Today’s session was humbling. The workout involved assisted pull ups. What are these? It’s where you get heavy duty exercise bands, hook them over the pull up bar, and step onto the banded loop. The band essentially reduces your weight, making it easier to pull yourself up.

I excitedly perused Amazon for these bands. The bands come in varying colors that represent the amount of resistance they offer. Red, the strongest can provide resistance of about 50-125lbs, the blue resists 35-85lbs, the green resists 25-65 lbs, and son. As I was trying to decide which band to get, I estimated that I would need the blue band – surely the strongest band would make me too light and thus render the exercise useless. As I continued to look around, I then thought, “why not get the whole pack of assorted bands so I could swap the bands for lighter ones as I get stronger? In my estimation, I would probably work my way to the lighter ones pretty fast. And they come in a nice array of different colors – it’ll be fun to visually see my progress with the changing of colors.” Satisfied with my plan, I purchased the whole set.

After the bands came in the mail, I went to the gym, excited to try the pullup. I pulled out the blue, 2nd heaviest band. I stepped into the loop and then, nothing. My arms barely moved. Humbled, I went to the red band for the assist – the one that I estimated would offer too much help.

Nope. Still not enough.

Humiliated, I got a medium green band to double up with the red band. I figured that would give me some easy reps.

From that combination, I eked out one pull up.

The workout called for 4 sets of 10 pull ups. So, I begrudgingly took off the green band and replaced it with the blue band.

And I maxed out at 6 pull ups.

2 things shattered that day: my overestimation of my strength and my pull up goal timeline.

I had no idea that I was capable of overestimating anything. Wasn’t it my UNDER-estimation of myself that got me in the mess of an abusive relationship in the first place? So why does my overestimation need to be shattered? Don’t I want to keep whatever confidence I have?? And just how long will I need to double up these bands? And if I’m this weak, when will I ever do a real pull up?

And in this brutally honest assessment of my strength, I see the same need to honestly assess my boundaries, strength, and self-worth when it comes to my separation and thoughts of ever reconciling with my husband.

It’s been about 10 days that my husband has honored the boundaries of our separation. 2-3 weeks before he officially moved out, we were in a pseudo-separated state. He was in the home (or away on business) but we were emotionally separated. The rules we had established with our church elders was that we would only discuss matters about children or logistics alone. Anything personal required an elder to be present as a mediator/safety. And that was never honored. After several difficult conversations explaining the need for a strict separation, my husband finally understood. And after just 10 days of him honoring boundaries, I’ve felt my heart soften and long for him. Let me be clear, I don’t miss him. But seeing this ability to now respect my boundaries, I long for him and what our marriage could be.

And this is when I need a foghorn to yell in my ear: THESE ARE ASSISTED PULL UPS. These successful 10 days were held up by so many heavy bands of accountability, attention, and momentum. We have such a long way as individuals before we’ll be capable of deciding if we’re even capable of having a healthy marriage together. I need to pull myself up. He needs to pull himself up. There’s work to do. 10 days of good boundaries are just an exercise rep. 10 days of good behavior does not constitute change. It’s too early for change. Especially when those 10 days are heavily assisted with separation, attention, and the newness of it all.  

I don’t know how long this road to a pull up will be. I also don’t know how long this road to healing will be either. But I need to choose to focus on what I’m doing today instead of worrying about the future. Today, I want to celebrate the fact that I showed up, I did the work, and I pulled myself up with assistance. And there’s no shame in that. Especially not today.