Learning

Being a mother and wife has really tought me how to live my life to the fullest. Before I met Brandon, or had kids, I wasn't very happy with my life. Sure I was young, but I know I was only enough to know what was good and bad. Right a wrong. And what made me happy or sad.

I met my husband Brandon and he tought me how to love myself. It was really hard for me to do, and I always felt like I was fighting myself to do it, but i did. And I love myself more that I could have ever imagined growing up. I was never told I was beautiful by a guy that didnt "want something" else. I never felt respected by ANY man I had in my life. I never really had a positive role model to look up to...to talk to about sex, boys, love, puberty... nothing. I basically had to figure it out all on my own. And that didn't really lead to very many good decisions. And I never really felt apart of my family. At times I still don't, but hey, thats what being the "half-sister" gets you right? I was always the different one. I never felt like I fit in anywhere.

Then after Brandon came into my life, I was always learning about myself and our relationship, and what it meant to be TRULY loved. He tought me that it didnt matter what other people thought of me, or weather or not THEY loved me, but what really matter was what I thought of myself, and what I believed in.

After having my son in 2006, i grew so much as a person. Not only because I was forced to, but because I was a completely different person than I used to be a year before. I learned how to be positive and look at life as a whole big expierence. I took the good and bad with open arms because it's the bad expierences you learn from and are the most benificial. The good ones you just have to make sure you cherish for a life time, and you learn to appreciate the good things that come your way. It was hard to begin raising a child at 18, but I think I did better than most women my age. The cards of fate were dealt and I had to learn to play with them.

During the planning of our August 2009 wedding, we hit a speed bump in our relationship...We had almost broken up. Stress was mounting and I had no idea what to do. We weren't happy with ourselves and what we wanted for eachother and we had to figure it out. We realized that we needed to focus on ourselves (me on myself, and Brandon on himself) to be able to make eachother happy. You can't love someone else until you learn to love yourself. This was a HUGE learning expierence for me because I thought that I knew all there was to know about being in a relationship and being a mother.... I was wrong. I very quickly noticed that I wasn't taking care of myself as well as I should have and that I needed to make a change in order for my relationship with my husband AND son to be healthy as well. I also didnt know that when I truly believe in something (our love), that I will fight for it till the death. I never knew that I had that kind of power in me...In the end, it made our relationship stronger.

Being a GOOD wife is truly a hard job. It's not easy supporting your husband sometimes... I love my husband very much, but there are times where I just dont understand his decisions and I still have to support him because I love and trust him. I would never lie to him, and I think I've learned to do that without hurting his feelings. It's hard putting a smile on your face when you've had a rough day at your own part-time job AND at home with your kid. I didn't know so much pressure was put on wives being absoloutely PERFECT in everyones eyes...especially to the people who DON'T know what going on 100%. Like finances, or arguments, or just no sex for that week. A lot of my friends weren't/aren't married or have kids so it was hard for me to let out how I felt about things. In a way, its a blessing because I get to talk to my husband more about what's bothering me and how it can be fixed. It doesn't always work out the way I planned, but hey, thats the learned expierence. I'm STILL learning how to talk to my husband so he won't get mad when I tell him that he's not cuddling me enough, or that he hasn't helped out with the kids that day. And he's still learning how to respond to accusations I make about him. Marriage is WORK! No doubt about it. And I don't think it's something I'll ever figure out 100%, but I look forward to the challanges and experiences it will bring me.

I hope I will always be learning about myself, my husband, and my kids for the rest of my life. Sadly, I will never know everything.