My Husband: My Best Friend

Writing Challenge Day 3 – 5 Ways to Win my Heart

---

Winning my heart means I have deemed you a safe place to be vulnerable. 

As part of this writing challenge of self-discovery, I really appreciate the prompts like this one that encourage me to focus on what is most important to me. For too many years my wants and needs have always been an afterthought, not something I had ever considered important.  

Over the last three years of therapy, I am learning who I am and how to voice those wants.  I am learning how to create boundaries, and how to not feel guilty or anxious about them.  

Another way prompts like this help me is by creating a catalyst for leaving the past and realizing the present. Let me explain further: slipping into old ways of thinking is easy for my trauma brain. It forces me to reconcile contradictory thoughts and feelings and reminds me to trust myself. 

My trauma healing began one year into my marriage, seven years into our relationship. It has changed everything, and it hasn’t been easy. Still, we continue to move forward as a team. I know it is just as hard for him in ways specific to him, as it is for me. No one likes change – especially of this magnitude. 

My husband is an amazing man and so I have decided I am going to write about the ways that he has won my heart over and over again, not just through my trauma recovery, but in our 11 year relationship.

1. He encourages me to be who I am. Since the day I met him, he has given me the space, the encouragement, and the celebration to be myself authentically and without apology. Having this space to explore myself (and now to heal) has been the greatest gift. 
2. He is a good father. He has been an amazing stepdad to my adult son (who was 10 when we met), and he is wonderful with our young daughter. He offers advice and perspective that is easily received like a friend but with the guidance of a protector and caregiver.   
3. He is a partner. He takes on the household, the finances, the kids, all of it – with equal measure. Having a teammate like him makes a life that can be stressful in general, a little bit more manageable. 
4. He fights for me. I don’t mean violently, though I don’t doubt he would if my life were in danger. No, he fights for me as a trauma survivor, as an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse. He knows that it is in my blood to speak out and fight for survivors and with that I am faced with hate and ignorance in the media and online. Man, does he fight for me, constantly supportive of me and those like me in this world. 
5. He never lets me forget I am loved, I am good enough, and that I deserve the love and the life that I have. He has always loved me without reserve. Always open and affectionate. I have never questioned his love. In recent years he has taken that love a step further; he gives me the space for my pain, but he will not allow me to forget what I mean to him and what I should mean to myself. 

In many ways I am very lucky to have the support system that I have now as I heal. This is not something I have had my whole life, so it has proven challenging at times to get used to. But he hasn’t given up on me, so I won’t give up on me, either.

---

Tune in tomorrow, I will be writing about something that I struggle with.

Catch up on other posts from this challenge here

---

For more blog content visit my post index, for more poetry visit my poetry collection page.  

Please donate. I provide all my writing for free because it is so necessary for us to connect – but your financial support is very appreciated and it helps allow me to continue focusing on this while still supporting my family.   

Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed this post don’t forget to click like and follow my blog.  

Visit my Agency Resource page for hotline information if you or a friend needs help.  

Check out the SCT Together Store. 

---

Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash