Men are from Mars, Woman are from Venus

Rob and I have a great marriage. We have always had a "don't go to bed angry" or " love not war" motto for our marriage. We have always been really good at gaging each others needs. Rob pretty much always knows when I need to be held or kissed or sometimes just left alone for a little while and I think I have a pretty good understanding of his needs too. We have always put our relationship first when it comes to making discussions and most of the time we are on the same page. Either way, we always work/talk it out.

Losing Luke has been devastating for us both. Our journey through grieving has been very different. For the first time in our relationship, I can't gage what Rob's needs are and vice-versa. In so many ways we are closer that we have ever been. We have clung to each other, realizing that is the only way we will get through this - together.

Our church offers a Share Grief class that I signed us up for. I didn't think we needed it necessarily for our own individual grieving, but more for us to have a better understand of how the other person was grieving. I wasn't too sure if Rob would be interested in attending, but being the amazing man he agreed to attend it with me. I knew that he was doing it for me because he would do anything to help me on my path to healing. So we attend this class of four; Rob and I, the instructor, and one other lady. Yes, Rob was the only man. I knew that this was going to be difficult for him. I am sure that he was thinking this was going to be a big group with a ton of people talking and he could just sit in the back with me and listen. That was not the case, not even a little.

The first part of class was just introducing ourselves and a little of our background. After that we watched a movie about different phases of grieving - sadness, anger, loneliness, etc. After the movie we had a group discussion. I went first, being the social butterfly I am. I just purged it all out to these two strangers. The other lady went after me, and then it was Rob's turn. I could tell that he wasn't really quite sure were to start but after a little bit he started opening up.

When I started this blog my intention was to help heal myself, kinda like my own therapy. I had told Rob about it and told him he could read it if he wanted to. After a few days I asked him if he had read it and he said no, that it was too hard. I figured that he just needed a week or so and that he would then want to read it. A week went by and I asked him again if he had read it and again he said no. My feelings were really starting to hurt. I thought that at first the reason it was "too hard" was because of the obvious, that he missed Luke so much. But when weeks went by I thought he was just trying to move on - "push it under the rug" as they say, to just forget about our son.

It was Rob's turn and like I said it took him awhile to open up but when he did open up he started talking about the blog and he said something that would have never dawned on me. He said that he couldn't ready my blog because it hurt to much to read about his wife being in so much pain and him not being able to do anything about it. Of coarse he missed Luke, but watching and reading about how much I hurt for my baby was breaking his heart. I would have never known that had we not gone to the counseling session. I walked out crying because I felt so honored to be his wife, to have someone love me so much.

I learned for the session tonight that yes, we all may grieve in different ways but we all still grieve. And that is completely okay. I am so grateful that we went tonight, another way that God is helping us down the path of healing.

On another note, I have always wanted to read the Bible. I thought I would start one of these days but instead of starting at the beginning, I am going to skip to the section called "Luke."