faithandlifeafterdivorce

Today I wanted to have a friend of mine, K.  share her experiences. She’s been divorce for over five years. She is a gifted writer who shares an unvarnished truth and has a real heart for God.  She is compassionate and one of the first people who will volunteer to walk along side you no matter where you have to go. Today  and tomorrow I want to share, in her own words, some of her experiences.

“Starting life over on my own at 39 was not something I expected to happen to me.  When the unthinkable happened and I was faced with a failed marriage and two angry teenagers, I nearly came undone.  I was stuck in the loop of being so terrified I couldn’t even imagine my way out of the blackness.  Facing each day was a huge challenge.  Trying to get back out into the workforce after a 10 year hiatus was a daunting task.  Fortunately God is so much bigger than what we expect.  God provided a full-time job quickly for me that was close to home and was doing something I was very comfortable with so getting up to speed after not working for so many years was much easier.

I’ll never forget the day I asked my husband if he still loved me and I heard the responding answer of “no”.  At that moment my world turned on its axis and I became numb.  I froze; not knowing if I should scream and cry, rant and rave or just collapse.  I vaguely remember asking if there was someone else and being told no.  I also remember asking when it happened and he said he didn’t think he had ever truly loved me.  I had just been hit extremely hard in the solar plexus and was having an extremely difficult time just trying to breathe.  I was suffocated by the shock.  The next 24 hours were pretty much spent crying.  I couldn’t really feel anything except pain and betrayal.  Nothing made sense.  The first thoughts that started after the crying subsided were:  What did I do wrong?  What did I say?  Was I too dependent?  Was I too independent?  Was it because I am overweight?  Was it because I’m no good in bed?  The second thoughts I had were:   How can I change?  How can I fix this?  This is all a dream; this isn’t really happening.

Out of desperation I made a phone call to an acquaintance to tell everything to.  I don’t know why I ended up calling her but looking back it was definitely a God thing.  This friend was able to let me talk, let me rant and then she would turn everything around to make me start looking at truth.  She forced me to look at this truth:  That the reason for my marriage breakdown was not a one-sided issue but rather it was the choice of each partner.   My friend was the one who started me on the path towards thinking.  It definitely wasn’t a quick or easy path.  Each phone call came with her asking me what I was going to do, how I was going to protect myself and children from the emotions spiralling out of control, how I was going to manage finances, etc.  It all sounds so easy on paper.  I made a phone call to a friend and it all started to sort itself out.  Far from it; I was a mess.  Phone calls happened pretty much daily with my sobbing and not able to string coherent sentences together.  My friend was patient and very forgiving.  When she just wanted to scream at me to stop being a doormat and to get tough she would instead talk me firmly yet gently through the crisis at hand to focus on even little things.  I was not in this alone:  I had two children to think about and to force myself to make some choices.

I had a decision to make:  Was I going to try and give my husband the time to figure things out and still live separately in the same household or was I going to make another decision?  The snag was I could not comprehend any other choice.  I felt the best choice for my children and I was to live together with my husband in the same house and try and work things out.  I did not want my children to be without their Dad.  I think deep down I thought this would all blow over and that everything would work out.  That if I made too rash a decision too quickly that it would only push my husband further away.  This scenario may work for some people but I definitely would not recommend this course of action.  When my marriage broke down the best thing I could have done for the emotional and physical health of myself and my children would have been to find out what my options were and move out.  Instead I was too terrified to even know where to begin.  I had no money; no job; my children were in school so how could I possibly move?  if I did move out I figured I would still be responsible for half of the mortgage payment as well as half of any utilities and/or household repairs.    I also convinced myself that since my husband was the one to fall out of love he should be the one to make all the sacrifices.  He should be the one to lose out.  This reasoning didn’t work out so well as all that it caused me to do was feel guilty and horrible whenever I had negative thoughts.  I didn’t give myself a chance to really be angry.  I was too busy in trying-to-make-it-mode that I never took the time to get angry and grieve.

I felt I was stuck since I did not have a job to venture out on my own.  I never considered there could possibly be some agency or persons that would or could help me.  I felt so very alone.  I felt like a failure and that I had to travel this path alone because I had somehow failed.  I felt like I was a horrible Christian since I couldn’t make my marriage work.  I figured I must have done something bad and that God was punishing me.

During the last ten years of my marriage I was so blessed to be able to spend the time at home with my children.  I relished the times I could hear my children laugh as they played and would never trade the times of having my kitchen obliterated by cake-making messes.  Even the earliest years were both challenging and memory making.  I was able to be with my children as they faced fears of going in for surgery, to be with them as they screamed into the anaesthetic mask before falling asleep, being by their side as they woke up and being able to care for them through recovery.   I still remember the early years of baking with my children where I would have a chair on either side of me.  One chair would have my 3 year old and one chair would have my 2 year old.  The children took turns pouring the pre-measured ingredients into the mixing bowls.  They would then help to put the cookies onto the cookie sheets and after the pans went into the oven would get rewarded with a beater each.  That was the reward until the cookies finished baking and then they would have a wonderful tea party with Mom.  I can still hear their sweet voices as they asked questions, laughed, giggled and clapped their hands.

My head realizes that the teenage years can be so much more trying.  My heart finds it so difficult to process what my head already knows.  That my children are slowly spreading their wings and I need to let them go so they can flap, fly and then soar.  It has been particularly hard when the choices I see my children make are in direct opposition to the choices I desire for them.  My hearts prayer for both of my children is that they would love, serve and honour God with their heart, soul and mind.    I think the hardest part of my marriage breakdown has been watching my children turn further and further away from God.  My heart breaks as I see the choices being made that will impact my children’s lives forever and realize I have absolutely no control over those choices.    However, my prayer will continue to be that God will use the choices the children make and ultimately use those decisions for His glory.  That good will come out of the choices I see as being poor judgment or childish decisions.  You see, God is still painting the canvas of my children’s lives and what I see as blotches will turn into a beautiful tapestry as time goes on.  The painting may twist and turn, have contrasting colours, hard angles and harsh shadows but beauty is seen by the Master Painter before the piece is finished.  I trust that God will allow me to put a few slight brush strokes on my children’s canvas and that it will enhance the beauty God has already put there.”

Tomorrow I’ll share more from K. and some of how she’s coped and future hopes and dreams.