Waiting For Our Life To Be Our Own

Everytime the Holidays roll around, I get so melancholy. I used to LOVE the Holidays, but living with my MIL has stripped some of that joy. I know I am losing focus on what the Holidays are truly about and I need to work on that.

I cannot wait to decorate my home how I want it decorated and create our own traditions. My MIL collects Santas and I kid you not, she literally has hundreds of them. We remove family photos and box them up to make room for them to go in every nook and cranny all over the place. Yes, it is festive looking, and yes, my husband likes it too, but ARGH!!! I want a REAL tree and I want to come home from work and snuggle with my husband on our own couch, in our own decorated place and not feel like I take second place. Ever since we married, we decorate every year with a dozen huge plastic bins full of her things. Everything seems to have its place, but I feel out of place.

I asked my husband last night if he honestly thinks we will ever move out. He answered emphatically YES. He is hoping that when he is able to get a job that we can move out next summer. Oh I hope so!!! We paid a bunch of bills off, which is impressive since he's been out of work for almost 2 years. But we just keep plugging away and have 7 bills gone I believe.

Yesterday I was supposed to go to a craft fair for my friend. I was looking forward to it, but didn't end up going. MIL is sick with a really bad cold and Jim ended up going with her to the urgent care. Yes, he's a good son and I told him to go ahead and take her, that I would skip the fair. But there are many other occasions where she seems to have his attention and I feel second. I thought when we got married it meant that he picked me...but the whole leave your parents and cleave to your wife thing didn't quite happen for us since we've never left.

Trust

I got a book from the author Sheila Walsh that is all about learning to truly trust in God. Man, do I need to read this and learn from it. I have been struggling with this issue for many years, but much more recently. My husband is going on almost 2 years without a job. God has been so good & provided for us during his unemployment with the EDD checks. But those checks are gonna run out really soon. I'm getting really stressed out about what's gonna happen when we don't have those unemployment checks coming.

I REALLY don't want to keep living with his mother. It shouldn't be. When you get married you are supposed to leave your mother & father and cleave to your spouse, but in our case, the cord was never cut. It's a daily struggle for me to balance being a wife, mother and daughter in law, when I am so resentful of our living situation.

I had a co-worker from another office tell me that Jim & I shouldn't have gotten married if we can't afford to live alone. It really pissed me off at the time, but I can't help but think about that sometimes. I love my husband, and I don't regret marrying him, but I wonder if we had waited to marry until we could afford to live on our own...would we be married? Would Jim have maybe worked harder knowing I wouldn't say "I Do" until we had our own place? Have we lived so long with her that he's just gotten too comfortable with this arrangement? I can't continue like this. I really need him to get a good paying job and get our finances and priorities in check so we can one day experience living on our own. I live in fear of never having that. I don't want to live with resentment and regrets for the rest of my life. I hate that a word that is supposed to not be in my vocabulary is creeping into my thoughts the longer this goes on.

Lord help me fight these negative thoughts and stay strong & cling to You. I have to trust in God to pull us through this season of our lives. I need to trust that God has a job somewhere out there for Jim. I have to trust in that, because right now my trust is shot in ever getting out of here without some divine intervention. Something that was supposed to be a year has been 8. FRUSTRATED, ANGRY, BITTER, RESENTFUL and really hate feeling this way.