It is so hard to hold on.

I had my first pull up training session today. The part of the workout regimen on the pull up bar was straightforward: 2 sets of 10 negative pull ups, and 2 sets of scapula shrugs.

As I read the day’s instructions, it seemed simple enough to do. All it required was lowering myself on the bar and hanging on the bar. Those are the easy parts of pull ups.

Wow. I was so wrong.

As soon as I grabbed hold of the bar, my hands felt clammy and slippery. It was so difficult just to hold it. After a few tries I realized that I wasn’t even gripping onto the bar correctly. Instead of using my opposable thumbs and grip the bar as one does a baseball bat, my hands were these bear paws that sort of hooked onto the bar with no opposing grip. As I caught that mistake, I thought, “ah, THIS will make things easier.” And the bar might as well have laughed in my face – because my thumbs had no strength and hanging became even harder.

The swagger and confidence that I wore as I approached the session slipped away. “Can I really do this? I am so much weaker than I had initially thought. Perhaps this pull up goal is far less attainable than I thought.” Every time I tried to grip the bar, my hands quickly slipped off. The negative pull ups were laughable. I did NOT look like I was trying to lower myself slowly to hanging position. I looked like I was jumping off the block I used to assist me up. I could manage one barely noticeable scapula retraction before my hands lost their grip. And with each fall, the motivation to get back on the bar dropped, and dropped, and dropped.

As I dropped to the floor for the 20th time, I felt God nudge me, “grab hold again”.  

Because the bar IS hard to grab hold of, and that’s the strength, discipline, and resilience I need as the foundation of this training.

When I first committed to this pull up challenge, I didn’t think that the physical lessons I would learn would so closely align to the lessons I need to learn as I heal and overcome abuse. But the parallels are uncanny.

Because while it’s so hard to keep holding onto the bar, it’s even harder to hold onto my resolve to 1) stay separated and 2) fight for myself through growing and healing. So many nights this week, I have had to comfort my 7-year-old who has sobbed himself to sleep, asking why daddy can’t live with us again. I have had to access all my therapeutic training to validate his feeling, tell him how proud of him I am that he’s expressing all his feelings, and lay with him as he bravely said that he has a sad spot in his heart all the time, every day. And I AM so immensely proud of him. But I am also utterly heartbroken that he must go through this pain. I have had to see my 5-year-old express his confusion and grief over the separation through tantrums and declarations that he doesn’t love me. And I get it. He gets to be angry, sad, and confused. It’s not fair for him to go through this. He and his brother are the best kids, and they must endure THIS. I’ve cried myself to sleep each night, grief-stricken over the loss of the marriage I hoped I could have, losing the future I thought I had, my children’s pain, and the loneliness I did not expect to feel. Through all of that, it’s hard to hold onto my resolve. Especially as I see my husband take responsibility for his actions, agree that he needs this separation to heal, and say things to me that I’ve waited 9 years to hear. In all of this, a part of my resolve wavers and wonders: can we just reunite as a family so this doesn’t hurt the kids so much? Is this enough? Can I just deal with this until the kids are in college?

No. I can’t. I won’t. Because the grief my kids feel now is far better than the pain/trauma they would have had to endure as they grew up in a family of abuse. Because my kids need at least one healthy parent, and the only way I can be healthy is if I refuse to be a part of the abuse cycle. And because God created me as worthy and cherished – I am NOT deserving of abuse.

Grab hold of the bar again.

My husband may be taking good steps to recovery and healing, but this is not time-tested. And with abuse, a single moment has no integrity. An abuser can be remorseful one day, and abusive the next. The integrity of intention and change is in the pattern of behavior demonstrated over time.

So I must grab hold of the bar. And with sober judgment, I need to see that my actions also have no integrity in isolation – I must earn trust in myself as well. Because I have not strengthened my own grip of boundaries, freedom (to be myself, to have a voice, to have needs/preferences), and responsibility (that I am responsible for myself and NOT my partner). I have so much work to do. I need to grab onto the bar again, each time my child cries or tantrums, when loneliness hits me in the gut, when my husband responds with humility and attunement that my heart longs for what could be.

I must grab hold again.