#45 How A Listener Fixed Her Struggling Relationship

Today on the Bad Girl’s Bible we a joined by a very special listener named Jaime, who is here to tell us about how her and her husband turned their marriage around after some very tough times. Early into their new marriage, Jaime’s husband started to experience some pretty serious health challenges and after his diagnosis and medical prescriptions became increasingly moody and difficult to be around.

This, in conjunction with Jaime’s own health and anxiety issues, led to a very difficult time, emotionally and in the bedroom. It took a few drastic changes that happened around the time of a mortal scare for her husband to take the relationship back to a healthy place and into territory that Jaime never even dreamed of. Jaime takes us through their complete history, early dates and the proposal before getting into the troubled period.

She talks about how different things are now and the difference in connection she feels when they make love. For all this and much more, be sure to join us today!

Key Points From This Episode

• Jaime’s childhood, parents and the atmosphere at home.
• The first day that her and her future husband met.
• Proposal, the wedding and the early days of marriage.
• Jaime’s husband’s health problems and the first diagnosis.
• How the medication affected her husband’s moods and their relationship.
• Jaime’s own health problems that she was experiencing at the same time.
• The near death experience that turned her husband’s life around.
• Changing their sex life around and the effect of the Blowjob Bible.
• How the challenges have strengthened their relationship.
• The times that Jaime considered giving it up.
• How Jaime’s life has turned out differently to her expectations.
• The role of her faith in helping her through tough times.
• Advice from Jaime to listeners in similar situations.
• And much more!

Tweetables

“That’s how he is now, he brushes off all the little things and doesn’t let him bother anymore.” —  Jaime [0:15:30]

“Sometimes it does take something life altering to make you decide that it’s time to change how you live your life and the way you treat other people.” — Jaime [0:16:58]

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Transcript

[0:00:59.8] Sean Jameson: Today, I’m talking to Jaime about her marriage of 25 years, how her husband developed serious health problems during that marriage and have affected their relationship along with her husband realized that her was turning into the person his father was. That was something he didn’t want and how ultimately Jaime and her husband came through this the better.

Jaime, thanks so much for coming on the Bad Girls Bible Podcast to tell your story.

[0:01:28.9] Jaime: Thanks for having me.

[0:01:31.4] SJ: I’d love to start off before your relationship, a little bit about your background where you grew up and what your childhood was like and what your family life was like?

[0:01:42.2] J: I grew up in a small town in the northern United States, with both of my parents and my two other siblings, I’m the oldest of two of three children and we had a Christian home and we went to church and that’s ultimately where my mom met my dad was through church.

We had a good childhood, we didn’t have much, I mean, kind of poor but we all loved each other and that’s what mattered.

[0:02:14.4] SJ: Absolutely. Would you say you had a happy childhood then?

[0:02:19.9] J: Yes, for the most part. I mean, I think I lived a sheltered life because I grew up in a Christian home and there were a lot of things that I just didn’t do because we were raised in the church and that’s just how it is when you’re in a Christian home.

[0:02:36.8] SJ: Do you think that was a good thing being sheltered?

[0:02:39.4] J: Well, yes and no. I think that it was good and bad all at the same time because I didn’t have a lot of friends, I was kind of shy and withdrawn and I really didn’t get out much. Just mostly stuff with the family.

[0:02:56.1] SJ: Okay. Were you happy with that? I mean, I don’t’ think – if you’re happy, I don’t think there’s — there’s nothing wrong with being sheltered per se?

[0:03:07.2] J: I thought I felt I was missing something in my life. You know, I just wasn’t out there experiencing a lot of the other things that people were at my age because of the kind of life that I lived.

[0:03:22.8] SJ: Did you feel like jealous or that you had to make up for something?

[0:03:27.7] J: Well, I did kind of feel jealous of other people who had friends outside of school and were able to go out and do things with your friends and not have to be home all the time and that was kind of one thing I was jealous of when it came to other people I went to school with.

[0:03:46.8] SJ: At any point then, did you I guess, rebel or make up for that?

[0:03:53.9] J: I did once I met my husband when I was in high school, we’re high school sweethearts. We went to different high schools but we met through his grandparents, his grandmother and my grandmother were best friends and that’s how we met.

[0:04:10.2] SJ: Can you tell me about the day the first day you met each other?

[0:04:13.0] J: yes, it was a blind date, we didn’t see each other until the day we went out, we talked on the phone prior to going out and we saw a movie and we were at his parent’s house for that day and had pizza and that was pretty much it and we started out as friends.

[0:04:35.9] SJ: Was it an instant romantic connection or did it build over time?

[0:04:40.8] J: I think it built over time but I did feel an instant connection the first date we had.

[0:04:47.1] SJ: you did feel it?

[0:04:49.4] J: Yes.

[0:04:50.5] SJ: What did your parents make of all this? Did this fit in with their values and with your values?

[0:04:57.8] J: I don’t’ think that they approved at first, honestly. They were kind of skeptical until they got to knowing and then they grew to like him.

[0:05:09.1] SJ: That sounds good. At some point I’m guessing, he proposed to you?

[0:05:15.5] J: Yes he did. We were probably have been dating for about three years and he proposed to me at my parent’s house and gave me the ring, it was actually a family heirloom that he gave me and actually I still wear that ring to this day because my wedding ring doesn’t fit.

It has definitely, it meant a lot to me to know that he gave me a family heirloom.

[0:05:39.8] SJ: Absolutely. Was it a surprise when he proposed or were you expecting it?

[0:05:46.6] J: It was a surprise, I wasn’t –

[0:05:49.2] SJ: I think I lost you there, Jaime, can you answer that again? Sorry.

[0:05:53.7] J: It was a surprise because I wasn’t expecting it at all. I think he talked to my dad first but I didn’t know anything about it.

[0:06:01.8] SJ: Okay. What was the marriage like when you got married, how was that? What was the wedding like?

[0:06:09.8] J: It was a church wedding, lots of family, lots of friends, it was kind of – I would have to say it was a large wedding with lots of people and it was very nice.

[0:06:23.7] SJ: Was it all idyllic, was it sort of the honeymoon period, no fighting, no tension, just happy times?

[0:06:31.9] J: Yeah, it was happy for a few months and then we noticed something was wrong with his health after a little while, we had gotten our first apartment and I kind of remember he was working and ended up at the ER and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the multiple ER visits happen during that time and we ended up moving out of our apartment and moving in with family.

And at that time I was pregnant with our first son and it was rough. Because nobody had any answers and we were all just kind of trying to figure out what to do to help him but nobody knew what it was, that was going on with him.

[0:07:17.4] SJ: At some stage, were you able to get a diagnosis?

[0:07:20.3] J: Yes, a cardiologist actually told us what it was and he recommended a pace maker and then after that, we decided to try it because he felt he had nothing to lose because he just wanted to get back in, I wanted him to get better too and so we tried it and they said it may or may not work but thankfully it did.

[0:07:47.2] SJ: That was it, the health problem stopped? I’m guessing you had –

[0:07:52.8] J: He was on multiple steroids before that too, I’ll touch on that as well. But they had him on steroids for his heart and a lot of times, those steroids affected his mood greatly.

He would get angry for no reason, he would lash out at me, anybody and they just kept upping the dose, trying to find something that worked and it wouldn’t and it was very frustrating, that was a really difficult time for me, that’s when everything kind of started and it just was real difficult to deal with.

The only thing I really can remember that helped me get through it was my family and without that, I don’t know where –

[0:08:32.9] SJ: At that time, did everybody, yourself, your husband, the doctors know that perhaps the steroids could be related to his change of mood?

[0:08:45.0] J: Yeah, we was thinking that when he was on them, they would do that but they thought it would help him and just turned out it didn’t. So we went to a different direction to a different doctor and finally that’s when they did the pacemaker.

[0:09:00.1] SJ: Can you talk a little bit about maybe have some examples of how they affected your husband negatively? Any particular stories that you remember?

[0:09:10.9] J: There’s one that sticks out to me that was shortly before he had the pacemaker put in. He was – we would just argue about dumb stuff like how to make eggs and stuff like that.

I mean, it sounds really silly but I wasn’t the best cook and so he liked different, you know, his eggs made over easy and I do remember one time just recently actually that he was upset with me because I went to turn them in the pan and the yolk broke and he yelled at me and it was just really kind of traumatizing for me because I was afraid to make mistakes. I was afraid to learn from mistakes.

It was hard for me to even do anything. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right, I felt like I couldn’t make him happy, I felt like it was just too difficult of a task for me and there were many times I just wanted to give up but I didn’t because it meant too much to me and so I just tried to hold on to that shred of hope that someday, things would change and I’m glad that I did.

[0:10:21.3] SJ: I’m looking forward to getting to how things changed a corner. But I’d love to talk a little bit more kind of about this period of your life. You mentioned in your email that you also had health problems of your own that you experienced.

[0:10:38.1] J: Yes, I was going through a lot of depression and anxiety because of everything that was going on at home and five years ago, I found out I had fiber myalgia, it was really difficult for me to – it’s a widespread pain condition, you just get pain all over your body and your muscles and you know, medicine for that and then it changed me, it made me feel like I just couldn’t function, made me feel very like I couldn’t focus on anything.

I couldn’t — it affected the life in the bedroom, our sex life, it made everything just more difficult. So about four years later, I did go off of it and I found that didn’t need it so that helped a lot. A difficult time for me because I had me on all these different medicines and they make you feel kind of spaced out, so to speak.

[0:11:29.5] SJ: It sounds like both you and your husband, during this whole time were both going through a lot.

[0:11:36.6] J: Yes, we were.

[0:11:38.4] SJ: At some point I’m guessing things changed, things got a bit brighter. Can you talk about, you know, how that happened?

[0:11:47.6] J: He had to, last year, have a — it was supposed to be a battery change on this pace maker. Went and had it done last spring and about three weeks after that, he started getting signs of an infection and a lot of pain, redness around his site and it turned out that he had to have everything taken out.

So they’re put him back in the hospital, took all of it out and then about two days later, they put another one in. But he was in the hospital, had him in ICU and it was very scary because it just made me think that somehow I might lose him and I didn’t want to even think about that.

[0:12:29.0] SJ: Absolutely. What happened next? I mean, that sounds like things only got worse.

[0:12:37.3] J: They did until he started to see that he had a new lease on life. He decided he needed to change his attitude and the way that he treated me and our sons and that opened his eyes to the point where he decided it was time to change and he could actually see how he was being towards all of us.

It helped him change when all of that happened. I mean, it took something life altering to get him to realize that, “Hey, there’s something I need to do, I need to change my attitude, my outlook on life and the way I treat others.” And that’s when everything started to make a complete 360.

[0:13:20.1] SJ: Did he ever explain that point, I guess, the eureka moment, you could say, when he was like. “Wow, you know, I can change myself.”

Because I think for a lot of people, when they’re 10 years old or 15 years old, it’s very easy to change but I think it’s actually quite difficult I think, I certainly found it as I’ve gotten older to change when as you get older, it’s very tough and so did he explain more about that?

[0:13:50.3] J: It is very tough. I think that what opened his eyes was he felt that, “Hey, I almost died so I think that this is a good time for me to change the way that I act and I can see myself turning into my father and I don’t want that for you and I don’t’ want that for our sons.”

And that made him decide that it was time so he slowly started to change and I saw a change in him. When we got him from the hospital, after all that happened, he started to treat me different and at first it was kind of a shock for me because I wasn’t used to that and I didn’t know how quite to take it.

So I was just kind of walking on eggshells, so to speak, not sure how to take all of the changes because they were so extreme, to the point where I just decided, you know, I’m going to just assume that maybe he has decided he wants to change. I just went with it.

[0:14:52.7] SJ: Could you give me a few examples of how his behavior changed?

[0:14:58.3] J: He started to accept my mistakes more gracefully. I remember, just recently, I was getting in the refrigerator to get out a gallon of milk and it slipped out of my hand and it busted all over the floor. I had this look of terror on my face and he was standing right there and he said — I’m sorry, I’m kind of breaking up a little bit, its’ a little emotional for me but he told me not to worry about it, it’s just a gallon of milk, you know?

Before he probably would have yelled at me and told me, you know, that I was stupid or something and that I should have been more careful. But he just brushed it off, that’s how he is now, he brushes off all the little things and doesn’t let him bother anymore.

[0:15:41.4] SJ: That’s great to hear and do you think this has made him a happier person as well?

[0:15:47.2] J: Yes it has, it definitely has.

[0:15:51.7] SJ: Do you have any other examples there?

[0:15:55.4] J: Yeah, there’s stuff that happens every day that I just – little things like say, I forget to do something like around the house and I’m working a full time job too. Sometimes I do forget things. And I forgot to do the laundry or something and I remember leaving it in there for a couple of days in the washer and I had forgotten about it and before, he would have saw it and got mad at me and started yelling and all of that.

But now, he just rushes it off or he’ll just do it, not even say anything, that’s something else they’ll do, he’ll just do it and try to pick up the slack and help me without really saying anything, he’ll just say, “Hey, I did this and everything.” Just complete change from what he was before, it’s really great.

[0:16:43.9] SJ: I think it’s kind of almost a bit, it’s almost funny that sometimes, people need this kind of shock to realize, I guess, what’s important in their lives.

[0:16:56.9] J: Yes, that’s right. Sometimes it does take something life altering to make you decide that it’s time to change how you live your life and the way you treat other people and how much of an impact it has on them as well as yourself.

[0:17:14.4] SJ: All during this time, I guess you mentioned your husband had this heart troubles, they put them on medication, this affected your sex life and when you were on medication, it affected your sex life.

Have you found that it’s improved over time since your husband had his pacemaker out?

[0:17:35.3] J: Yes, very much so. It’s awful like it’s not even like before, what we would do in the bedroom would be good and everything but now it’s like this connection and you can’t explain it except to say it’s a connection that alters your entire being. It’s not even really sex, it’s making love, it’s something that you just can’t explain it unless you’ve experienced something like that.

[0:18:04.5] SJ: You mentioned you also purchased the Blowjob Bible, can you talk about how that affected things?

[0:18:13.4] J: Well, I wanted to learn the reason why I had bought it in the first place was I wanted to learn how to – I wanted to do something for him to better both of us. I purchased it and probably about two months went by before things started to click that I was reading.

And honestly, I’d have to say that it has changed my life, it’s changed his life and honestly, it’s changed our lives in the bedroom tremendously. I do have to take this opportunity to say thank you for that.

[0:18:47.1] SJ: It’s my pleasure. I’m glad I could help. I guess things actually, you know, worked out in a kind of strange way. Maybe your relationship needed to experience all these kind of tough journeys in order to strengthen it, would that make sense?

[0:19:08.3] J: Yes it has definitely strengthened our relationship to go through all the rough times that we did and honestly, it’s made me a better person and it’s made me a stronger person and I just – it’s made me who I am and without it, I wouldn’t be this person.

But I just have to say, my advice to anyone going through something similar is just to not give up, keep going and if it means a lot to you, don’t throw it away, like I almost did.

[0:19:41.1] SJ: Do you mind me asking about that? Did you consider at one point throwing it all away?

[0:19:47.8] J: Yes, I did, several times. There were a couple of times during everything that I packed my bag and decided to leave that. We had young children and I didn’t want to put them through that and it was something that deep down it meant a lot to me and I didn’t want to throw it away but I felt like many times I felt like throwing it away but I didn’t.

[0:20:11.2] SJ: Jaime, this has been really fantastic. I just have three more questions that I’d like to finish the interview on, if that’s okay with you?

[0:20:21.1] J: Yes, absolutely.

[0:20:23.1] SJ: The first is how has your life turned out differently than you expected it to?

[0:20:30.8] J: It has been different because I made it and in anticipate all of this happening to me and it’s turned out so much different because I actually have not just the man I fell in love with but someone even better in his place and I didn’t even think it was possible to love him more than I do today.

[0:20:53.6] SJ: The second is, can you talk about how your faith helped you at the low points?

[0:21:02.3] J: I did a lot of praying, I did a lot of soul searching, trying to figure out if there was something wrong with me and how to happen that strength that I didn’t have and just it was mercilessly just doing a lot of praying and my parents didn’t know any of this was going on so I kept a lot of it to myself and it was difficult because it really didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I prayed a lot.

Without that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tap in all the strength that I didn’t know I had in the first place. That helped me a lot to pray and just spend a lot of time doing that.

[0:21:40.3] SJ: Do you mind me asking why you kept it from your parents?

[0:21:45.3] J: Because I guess I was a little ashamed and I didn’t know how to tell them.

[0:21:51.2] SJ: I guess, lastly Jaime, do you have any advice for listeners that find themselves in the similar situation on what they should do?

[0:22:01.3] J: Yes, first of all, if you or someone you know without for no apparent reason and you can think of, I would urge you to see a cardiologist. There’s tests that can be ran, there’s things they can do to try to help you. And my other piece of advice would be don’t wait because you need to be able to live your life and anybody that’s going through what I did, just know that there is hope out there and there’s people that are going through this same things that you are and you’re not alone. I just want people to know they’re not alone.

[0:22:39.8] SJ: That’s fantastic. Jaime, thanks so much for coming on the show to tell your story.

[0:22:44.7] J: You’re welcome, thank you for having me.