So, I just took that in stride and assumed he was telling me the truth.

That was the end of our honeymoon stage. It can only get better from here...right?


Until next time! May God bless you in your path!