12 Years of Marriage

A Story of Redemption, Healing, and Becoming

August 30, 2026

The first time I told Fugie that he used to manipulate me shocked him. This was several years ago. Today, I recognize some of those experiences in what we now commonly call “gaslighting.” Although we were in our 20s and early 30s, Fugie had only been in full transition back into society for a couple of years. We lacked maturity and finger-pointed at one another. We both had a lot of emotions to sort through on our own. For Fugie, he still had his guard up. For me, I was pretty jaded.

Fast forward a few years and a couple of babies later, and it felt like there was a chasm between us. I cried out for help. Our families were aware of our marital problems. Because we lived in North Carolina near his family, they intervened many times on our behalf and mediated our issues. We were on the brink of divorce, and I felt helpless.

Then the coronavirus shut down the world.

We both caught the virus, and shortly after, tragedy struck his family. We lost my father-in-law and Fugie lost his best friend, his brother Kongmeng. Around that same time, his business partners broke up and dissolved their company. It took a terrible toll on him.

Looking back now, I can see things I couldn't see when I was living through them. When you're hurting, sometimes all you can see is how someone else's actions are affecting you. I knew my own pain. I knew my disappointment. I knew the things I needed from my husband that I didn't feel like I was receiving. What I couldn't fully understand then was everything he was carrying too.

Eventually, Fugie started rebuilding his business. I became pregnant with baby number three and resigned from my career. That decision changed my life. For the first time, I was able to focus differently on being a mother, on being a better wife, and eventually on understanding myself. That began my own journey of healing.

And slowly, over time, we started to become okay.

There wasn't one conversation that fixed our marriage. There wasn't one apology, one prayer, or one breakthrough that suddenly made everything better. We had to push through many hard conversations. Sometimes we had to say the same things over and over again before the other person could finally hear what was actually being said. There was a lot of repetition. There were misunderstandings. There were things each of us had to confront within ourselves.

But somewhere along the way, we started understanding each other a little more.

If it wasn't for both of us wanting to grow and wanting better for our own lives and for our life together with our children, we would not be where we are today. What's ironic is that our former assistant pastors, who counseled us a couple of times, once told us there wasn't anything they could do for us because it was clear that we did not want to help our marriage.

That was one thing we all agreed on.

At the time, maybe we didn't know how. Maybe there were things inside each of us that needed healing before we could even understand what a healthy marriage required. Maybe saving our marriage wasn't going to come from someone convincing us to hold it together. Maybe God had work to do in the two people inside the marriage.

Today is our 12th wedding anniversary.

Twelve years later, I can truly say that my desire is for Fugie's best interest and his well-being. I understand better now how fully integrated our lives have become. My prayers for him come from a place of knowing that his strength is ours and my strength is his. His victories affect our family. So do mine. His growth makes our family stronger, and my growth does too.

In a few days, Fugie will turn 42, and I have no idea the burden of a man. I only know mine and that of a mother. I don't know what it feels like to carry the things he carries as a husband, father, provider, businessman, brother, son, and friend. But after all these years, I can look at my husband and recognize more of what he has carried. I have watched him lose people he loved. I have watched things he built fall apart. I have watched him rebuild. I have watched him become a father over and over again. And I have watched him grow.

He has watched me grow too.

Learning how to become my own best friend has taught me that I have always had what it takes to become who I am today. I am thankful for my husband, who has learned how to encourage me in the way that I need it and who has given me room to grow through the metamorphosis.

I think that's one of the things I understand differently about love now. Fugie isn't responsible for making me whole. I am not responsible for making him whole. But we can create room for one another to heal, to grow, to become wiser, and to become more of who God created us to be.

Being liquified and reshaping into Yer has not been easy.

A caterpillar doesn't simply grow wings. There is a process in between where what it once was has to be broken down before something new can emerge. When I think about the last twelve years, I think our marriage has experienced its own kind of metamorphosis.

There are parts of who we were that needed to die.

The finger-pointing. The defensiveness. The resentment. The inability to hear each other. The ways we protected ourselves instead of protecting what we were building together.

I don't want the marriage we had twelve years ago.

I am grateful for the marriage that survived becoming something else.

I am grateful that God did not leave either of us where we were. I am grateful that redemption didn't mean returning us to the young people who stood together twelve years ago. It meant allowing us to become different people—hopefully wiser, softer, stronger, and more capable of loving each other well.

And we're not finished.

I am excited for the next cycle. For the new spots and designs that will showcase more of who I am. And I am excited to see who Fugie continues to become too.

Twelve years later, we're still learning each other. We're still learning ourselves. We're still learning what it means to love someone through all the versions of who they have been and who they are becoming.

We're still becoming.

And today, I thank God that we're still becoming together.

What has love required you to become?