Growing through Separation

I have said it many times, this separation from my husband is more difficult than birthing a baby! The thing about having a baby is that you know that the glorious end of the journey will definitely happen in 9 months (give or take). When my husband and I started on our journey of love we just knew we would be living together within 6 months - hahahahahahahaha! We were so naive about this entire process.

You know it is kind of like life - if you knew exactly when you were going to die what would you do differently? I have thought about whether or not I would have pursued our relationship if I knew it would mean a 4 year separation. That's right - 4 Years!!!! We started on our visa journey path in 2008 and it looks like he won't have a visa interview until 2012. Back to my point - if I knew it would take 4 years would I have pursued the relationship? The answer is very easy - YES! Within 2 days I knew Ibrahim was the man I wanted to spend my remaining life with - without question. If I knew it would take us 4 years, the things I would have done differently relate to the saving of money and frequency of visiting him - there would have been more visits.

More important than whether or not I would do it again knowing the time it would take for us to get together is the fact that I would do it again because of how I have grown and, according to him, he has grown. Not everyone is as fortunate as we have been. Some don't make it through the first year. I'm not saying that we were struggle free in our relationship - it was the struggles that presented the opportunity for growth. We have had, and sometimes still do, our disagreements and silly misunderstandings. What was evident during those times was that we never had a thought about us having made a mistake coming together. We wanted our relationship to be different and better than any either of us have ever had. I started to see that we were developing healthy approaches in resolving our issues. I have never hung up on my husband - what!! I could tell when he was angry and he knew when I was pissed off - but, we would hang in there and work through it. Let me tell you something about my husband. He is the type of man who wants to deal with the issue, get it to the end, and then keep it moving. Now sisters, you know how most of us are - we need that thing to linger in our attitude for awhile. We are not as prone to letting it go so easily. I definitely struggled here for awhile. I finally was able to get to a point where I told my husband that I agree with his approach of getting it resolved then moving on, but, he needed to give me a few more minutes to get to the moving on part than he needed. Gradually, I have gotten better and better at this one. What helped me was the fact that I didn't want my husband to feel uncomfortable about me or our relationship at anytime. I wanted him to always have happy thoughts about me when we were not connected - so, I had to grow in this area quickly. Thank God I did - I am still nowhere as good at this technique as he is, but, I have far exceeded where I was when we first met.

When people hear that your husband lives almost 6000 miles away the first thing that comes to their mind is how are the two of you handling the absence of sex? You can just see their little minds working behind their eyes - wondering who I was using to fill in why my husband was not with me; who was "filling in the gaps" of his physical desires. LOL!!! Ok, I would be thinking the same thing if I was the one receiving this information from a friend - let's be real folks. Honestly, this may have been true of me in a past life - thank God that life is over!! So what is different this time around? There is nothing I can say to help you understand what exists between us that has kept our faith strong in the personal commitments we have made to each other. I am not going to try to convince you either - because the only way for you to fully understand what we have together is for you to be in our relationship - that ain't happening!

But, let me give you something that you might be able to relate to personally. Let me start off by saying that I feel my husband is the sexiest man alive - we have a very strong physically attraction and desire for each other. Check this out - the absence of physical contact has actually served to strengthen and create a relationship like none I have ever had - and I have had several really good ones. Think about it this way - how many times have you had an argument with the person you were in love with and it ended up in you making love - probably some of the best sex you have ever had. You've heard the saying "there is nothing like make up sex".  Now think about some of those times where you had "make up sex" and some time after the great sex (maybe an hour, maybe days, maybe weeks) the memory of the thing that made you angry, before the make up sex, came back to you and you realized that you had not resolved the issue - but you had some great sex. Hmmmm - let me think about this a minute - I'm in love, I get mad, we have great sex, issue still exists. Hmmmm. That's the vicious cycle we sometimes find ourselves in.

The great thing about not having physical contact at your immediate grasp is that, if you are the right couple, you find yourself talking a lot - a whole lot! I have always referred to it as having the conversations that usually don't happen when you can do the physical thing more often - sex can make us forget to talk about the important things. This may not be true for everyone - this is my truth.

Ibrahim and I have talked through some situations that I know I have encountered in past relationships and have usually ended up with me either walking away, hanging up the phone, definitely rolling my eyes and pouting, and then doing that thing women tend to do well - make him almost beg for some physical time with me so that when I give in he knows he had to earn it. What the heck??? How many relationships have I damaged with that nonsense approach? Sidebar discussion: If I enjoy making love with my husband, am I not cheating myself out of a good thing when I deprive him of his pleasure? Never making that mistake again in my life!

Now check this out - I realize that because of the major differences in our cultural background (including religion) I have been more patient and interested in getting to know who he is as a man. Here's what I learned about myself (I know I am not alone on this one) - when I was involved with a man whose culture was similar to mine I naturally expected that he understood certain things and should act a certain way. There is some truth in that, but, the similarities you share with a person doesn't tell you all that they are. Making that awful mistake of assuming (ass u me) closes the door to learning who he really is and what is important to him.

Being separated has given me the benefit of time to listen and learn (I ask a lot of questions - which has been an adjustment for more husband). Being with someone of a totally different culture than mine has made me want to fully understand and appreciate our differences. The lesson learned is that I should have used the same approach with any relationship - what have we missed out because we don't listen, we assume, we don't appreciate - we dictate.

I thank God everyday for this gift of time, for the love of my husband, and the wisdom to do the right things. Nobody said it would be easy and it isn't - but, worth it - what do you think?