I felt my self abandoned and at the same time I felt a lot of anger.
Not only had he abandoned me, but also our 9 month old baby.
I had to constantly be alert about getting caught..
of not being who I pretend to be.
We met at a tv program called video dates.
Piia then chose me from the show to join her to a cruising.
I felt love at the first sight, but Piia instead was avoiding me.
I thought Rene was a nice and funny person but at the time..
I had a crush on someone else.
So we started just as friends.
shortly after we started dating and 3 weeks after Rene went to Kosovo..
to work as a peacekeeping officer.
At that time I wasnt that much into him..
but I thought Id give it a try.
Rene send me a lot of long and profound letters and poems..
and I started to develop deeper feelings to him.
I started to think that he might be the one for me.
I got a better contact in to my feelings..
while being away from my everyday life.
I was able to be open and tell about my hopes and dreams.
When I came back home everyday became troublesome
and all those hopes and dreams were forgotten behind everything else.
Piia was probably wondering why I wasnt acting like..
the man who wrote those letters to her.
I expected the relationship to offer me a life..
where we could share things.
It was important to me that we could talk and reflect..
on philosophical questions.
I thought that in a relationship we would share..
all our thoughts together.
When Rene came back from Kosovo and we moved in together..
the close and sharing connection between us was gone.
Work and studies took all the time from us..
to be able to sit down and talk.
I thought that once you decide to be together and get engaged..
you would not really need to work on the relationship.
That affected all my decision making as I thought..
I would not have to take in count the opinions of my spouse.
I could say we just ended up being married.
It wasnt as I had dreamed of as a child.
There were no princess wedding, rather a feeling..
that it is time to get married.
Even at the altar, i felt more uncomfortable than good.
I wasnt sure if this was the right guy for me.
I felt like we did not confront each other well enough.
The spiritual contact was missing.
I kept hope a live because I knew that Rene had profound thoughts..
and that we had had a connection at some point.
I thought that it must exist even if it was lost at time.
When we had been engaged for a while I felt like we had to get married.
We had traditional lutherian wedding
but the christian fait was not part of the ceremony as we say..
God is the 3th thread in the marriage.
For us it was just the way of tradition to get married.
We had no concrete changes after getting married..
because we had lived together before.
We had no honeymoon either.
Day after the wedding we went back to work.
Afterwards, this has annoyed me a lot.
Today I would do it in a different way.
The marriage should be the thing that changes life in material..
and physical and God should be involved in the marriage..
from the beginning.
That would be ideal.
We had our first child in 2003.
The year before we had started to build our house.
it was confused time, at the time I had depression
and I cant remember anything from our house construction period.
In the middle of the project I became pregnant of our 2nd child..
and all my thoughts were in the pregnancy.
The pregnancy was quite difficult and I was in a drip in hospital.
At the same time Rene was building the house..
and we had less and less time for each other.
We did not see each other much while Rene was..
working during the day and building the evenings.
When Rene came back home I was already sleeping.
We were also running short in money..
which I did not know at that time.
I did not have the courage to share it with Piia.
I felt like I would be a failure in her eyes if I told her.
I wanted to protect her by not telling her..
so this was continually in between us.
We did not talk about the past or the future..
we just tried to protect each other by not telling our true thoughts.
He had not told me that the house building project..
wasnt progressing because of financial matters.
I thought he was being slow in purpose.
When Regia was born I moved to my parents.
It was suppose to be just a temporary solution for the summer..
but the summer went by and the house was still not finished.
So I called to Rene and wondered if we could move in.
We had the physical distance in between us and thou we have..
not talked things through so I made an assumption that..
this was Renes way of telling that he did not want us anymore.
I felt like the house would never be finished and..
I still could not tell Piia that the reason for it was financial.
At that stage I realized the possibility of working..
in Russia and getting our finances together.
I felt like I was making a sacrifice by getting..
a job in Russia in order to resolve financial troubles..
and to get our family back together.
So I just called Piia and announced..
that I was going to Russia for a year.
The city was 12 000km from Piia by the Japanese sea.
Rene had decided it by himself and I had no..
possibility to intervene.
He was already getting his visa etc.
I felt myself completely abandoned and at the same time..
I felt a lot of anger.
Not only had he abandoned me, but also our 9 month old baby.
In my eyes he was a terrible father.
I felt the marriage was over..
and I should find myself a new spouse.
Piia had no idea about my motives..
and did not see me as a sacrificing person.
The time in Russia was quite hard..
and different from my life in Finland.
My personal values did not meet in the russian work place..
and environment, but in turn I was reliefed..
of being free from financial worries
I was able to sleep well first time since long time.
The relationship was getting worse..
as Piia did not know my motives..
and did not know how my life was in Russia.
Cheap alcohol and other temptations came in to my life.
We were not able to talk to each other..
and share things that were difficult.
We were more like roommates to each other..
and could not ask for support or refuge in hard times.
When Rene had been 6 months in Russia..
it started to be enough for me.
My pregnancy was difficult and I was often feeling ill.
I was alone, had no one to help with our child..
and I did not know people from our town.
Then I red stories about how men behave in Russia..
about their drinking, about the prostitutes etc.
I felt anguish and could not take it anylonger.
I then made clear to Rene that if he isnt coming back to Finland..
he wont see me or his kids anymore.
At that phase I had realized what I want for my life.
I though Id just go back home and things would just cool off.
but everything that had happened in the past..
were still in between us..
and the relationship was even more troublesome..
when we lived in the same apartment.
I did not know what she was thinking..
and it was hard for us to face and handle our feelings.
I had not learned how to do that. In confrontation I just left.
I had not seen a relationship where feelings could be shared.
in my childhood we were comforted if necessary..
and rejoiced when things went well,
but we never handled difficult things well.
I was not able to be open myself or relieve any of my weaknesses.
I did not want anyone to use those against me.
I had not genuinely confronted Piia..
so I thought she was the same as everyone else.
What I appeared to be outside..
was different from what I had inside of me.
Rene had come back from Russia for a holiday.
I was really broken and anguished and felt like I had to get help.
Externally I had abandoned christian life and faith..
but I still prayed when life was hard.
I trusted that God would carry me.
I then felt like I had to go back to God, I had no strength left in me.
Ive always had christian friends and we had talked..
about the hopes that Rene would became a christian.
I felt that only God can change us.
I was surprised how easily Rene agreed to go to a church..
with me to hear Pirkko Jalovaaras speech.
Pirkko prayed for our whole family and we both burst to tears.
Our life turned for the better..
even if we could not see immediate external changes.
We started to feel like we had hope..
and felt no longe being by ourselves.
Our life took a new direction and started to change in small steps.
Our problems started to resolve even if they..
did not resolve immediately but over the years.
We started relationship counseling at our a church
It helped a lot but I still had so many locks in me..
me that I could not genuinely face Piia and solve our problems.
I still had this fear..
that my weaknesses would be used against me.
I still kept the biggest things and my past for myself.
I had my birthday..
and I tried to organize a dinner for us and invite our friends too..
but all the sudden the plans did not work out.
There happened to be a David Pawson preaching..
organized by TV7 so we went there.
I had never heard about David Pawson and..
had been planning a completely different type of evening for us.
I had been thinking of spiritual things before..
and had red something about it.
Then David said that the faith is not about believing that..
Jesus was once on earth as there are scientifique facts about it.
The faith is about believing that he died for your sins..
and is sitting on the right side of God
What he described was what I had thought.
I believed Jesus had been on earth but I had not seen him as God.
At that point I felt like I knew what is the truth..
but I didnt have the courage to give my life to Jesus.
I had to think about it for a year..
and made the decision around my 31 st birthday.
Above all I had been afraid about the changes..
and the things I might have to abandon.
I finally made the choice in a church..
where I went to as to get prayed for.
I collapsed completely.
The feeling was very different from before.
At the same time I felt..
that my personal faith reformed and changed.
The life of prayer became into my life..
We also started to pray together and share things to each other.
and I felt the presence of God.
Praying together had a big impact on our relationship.
It gave us a new connection and made us more close to each other.
Praying together made us feel more connected to each other.
praying together was awkward at the beginning..
as we had never done that before.
But in the course of time it became a natural part of our life.
We had been in therapy, counseling, chaplain and marriage boot camps..
and had got help from all of these..
but we had still not been honest in all aspects.
Then one night I felt really anxious..
and I knew there were things that we had not been honest about.
I tried to find someone to talk to but no one had time at that moment.
I then said to Rene that we have to talk things through together.
We put our kids to bed and started to discuss.
We talked through the night and opened up about all..
adultery and lies we had told to each other.
We even spoke through the things..
that had wounded us before our own relationship.
Every time when I felt that we have hurt each other so much..
that Im not humanly able to forgive..
we started to pray together.
In the prayer we felt how God came into the moment..
and we cried together and we felt ease about forgiving.
We had been together about 10 years and already..
at the beginning of the relationship I had cheated on her.
Those things had been in between us for years.
When we were able to deal those subjects we prayed..
and left it to God.
I asked for forgiveness for my acts and..
felt that the burden had been taken away from me.
Seeing Piia to be able to forgive me let us to a whole new level.
I used to think that it cant hurt if one doesnt know about my past..
but being able to be open..
and share everything and ask forgiveness..
for all that we had done was healing our relationship truly.
People say that the marriage flattens in the course of time.
For us it was meaningful that we became christians and were able..
to deal all the stuff together and fall in love to each other again.
Or actually it was first time ever 2 years ago that..
we fell really in love and wanted to be together again all the time.
We found each other again so it is possible.
Its not that when youve been 10 years together everything is gone.
Yeah, you have to have faith that you can still have fun together..
after 10 years or 20 years and you dont have to be afraid..
that things are going to get really poor..
Instead you can find that everything can change to better.