All I could ask was, “what are you doing?”
“I’m going to kill us both,” was his reply.
My heart started pounding—now I knew why I had that horrible feeling in my chest all day.
“Please. Please don’t do something stupid,” I said. I loved him. I didn’t understand what was going on and I was trying to think of something—some way to distract him. All I could see in my head was blood everywhere and my not being able to do anything as he took his own life in front of me.
When he put the gun to my head something changed inside of me. I went from feeling like I was living in a dream to this being really real. I slapped the gun away from my head and ran into the bathroom where I called my brother-in-law’s girlfriend. I didn’t say anything. I just left the phone on sitting on the toilet where she could hear everything that was going on.
He put the gun to my head again.
I started crying as I said, “No. Please no. Please don’t kill us both. I love you. I love you.”
My husband’s phone started to ring. It was his brother asking, “Man, what are you doing?”
My husband responded, “There will be no 2013 for us. My wife will be dead here in a few minutes and then it will be my turn.”
What my husband didn’t realize is that they’d been driving back to our house when they heard me crying on the phone. When the doorbell rang, I felt this enormous sense of relief.
As my brother-in-law talked with my husband, I grabbed my phone and my purse and left. I had to get out of that house.
I stayed at my brother-in-law’s house that night, and the next day I woke up to panicked text messages and phone calls from my husband asking what was going on. He had no memory of what he’d done the night before.
I took time to explain what had happened and told him that I needed to get away. That I was too scared of my husband to stay in this house with him. So, I headed back to my parent’s house. We never told anyone what was going on. The only 2 people who knew were my brother-in-law and his girlfriend.
I spent 9 months away from my husband. They were the toughest months of my life. I cannot even describe the depression and sense of hopelessness that I felt.
I still loved him. He still loved me. I just knew that somehow we had to figure out a way to work this out.
When I finally moved back in with my husband, we were still as in love with each other as we had ever been. In fact, it seemed like we loved each other more. Right now, his PTSD is still undiagnosed, but he is on the right track looking for help. I am proud to say that I am not having to push him to get this help, too.
I’m not sure what you believe in, but for my husband and I, we believe in a Higher Power. And we know that our relationship was healed because of our faith in this Higher Power. We also know that it was these beliefs that allowed us to have hope for miracles. We have already seen a few miracles in our marriage—and I know more are on their way.
I share this for you to have
hope for your marriage—and I
just wanted to close this by
saying that the toughest
battled go to the toughest
Soldiers. There is help and hope
for everyone if you just believe.