Faith: strong belief or trust in someone or something.
Throughout my life, I have always had faith in things working out, but I also know I have had small amounts of doubt about life happening the way I wanted it to happen.
When I was newly engaged to my husband, he had a job opportunity he couldn’t pass up: a two-year assignment in Limerick, Ireland. He was so gung-ho to try a new adventure that he signed on the dotted line very quickly. We had conversations about the move, but I felt that he had already made up his mind to take the assignment. He moved there in the blink of an eye, while I stayed behind in the States to plan our wedding.
Our courtship up to that point had not been a smooth one. There were two broken engagements along the way; so, based on the definition of faith, I probably shouldn’t have put my faith in him at that point. But I was 24 years old, and I was in love. I gave my whole heart to him, put faith in what he was trying to do, and jumped at the opportunity of living overseas. It was an adventure of a lifetime. When I finally joined him in Limerick, he was the only person I knew there.
We had an incredible experience living in a foreign country where we were truly on our own. We toured all around Ireland, taking weekend trips to places like the Ring of Kerry in Killarney. We did a Dublin pub crawl featuring some of the pubs mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses. And we had our share of disagreements. We had a fight one night that was so bad the only alternative I could think of was to go to the airport and fly back home. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
With both our families 3000 miles away, we had to learn to deal with each other, for better or for worse. In Ireland, I learned that I could work through difficulties with the man that I loved, and that we could support and rely on each other because we were all we had. Living on our own in a foreign country bonded us together, and also solidified my faith in my husband.
When I was newly engaged to my husband, he had a job opportunity he couldn’t pass up: a two-year assignment in Limerick, Ireland. He was so gung-ho to try a new adventure that he signed on the dotted line very quickly. We had conversations about the move, but I felt that he had already made up his mind to take the assignment. He moved there in the blink of an eye, while I stayed behind in the States to plan our wedding.
Our courtship up to that point had not been a smooth one. There were two broken engagements along the way; so, based on the definition of faith, I probably shouldn’t have put my faith in him at that point. But I was 24 years old, and I was in love. I gave my whole heart to him, put faith in what he was trying to do, and jumped at the opportunity of living overseas. It was an adventure of a lifetime. When I finally joined him in Limerick, he was the only person I knew there.
We had an incredible experience living in a foreign country where we were truly on our own. We toured all around Ireland, taking weekend trips to places like the Ring of Kerry in Killarney. We did a Dublin pub crawl featuring some of the pubs mentioned in James Joyce’s Ulysses. And we had our share of disagreements. We had a fight one night that was so bad the only alternative I could think of was to go to the airport and fly back home. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
With both our families 3000 miles away, we had to learn to deal with each other, for better or for worse. In Ireland, I learned that I could work through difficulties with the man that I loved, and that we could support and rely on each other because we were all we had. Living on our own in a foreign country bonded us together, and also solidified my faith in my husband.
Doubt: the state of being uncertain about the truth or reliability of something.
Fifteen years later we were back from Ireland, married with two beautiful children, and in the middle of another adventure. We moved from our hometown in Massachusetts to the Chicago suburbs. Since Ireland, success and prosperity had come to our family in many ways, but another thing had come as well: addiction. This disease can really skew the balance of faith and doubt in a very short amount of time. I had placed a lot of faith in a man who was now struggling. My doubts about what he was telling me and what I was seeing were astounding. After many years of putting faith in my husband and his judgement, I now was feeling a shift towards doubt.
It was a very subtle shift that took many forms in our marriage, and it involved our children. I had to be more aware. Routine tasks had me balancing to find faith in the middle of worrying doubts, like when my husband went to go pick up our son at baseball practice. He insisted on taking his sports car, which he drove through the open park and right up to the baseball field. My son was delighted and thought his dad was cool. I was bewildered to see such poor judgement. I later realized that he was in his addictive state while driving our son home. That, and other moments left my trust faded like a pair of old blue jeans.
Some moments when I thought I could trust my husband became moments of incredible embarrassment for my children. My daughter would have friends over, and she would never know if her dad would come out of his room in an altered state or if he would just stay in there. He was becoming more unpredictable as the addiction took hold. Again, the trust was eroding, for all of us. When you realize that you can no longer trust your husband’s judgement, that is an incredibly sad day.
I did try to restore my faith in my husband when I saw healthy behavior. But after what I had seen and experienced due to his addiction, and his behavior as a result of it, it was a tango dance between us, always shifting. As time passed, I was learning how to apply the faith that I used to have in my husband to myself. Very slowly, I was becoming a single parent because of the addiction, attending a lot more baseball and softball games, band concerts, and parent-teacher conferences by myself. I was working a great job that gave me solace but I also realized that I had to keep that job to make sure the family stayed afloat.
Addiction made me grow up and harness faith in my abilities to keep the family together. I was talking to rehabs and counselors, and becoming educated about my husband’s disease. Feeling more comfortable about talking to people who cared about me was a huge part of the process of gaining faith in myself. At the same time, I was also talking to my children about what they were seeing in their dad, and trying to help them process it all as well. Al-Anon was a recovery organization that proved to be incredibly helpful in this process. To use a metaphor I heard in Al-Anon, I didn’t want to go down with the ship. I was realizing that I had to stay up on the deck, and watch the horizon. I had to steer and not let the ship sink, as the anchor was slowly trying to pull it down.
It was a very subtle shift that took many forms in our marriage, and it involved our children. I had to be more aware. Routine tasks had me balancing to find faith in the middle of worrying doubts, like when my husband went to go pick up our son at baseball practice. He insisted on taking his sports car, which he drove through the open park and right up to the baseball field. My son was delighted and thought his dad was cool. I was bewildered to see such poor judgement. I later realized that he was in his addictive state while driving our son home. That, and other moments left my trust faded like a pair of old blue jeans.
Some moments when I thought I could trust my husband became moments of incredible embarrassment for my children. My daughter would have friends over, and she would never know if her dad would come out of his room in an altered state or if he would just stay in there. He was becoming more unpredictable as the addiction took hold. Again, the trust was eroding, for all of us. When you realize that you can no longer trust your husband’s judgement, that is an incredibly sad day.
I did try to restore my faith in my husband when I saw healthy behavior. But after what I had seen and experienced due to his addiction, and his behavior as a result of it, it was a tango dance between us, always shifting. As time passed, I was learning how to apply the faith that I used to have in my husband to myself. Very slowly, I was becoming a single parent because of the addiction, attending a lot more baseball and softball games, band concerts, and parent-teacher conferences by myself. I was working a great job that gave me solace but I also realized that I had to keep that job to make sure the family stayed afloat.
Addiction made me grow up and harness faith in my abilities to keep the family together. I was talking to rehabs and counselors, and becoming educated about my husband’s disease. Feeling more comfortable about talking to people who cared about me was a huge part of the process of gaining faith in myself. At the same time, I was also talking to my children about what they were seeing in their dad, and trying to help them process it all as well. Al-Anon was a recovery organization that proved to be incredibly helpful in this process. To use a metaphor I heard in Al-Anon, I didn’t want to go down with the ship. I was realizing that I had to stay up on the deck, and watch the horizon. I had to steer and not let the ship sink, as the anchor was slowly trying to pull it down.
Hope: to expect with confidence.
I still have great faith in the people that I love. I lost my husband to the disease of addiction 6 years ago. I could have lost my faith in men and in everything they tell me. I could have thrown a blanket of doubt over any interaction I could have with the men in my life. But I knew that would be wrong. Upon careful thinking, I had placed faith in people at times when it probably wasn’t appropriate to give them my faith. At other times, I could have doubted when I saw red flags waving in my face about behaviors in the ones that I love.
I am now in an incredibly satisfying relationship with a wonderful man who makes me supremely happy, and I have incredible faith in him as a result of our many experiences together. I’m sure there will be doubts along the way at some point. There always are. But I’m a person who always wants to pull out her faith card before she throws down her doubt card.
I am now in an incredibly satisfying relationship with a wonderful man who makes me supremely happy, and I have incredible faith in him as a result of our many experiences together. I’m sure there will be doubts along the way at some point. There always are. But I’m a person who always wants to pull out her faith card before she throws down her doubt card.
Header art by T. Guzzio. Original photo via public domain.
CONNECT WITH GERRY:
Gerry is a 3rd grade teacher in Illinois. While she wishes to maintain a certain level of anonymity out of deference to her family, she encourages anyone tossed by the storm of addiction to reach out and seek help by contacting Al-Anon at al-anon.org.
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