An update!

I came here in search of an old post about my kidlet. I found it. But I also got roped into reading my archives. Wow. Hard to believe that that was my life. Dreadful. A nightmare, for sure. I figured I would give an update, not that anyone reads here any more... but just in case. ;) I am proud to say that I stuck by my husband. I stayed true to our vows. For better or worse, in sickness and in health.. I stayed true to HIM.. because I loved him and I believed in him (although that wavered greatly, as you can see from reading past posts). Just about everyone encouraged me to walk away. I had to do 'what was best' for our daughter. Well, in my heart, I felt that what was best was for her to have her mommy and daddy, together, and to have her daddy healthy again. It was a long road. A very long road. M was very small and while I am sure she remembers things, she was very sheltered from a LOT of what was going on. It is not like he was sitting there doing drugs with her on his lap. She never witnessed him doing ANYTHING. She never witnessed our big fights. Lots of arguing, yes. As much as I tried to avoid that, it happened. What my daughter has now is her mom and her dad.. together and happy. She has no 'issues', other than being spoiled and hating to be told "NO", but we are working that out! The spoiling comes from being our only child, not so much because of anything else. She has a solid, united family, with rules and traditions, and lots and lots of laughter and love. T is an addict and he always will be an addict. It is a fact in our lives that we cannot change. We keep the lines of communication open as best as we can. Sometimes it takes prodding, but we talk. He is in a TON of pain as his problems gets worse and worse with time. We have started to work on some stretching exercises, working our way to doing some yoga in the future, but it is a very slow process. We lost everything and moved to another state. First to one town, then to another. Our saving grace and our angel, my mother, purchased a house so we had somewhere to live that was decent. A short time later, T was awarded disability and we have paid the mortgage on it ever since. We have a savings account again. We have a nice vehicle again. We have the time to take M and DO things WITH her. We are involved in her education. We have some great neighbors/friends. We found a WONDERFUL church and are active in it. I am a Daisy Scout leader. We got a riding mower so T can do the yard. He helps out when and where he can, but most days it is hard for him to make it out of bed and to the living room. All in all, the best part of it all is this; We are happy. We are happy. Once again. We talk. We laugh. We share. We parent. We care. We have date nights! Our... uh... intimate moments... are back and are wonderful. lol. (There were a few years where that no longer existed. argh.) The pain of what was lost lingers from time to time. Looking at old pictures is sometimes hard. But whenever the sadness creeps in, we remind ourselves how far WE have come. We remind ourselves to just take it one day at a time. We remind ourselves how important it is to NOT repeat the mistakes. We wake each day with grateful thoughts and gratitude-filled hearts. Those that helped us along the way are appreciated more than they know. We can never repay my mom for all that she has done for our family. As it stands right now, she is selling her place in FL and moving up here with us. She is getting older and does not like being alone. She misses us when she goes home and we miss her. It will be nice to have her here for good. I want to be able to take care of HER for once. :) And that.. is that. A love story turned to horror, with a happy ending. ;) I still love him very, VERY much. It is nice to have my T back. We have made a nice life here. I can only hope and pray that it continues on this way... Thanks for reading.