Narrowing down our future

Yes, I said "our". I am making peace with the reality that our lives are joined. I'm okay with that reality. I cannot guarantee that II will stay in recovery, will never cheat on me again and will stay the course with me. But, he absolutely will commit to his children, at all costs. And, that means that we need to join our goals and our futures.

II has done a great deal of soul searching and concluded that he wants to attend an Osteopathic school versus Alleopathic medical school. He just firmly believes that DOs have a stronger and more hollistic approach to medical care. We have begun looking at DO programs within commuter distance to PhD programs for me. We have identified 5 programs for II with a corresponding program for me. I still have to check each city against the needs of the children. However, the smallest town in the list meets our needs nicely and I cannot imagine that the larger cities won't also provide. That will just leave checking the homeschooling laws in each state.

It does appear we have 5 viable options. Will we make this happen, and happy for both of us together? There's a lot of what-ifs and if-onlys involved. But, at the end of the day, I can let go. God brought us here. I have not lost my faith in God even through all of this. Therefore, I can accept that God desires the best for my life, even as its laid in ashes. For this future to work, there comes a point when I have to trust that God will work the fine details together. If that doesn't happen, then it will be time for II to consider if God is not calling him to his dreams. I don't believe that will happen. I just don't.

Time will tell. This campaign will be our joint focus next year. We will hold out funds from our tax return for tests and applciations. II will need to finish his testing at the start of summer and applications by September. I will take my testing by end of summer and will need to have all applications completed by end of December.

The important thing is that we are planning a future. And, we're planning a future that takes into consideration the needs of EVERYONE in this family. No member of this family is more important than the others It was a mistake to act like II was more important, like the chilren mattered more than the mother, like there was hiearchy of value. It wasn't true. It just confused a lot of issues. This time, we're doing this the right way, valuing everyone in this house.