Unconditional Love

January 5, 2009

I've been thinking today about all that Jeremy's done for me lately and I just feel so unworthy of him. Sometimes my insecurity gets the better of me and I ask him, "Do you wish you had never married me?" He tells me he loves me and wouldn't want to live without me. It's hard to accept sometimes, this thing called unconditional love. If he could tell me specifics about why he loves me, "Because you let me buy expensive guitars," then I would feel so much more in control! I would know what to do to keep him loving me. But when I probe the question further he just explains that I'm his partner and he needs me.

I really don't mean for this to sound like, "Oh poor Abby. Doesn't she have it tough because her husband loves her?" (Sarcasm intended) Part of the difficulty in my journey has been in letting the man who has seen everything ugly and gross about me, love me. It's not like he didn't see it all before, it's just that there wasn't as much to see before. So now I have to trust that the man who has helped me change my ostomy bag means it when he says he still loves me and wants me. I have to choose to trust him. Choosing to trust is much like choosing to hope. That means when those stupid, nagging thoughts that I'm unworthy of his love come buzzing into my mind, I have to swat them away. (Okay, my more likely response is that I go to him in tears asking him to tell me yet one more time that he loves me and won't leave me because of all we've been through. But I'm still working on it and Jeremy's patient with me!)

So as I'm blogging about this I'm seeing something a little more clearly about myself, and I'm not so sure I like it. All of the things that I felt were ugly and gross and would give my husband cause to stop loving me are superficial things. Has my understanding of love really been that shallow? Is that just part of the human condition, or at least the American condition? I have had more than a few people tell me how lucky I am to have Jeremy (no argument there) and remind me that there are a lot of men who would not have stuck around through all the difficulties we've had. It's sad really. I no longer want to buy into that.

I guess I'm just going to keep doing my best to buck the system and choose to trust in unconditional love.