What Is Love Anyway?

I have been with my husband for 18 years. Married 14. We have four children together and yet we don't live under the same roof. Why, might you ask, do we not live under the same roof??? Well that's easy, because he likes to abuse his prescription pills and lies about anything and everything. And before you go being a judgemental meanie head, there's issues that lead to this point. His family is all kinds of jacked up. I will save you all from that and just say that it has caused him to develope PTSD on top of being bipolar with severe depression. Now to add to all of that, while his mother was pregnant with him, he had an in utero stroke which caused him to develop lesions on his frontal lobes of his brain.

I'm not a Doctor but a stroke is pretty scary. I did the not-so-smart thing and Googled lesions on the frontal lobes and it's not good. It causes all kinds of things to happen uncontrollably. So here I am all kinds of pissed at him, wanting a divorce because he has left me and our children homeless, carless, no money, etc...

We get all his results back after we divorced for a year and he got clean; we were remarried. Things were wonderful for four years and then bam, right back to the crap from before. Only this time, I now live with my parents and he lives with whomever will let him crash at their place.

It really sucks because no matter what, I love him. I do know know what he is going through because I don't fight the same demons that he does but I do understand that some of the things that he has done is not something he can control.

I am mad, hurt, angry, disgusted, embarrassed, etc... that list can go on and on. But through it all, I still love him. When I want to hate him, and there is so much more that isn't here that gives me reason to hate him, I don't.

We were put together for a reason and I took my vows to heart. He has a mental disability that leads him down the wrong paths and he needs someone to help guide him down the right ones. It's going to take time for me to move past it all, but I have forgiven him for everything and make sure that he knows he is loved.

I don't take any crap from him or let him get away with anything either. Anymore, you see couples divorcing after two or three months because things get hard. Man, you don't even know what hard is. Try being pregnant with your third baby while your husband is out blowing over $133,000 on God only knows what while you're starving so your other two young kids can eat while living in a house filled from top to bottom with your husband's dead mother's entire house contents inside. No car, no phone, no water because he didn't pay the bill and it's your annivasary and he's disappeared for five days with no communication so you don't know if he is dead or alive. Yes, that was hard but we have made it through.

Love is not an easy thing to live through. It takes work, and courage and a willingness to forgive. We are only human and we make mistakes. Some people need to make those mistakes a few times before they learn from them. One can only hope this will be the last time he makes those mistakes. Only time will tell.

There is no definition of what love is! It just is!