Endless Thought Cycle

J's moodiness lasted several days following our return from Europe, and though I cautioned myself against it, I became vaguely optimistic. 

Maybe this is rock bottom, I thought. Maybe this is the beginning of the end. 

In my minds eye, I attempted to see J being led through the emotional labyrinth that started with remorse and humility and ended with love and recovery. How wonderful to step to the very brink of disaster, only to recognize it for what it was and allow yourself to be snatched to safety! Perhaps this is what God had been orchestrating all along! 

But even as I tried to envision us strong and united, hope was crushed under the terrible weight of just how far J would have to go and how long it would take to get there. I knew it wasn't impossible-- with God, nothing is-- but I'd experienced the agony of that journey twice. Those journeys had been refining. They had brought me strength and growth unlike I'd ever before known, but apparently they hadn't had the same- or perhaps any-  effect on J. 

I could not comprehend how that was even possible. He was either extraordinarily dense or willfully rejecting everything we'd been taught, neither of which made me eager to go through hell a third time with only the smallest flicker of hope in his capacity and desire to change sustaining me. 

Here I was, still waiting around for him to reach rock bottom? Waiting for him to wake up and decide that addiction was not serving him? Waiting for him to finally start this journey of a thousand steps?

Thinking about it that way always circled me back to the same conclusions:

That I was outgrowing him. 

That I was done with this stage of growth.

That I was ready for the next hard thing. 

That at this point, even if J were sprinting towards recovery, I was not certain I could wait around for him to catch up. 

That J was nowhere near sprinting.

I worried that God would ask me to stay anyway. That He needed me to learn something more that I wasn't yet seeing. While I would do anything He asked of me, in my heart of hearts, I felt certain that the possibility of having a loving, respectful, and equally yoked marriage with J was gone. If God wanted me to stay, it would be for another purpose entirely, and that made me feel sad, afraid, and so, so tired. 

As it turned out, I needn't have worried.  

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