I’m 58 years old, working in Iraq so my wife could spend time with her sister and our nephew who died of brain cancer 1-Nov-11. I came here for her, for my family and stayed though I hated being away from my home and family, I stayed because they were proud of me.
Up until coming here in May-2011, the longest I’ve been separated from my wife was three weeks while she visited our son in Japan. She has wanted to go to Japan for as long as I’ve known her and when our granddaughter was born there, my son was in the Air Force, it was something I felt I could do. Make her dream come true so to say. For me, it seemed to be the longest three weeks of my life.
I was laid off Jan-2011 from a job I held for 28 years. A job I hated and that was draining me of life. I had fought an illness for as long as I can remember and have tried a number of times to take my life over the years. I tried twice to die to protect my family from my illness even though they think it was only a cry for help. I know the truth and there was no cry for help those days. I chickened out my first time, but they don’t realize, I called no one my second time. I intended to simply die.
After my last attempt, an overdose of Valium that I didn’t realize wasn’t lethal, I finally felt that I had my illness under control and was beginning to live my life, just enjoying my wife and family. We have two grandchildren now and I love them with all my heart. I found something worth living for and could only thank God that I was still alive.
Something I did while ill almost four years ago came to light. My wife now wants a divorce and my children can’t even tell me they love me anymore. I’ve put them through so much, but finally got better and now God seems to have taken them from me. There is nothing left to live for anymore. Nothing. Just this pain.
I am the type of person who needs to feel loved and have someone to love. I prayed to God and do believe in Him, but I need an earthly type of love to heal from the pain I’m in now. I have given all I can to my family and now they have turned their backs on me when I need them the most.
Here I am, putting my life in harms way, just so they can have the things in life they want. My wife, all she is concerned with now is the money we have saved. Our house that is paid for and she wants that as well. I felt she only looks at me now as something to take from, not the person who has given so much. She feels like she deserves it I guess. Maybe for putting up with me for so long. Who knows, I don’t think she ever really loved me now just that she stayed for the money or that she felt she could do no better.
Since returning to Iraq, I found God and was amazed at how He changed my life. What I don’t understand is why He seems to have left.
I really don’t know what awaits me when I return. I’m guilty of the thing I’m charged with, but know that it wasn’t this mind. I tried many times during my years in therapy, to try to explain this to them. Even now I try, but no one wants to listen. I am dead to them now. Maybe even to myself.
There really isn’t anything I want to live for. I keep asking God to give me a reason to go on, show me something maybe. You see, He has shown me little things. Things you may write off as coincidence, but not when they have happened so many times over the years. It just doesn’t add up, you know?
But I’m bound by so many things. My vows to my wife, promises I’ve made, my belief in God. All this leaves me with too much to understand and no answers. I can’t talk with anyone anymore. If I mention the word suicide, everyone goes crazy and wants to lock me up. So I just say nothing, and get no real help because of it.
I’m not writing for advice or help, and to be honest I’m just writing to fill the time here until I leave. I have made no decisions as to what I’m going to do when I return, only that my life for me is over. All I need to do now is close my eyes for the last time and simply go to sleep. I wish so much for that, just to go to sleep and never wake up. I would try drugs, but I’ve been down that road and only woke up in another hospital.
I would rather be homeless and alone than spend another day in one of those places. Maybe they are good for some, but not for me. That part of my personality that I hate so much is the only thing that shows up, so I can never really get the help I needed there. I finally got that help, and I found it in myself. I began to devote my life to my wife, to truly devote myself to her happiness, but now she is gone. I’m dead in my children’s eyes so nothing there either.
So again, I’m not sure why I’m writing here. Maybe looking for someone, or some words, but I don’t thinks words are enough to live for anymore. Words without people just are empty to me. I need someone in my life, of that I’m sure, but who? Where am I to find that now? I’m married and swore to forsake all others till death due us part. I swore this to my wife and before God in church, so that leaves me little hope of ever obtaining true happiness.
4 comments
Cajun, brother, I also feel similar to you. I’ve sinned (done wrong), and I feel very ashamed of it. I wish I could take it back, but when I was on the bottom, and down. When I was down on the floor with no reason, but desire to die… The Lord picked me up, and saved me. He healed my heart, and clean me from my sin. However, this is a process. Now, you must get up and walk with Jesus. Be like Jesus. Love him, and keep his commandments. Ask in his name and it will be given according to what the Lord knows is good for you. I know it is HARD to understand. I do not understand how He thinks and works, but you must put your TRUST in him.
Brother, find a church, and find fellowships in God. Places where you can meet and give testimony of the hardships you are going through, and also of the work God is doing in you.
Jesus calls us to be like him.
Study Jesus through the scriptures, and other books and talking with Godly people.
Love GOD above every earthly love. How can you love what you cannot touch or see?, but He is there, feel him in your heart.
Meet with others that truly love God, and follow his path. Find a church.
If you need to talk, we can talk as well, brother.
I am in the process of penance and healing. Don’t let the Devil trick you and entice you to fall!, VADE RETRO SATANAS!!!!. Get away from Cajun. He is a son of God, and you are a defeated foe. Stay strong, brother.
Hi Cajun,
Thats a very perceptive post and you are right, words along are not enough to live for. Rather our aim must be understanding things.
The universe is ruled by an invisible principle called cause and effect. You can’t see it but it rules everything. For the most part (not all), humans are the causes of “their effects”, be they good or not.
As a human being on Earth, you have a right to happiness and to pursue happiness. Sadly people separate for all manner of reasons, it just happens.
Whilst I am am not so much a believer of a creator, but a knower, remember that all religious texts are mans writings not gods ie it is mans interpretations & understandings of god, NOT GODs.
Believe in a creator – definitely
Believe in goodwill & kindness – definitely.
Be Responsible for your own actions – definitely.
Be Kind to yourself and others – definitely.
if you did all these things and never walked into a church, temple, mosque, hall, you would be 100% better person then those who walk into one weekly, and soon as they get out, don’t act generous or kind to others or arent responsible for their own actions etc.
These i believe JC would call hypocrites?
if you cannot redeem your marriage after some time apart, and carefully explaing your actions thus far, so be it, move onto your life. People do it every day.
It is not that people have hardships in life, this is a given, it is how we face and challenge these hardships that define us.
You evidently have courage to be in a warzone? Why not show that same courage and resolve in fixing up your life?
Food for thought my friend.
Adastra, thanks for sharing this as well.
I, too, recommend that you find others that TRULY believe. Unfortunately even in Churches sometimes you find does that say that believe but do not follow the teachings of the Lord.
Do not be discouraged by this Cajun. You will find true believers and followers of the teachings, and you should be like those as well.
Pray for strength and wisdom to follow the Lord. If necessary be deaf to the world, and listen to the Lord.
Remember that it is hard to listen, when you are listening to the people that surround you, and to your earthly chains.
I thank you all for the time you took to reply to my post. It was very kind and thoughtful.
Courage to put my life in harms way was easy to find, as I knew why I came here and who I was working for. Even when the mortars came in, I wasn’t afraid. I hear gunfire and explosions, yet I have no fear. Not of an earthly type of death. The death I truly fear is of being alone, of giving up my dream and quitting on the people who I love and have worked my entire career for. This type of courage I’m afraid isn’t in me and I’ve spent the last four months trying to find it.
Even in God, I can’t live anymore. There just isn’t anything left. I try to find true faith, as described in Hebrews. You know, being sure of what you want, and certain of what you do not see. I know there is a God. I’ve felt His presence and seen His miracles. My wife and oldest son would not be alive today if it weren’t for a miracle. This I know.
I try only to think of letting God give me what my heart desires. I’m not sure where in the bible I read this, but I remember it from somewhere. I just try to let go and let God work.
I used to think people that spoke of God talking to them as weak and feeble minded, until it happened to me. I was told to simply wait in faith and patience. So I try. But my faith I’m afraid isn’t strong and my mind is constantly working against me. I pray and wait.
It is for this reason and this reason alone, that I’ve made no decision about what I’m going to do when I return to the states. But if my wife and children can’t accept the simple truth about what happened then I see no reason to go on.
My mother died when I was ten. My oldest sister and truly my best friend in this world, was killed by a drunk driver about 20 years ago divorced she left behind two small girls. My baby sister is very disturbed. My middle sister was abused for a number of years by her husband and my wife by her alcoholic father. I was abused myself, not for days weeks or months, but for years. I suffer from an illness which there is neither cure nor any drug to help. My children I feel look at me as something to be disgusted of yet refuse to accept the truth about DID.
I could go on and on about the things I’ve overcome throughout my life and know others that have had it worse and found ways to continue. But I find little solace or relief anymore from clichés and stories about others. It was stated that an understanding was needed as a reason to continue. There truly is little left I want to understand anymore. Honestly, right now I can’t think of anything.
My hobby for almost thirty years has been the understanding of the universe and quantum theory. I’ve read and watched everything I could on these subjects. I have many “heroes†in these fields and could talk volumes about them and their discoveries. As to cause and effect, it is the teaching of the Catholic Church that sin doesn’t affect just the sinner, but the world. I do understand that everything is connected and that there are discoveries made that prove this. Even now, there is hope of proving the existence of the Higgs Boson, coined the God Particle by Leon Lederman.
But I’m old and I’m tired of finding reasons and ways to go on. So I chose to let God work and pray that a way will be found. It is all I hang onto here as I try to make it through my days. We work 12 hrs a day, 7 days a week and I’ve been doing that now for 8 months. The only reason I stay now, is for the people I’ve come to know here. We wait to see what is going to happen after 1-Jan. If the fighting doesn’t break out and spill over onto us, then I’m leaving Iraq for good.
Again, thank you all and I hope you all have a good New Year.