It takes two…….. This next post is extremely important for me as I take the opportunity to talk about my husband. There is no way I would be where I am today without John. His endless care and love for me has been a huge part in my life and he has helped me find strength within me that I didn’t even knew I had. No one, but him, could have given me the gifts of maturity and strength as he has. There is a higher reason why I fell in love with him in the first place beside the attractions on different levels. I am not going to take you back to how and where we met as it will take me the rest of the night to write. But I am going to tell you how we have changed as a married couple, since children have come into the picture and how we have grown after we realized we had children with autism. Before we had children our lives were carefree and stress less. We thought back then that we had a lot on our plates being newlyweds and in love and trying to find our feet together. Our biggest concern was how we could change lifestyle to fit our common dream of moving to Melbourne which were nothing compared to today. Little did we know that those days would be the easiest and calmest days in our life together and some days I wish for those days to come back. Those were the days of no wrinkles, because of your little worries and full night sleeps uninterrupted night after night. Those were the days where you were light as a feathered in many various ways. Kilo wise and well as worry wise. Then children came into our life bringing along a whole new dynamic in our family. The focus and attention shifted from each other as a couple to the children and work. I would stay home looking after the kids while John would go to work to support the family. That was our day and we cope quite well with that dynamic. We thought we were close, but really we weren’t. Looking back, our level of communication was immature and childish on many levels and it caused a lot of friction. Then came along Michael’s diagnosis and we fell apart as a couple, because we dealt with it in very different ways as men and women would do. It was like we went through a grieving process for a period of time and we truly dealt with it differently. It was difficult for a while as so many things happened all at once along with the diagnoses. We had to deal with a whole new concept as a couple, which we mentally and emotionally were not prepared for. We were not given any help or guidance of how to deal with the diagnoses as a couple and it left us in the dark. We had a hard time working together as a couple, but we did the best we could at that stage. I so dearly wish we would have received some couple counselling to help us move faster across this field for the sake of our children. I would highly recommend getting some professional help to learn how to deal with a diagnosis as a couple, because we deal with it in so many different ways. No ways are more right than others. We worked out that we both needed some help to sort out these issues as a couple or we would leave a terrible mess for the kids to pick up and we absolutely did not want that for our kids. We just had to grow up and learn how to communicate and learn how we best would talk to each other. So we went and got help and boy, did we excel from there. We went from having heavy bags of issues dragging along with us everywhere to having a light backpack we could easily live with. It didn’t just benefit our relationship to each other, but the children gained a brand new set of parents that now knew how to work together instead of against each other. As we matured as a couple we also grew as independent people. We both grew up – together. What a great gift for our family. We reached a new high after Daniel was born, because we were forced to work closely together to get everything to work out. We had decided for Michael to attend ABA therapy 45 mins away from us and he need to be brought and picked up 4 days a week. We also had work, Marco and a new born to look after and it all had to be fitted around Michael’s therapy. We worked really well together and we managed to pull it off somehow despite it being a really hard and very draining year. We were extremely exhausted at the end of the year, but as a couple we were going strong. Because we were going really well as a couple I found the strength within me to take on 2 diagnosis processes in one go – on my own. I felt stronger than ever before and knew I could do so many things on my own now, because were of our unity. Despite feeling strong and quiet good independently there were days I had to lean extra on John to carry my through. Especially those days after an assessment where your child had been examined from top to toe. No parent wants to be advised of their child’s lacks and difficulties and missing skills. And I did it alone as John had to stay back and focus on his work load. It cut like a knife and time and time again my heart got sadden and broken. Those were the days I had to lean extra on John. I knew, despite him not being there physically, he was there with me mentally. I remember we were talking one day and I said to him that dealing with all this one my own was like running a never ending marathon. He turned around a said “You might be the runner in the marathon, but I am on the sideline cheering you on”! It was the most precise and loving way of describing our relationship and that is why I love him with all my heart.
Posted on: Fri, 28 Jun 2013 07:38:18 +0000
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