“When I grow up, I will be a teacher and travel the world.”
From age four, I made sure that the trajectory of my life went as I had planned, become a teacher, travel the world, and maybe get married. Instead, God had other plans. As a sophomore in college, I began dating the man who would become my husband a year later and had my first son before graduating.
Looking towards my role models: my mother, aunts, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers, I was surrounded by women who worked equally as hard as their husbands to bring in an income. Honestly, there were times growing up when I felt my mother’s identity was soldier first, mother second, so that is how I pursued… career before family. While my students thrived, my marriage and family did not. All my focus and energy went into my students, who I felt needed me more than my family.
I went to every training offered, even during the summer months, and when they needed volunteers for a new program, I raised my hand.
Three and a half years later, overwhelmed, exhausted, broken, and burned out, God lifted my head and opened my eyes. In my narrow-sightedness, I had ignored my husband and our family, which now consisted of two boys under four. I was lost and miserable and did not know how to fix it.
“How do I fix something when I don’t know what is broken?”
“To what extent is my brokenness seeping into my family?”
I turned to family, friends, co-workers, pastors, and small group members from the church, but the answer evaded me even then. These individuals saw bits and pieces of me—teacher, wife, mom, church member—but what I needed they lacked, and that was someone who saw the whole picture, the woman underneath all the roles who was quietly falling apart.
It took my husband receiving a job offer that took us to another country—away from my career, my routines, and the expectations I had been clinging to—for me to loosen my grip on my adolescent definition of a “real woman” and begin to reprioritize. Stripped of my familiar titles and the constant busyness I hid behind, I couldn’t escape the questions I had been avoiding: Who am I if I’m not the overachieving teacher, the always-available volunteer, the one who says yes to everyone else first? What if being a “real woman” had less to do with my résumé and more to do with my relationships—with God, with my husband, with my children, and with myself?
Without the constant noise and pressure of my old life, I was confronted with the truth that my worth was not tied to productivity or how much I could pour into others while ignoring myself and my family. In the quiet of that new country, without the safety net of my old identity, I started to see how deeply I had confused busyness with purpose and martyrdom with love. I began to grieve the moments I had missed, the times my boys had gotten the leftovers of me, and the ways my husband and I had become polite roommates instead of partners. That grief, as painful as it was, also became a doorway—an invitation to lay down my old definitions and learn a different way of being.
It took me almost two years of intentional repair work with my little princes (I also gave birth to a third during this time)—learning to be present, to apologize, to play again, to listen to their tiny hearts instead of just managing their schedules—and five years of focused marriage work to open the gates of healing and strengthen our foundation. Some days that looked like sitting on the floor building Legos instead of answering one more email. Other days it meant owning my impatience, asking for forgiveness, and trying again, even when it felt awkward and unfamiliar. In our marriage, it meant choosing honesty over avoidance, naming our disappointments, and daring to hope that what was cracked could still be restored.
We had hard conversations, set new boundaries, relearned how to connect, and slowly rebuilt trust and tenderness. Counseling, prayer, and community became tools we leaned on instead of pretending we could muscle through on our own. We practiced saying what we needed instead of assuming the other should just “know.” We learned to celebrate small wins—one gentle response instead of a sharp one, one honest check-in instead of another silent evening on opposite sides of the couch. Even now, it takes constant intentional work, dedication, and commitment to keep our marriage growing, healthy, and thriving. We aren’t perfect, but we are committed to working at it, together, choosing each other again and again as we keep learning who we are and who we’re becoming as a family.
Are you stuck and looking for a therapist who can help you with your goals and identity? Reach out to me at Lifeologie Counseling Houston at (713) 357-1589 or find a Lifeologie therapist near you!