I met my hubby when he was only 20 years old. I say only because I was 25, already been married and had a 2 year old. To me he was still experiencing life and I had already had so many life experiences by 25. I consider myself a “survivor of my life choices”. In my earlier years I was way better at making all the bad choices a girl could make rather than making good life choices. But dwelling on past decisions will change nothing, right? I tell myself that all night long as I lay sleepless in bed pondering all my life choices. Insomnia and I are the best of buddies, unfortunately both my children ended up with this awful trait of mine. The thing about my hubby at 20 is that he was an old soul. By this I mean he might have been only 20 but he acted like a 40 year old. Many times people were shocked to find out he was actually 10 years younger than they thought he was.
Hubby and I were about as opposite as you could get. I would spend he would save. He has goals I went by the set of my pants. He planned for the future I planned for the weekend. I said white he would say black. I’m a glass half full he says it’s full of piss. I like to be as positive about things as possible he days he’s a realist and can be a “Debbie downer” some times. I could go on and on about how opposite we are. And the big one was our parenting styles. I made him a father at the tender age of 22!! Way to young for him. As we have aged together and gone through the things we did with Kai, he would have been a more relaxed dad in his 30’s. I was the nurturer and the protector from all things bad with the kids and he was the screamer, lecturer, punisher, the kids are lazy, this is not how they should be, hard ass. But also loved and provided for all of us with his whole heart.
When it came to the struggles with Kai Hubby finally threw in the towel and said you deal with him I can’t handle it any more. This was due to the fact that I covered for Kai and tried to protect him from himself, his father, and the world. We both did what we felt Kai needed which was the opposite of each other. Rarely did we agree on how things should be handled when it came to the kids. This made it very hard to raise children together. I loved my husband so much and my children so much so that I ended up in the middle trying to make both parties happy. Can you imagine the misery I put myself in? Having two very different parenting styles and both refusing to agree on things it’s surprising we have survived being together for 26 years. We have definitely fought the good fight for all those years and managed to stay together after the loss of our son. We have grown to respect our differences and know where we stand with each other. He treats me like the queen that I am and I think I take pretty good care of him and spoil him pretty rotten these days.
Even though our children butted heads with their father they truly respected him, especially “Sunshine” our 28 year old. They had it pretty rough trying to get along in her teen years. She and Hubby had a very love hate relationship back then. They loved each other very much but she was never going to be the kind of kid Hubby thought she should be. There was no mold she was ever going to fit in. I wanted her to be a girly girl with the makeup and hair and fashion, what I got, a little girl that played with dinosaurs and hated dolls. Hubby played sports and showed animals with 4-H and FFA all his school years. He was raised on a farm where sleeping in was no such thing and you were expected to get going with the day. Sunshine did a little sports to make him happy and very begrudgingly showed animals and despised every second of it. Mostly because they fought the entire time of taking care of the animals. Even Kai struggled with his father when it came to sports and showing animals. He also did some sports and showed the animals and guess what, there was fighting among them too. Then there would be me trying to be the referee, protect the babies, but yet appease the hubby. It never worked out very well for any of us. Although I did agree that the kids should be involved at school and the animal showing was my idea. We live in such a tiny town with the nearest larger community 35 miles away so we don’t have a lot to do around here. And my kids were pretty lazy and had no responsibilities, my own doing of course. I expected nothing from them at home I spoiled them.
I have no idea what brought Hubby and I together, there were no stars and lightning etc. We just met and came together as a couple that really could have fun together, we really could. He is my very best friend and would do anything to keep me safe and happy. He put me and my emotions before his own since the day Kai passed. He is my rock. Many couples don’t survive the loss of a child so I consider us very lucky. Don’t worry, we still fight the good fight every now and then and we are till opposite (he still thinks the glass has piss in it) on many things but we have grown over the years to agree or see some things alike. That’s what growing old together is like, right? The big one we agree on is we both miss our son so much.