“My child pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep in to your heart, for they bring life to those who find them and healing to their whole body. Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” Proverbs 4: 20-23 NLT
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Thought the rain comes in torrents and the floodgates rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.” Matthew 7:24-27 NLT
When a relationship is broken it is rarely one event, one single episode that causes the demise. There are a series of event that happen. Often it is over years these events large and small bring changes and damages. There can be small cracks and broken places that were not managed well and only patched with surface, aesthetic repairs. Underneath the sheen are weakened areas. They may appear strong, but have poor structural strength. Looking back, I can see the cracked and broken places in my marriage foundations. Times we did not invest and complete the repairs. Times we did not let God do a deep work to really fix the broken inside of us. We needed that individual healing to successfully work to repair our marriage. I have said it before. Marriage is work. Marriage takes upkeep, maintenance, and sometimes repairs. An unhealthy worker cannot work effectively. Spiritual spackle cannot repair a hurting person. An emotionally damaged person cannot build a solid relationship. Like any house we buy and invest in, we have to keep working to protect and nurture it. If we begin applying spackle to wet dry wall, we will lose our investment. We will lose it all.
Divorce brings so many negative feelings, emotions, and even self judgements. Our need to find a cause and blame. These emotions are part of what I needed to unpack and manage in order to heal. Counseling was a safe place for me doing this unpacking and managing of my thoughts. During this unpacking I found two self judgements I did not entirely expect to find. I was more than surprised when I found myself knee deep in them. The first surprise was feeling much less than intelligent. No, really, I felt so stupid. All of the “How could I…” statements. How could a woman of my education and success have been, so duped to not question so many of the events and responses surrounding my ex husband? How could I not have seen the proverbial handwriting on the wall stating there was something greatly amiss in my marriage life? How could have I blindly trusted someone so completely with finances and been left with so little? How could I have believed in him so completely and he just walk out? How could have I not known something was greatly amiss in the relationship. New love can be blind, but we had been married for so long, I thought we had 20/20 vision. It was not like I had not lived some of this before. Yet here I found myself on Deja Vu River. This time without a paddle. Was I really that stupid?
Self doubt came rolling in second. If God had even put us together. Surely, I had missed warning signs when we were dating. I had prayed for the man God had chosen for me. I fully believed it was my now ex husband. Had I been wrong? Had I heard incorrectly from God? I was so certain this was the person I was to build a life with. The person with whom I was to partner with in some form of ministry. Did I have it wrong from the beginning? Even our wedding invitations began with “seeking God’s will for their lives and believing that includes each other….” Was our union not part of God’s will? How could I have thought this is what God wanted?
One therapy session was a shocker for me on some levels. I had been pounding these questions. I had been wanting answers. Various memories had been playing out in my mind all week before the session. The time I saw several women’s names in his phone. I told myself it was work contacts as he did not have a separate work phone. The time he would not let me use his phone camera, but took the photo for me. He was fearful someone would text while I had the phone. The time the debit card was declined at the grocery store for insufficient funds. Explained that he made a couple of double payments on some bills to get ahead. The money went for credit card payments, but for credit cards I did not know existed. The sudden shopping for my Christmas presents on Etsy when I did not know he realized the company existed. The constant computer obsession resulting in coming to bed late. Actually due to time zone differences of his many on line women friends. There were so many other red flags flying near the end it should have been painfully obvious.
Denial is a strong defense, but it has a low long term success rate. In that therapy session, I finally had to admit that I did know. I did realize something was greatly amiss. I did see the difference in who he had become. I had seen this behavior pattern before—specifically twice before. I had experienced the same intuition sensations before. Yet, I did nothing. I had chosen to not completely put the puzzle pieces together this time. I did not want to deal with the picture they made once again. I did not have the emotional energy to take on another battle. I had fought for my sister, wrestled with God, stood beside my dying father in law, and struggled with my mother’s decline. I was all out of fight. My tanks were completely empty. Before, I had been the one to step up and say enough. I had been the one to confront and set boundaries when behaviors reached levels that threatened our marriage. I had been the one that stayed true. I had been the one to forgive, so we could try again. I had been, but I could not be again.
I spend a lot of time driving for work. This is thinking and often prayer time. I had been having thoughts. Why were we married? Where were the new dreams we could share? What was going on in his head? Why was he becoming so distant? What do I really want? Unaware that he was starting an affair, I realized I was weary of being in a marriage without a partner. I realized I wanted more. I tried to talk to him, but received answers of “nothing is wrong” or “I’m fine”. He closed off and I made a choice. This time I chose to not push. I chose to not intervene. This was not because I did not want nor love my him. My deepest hope was that my husband would see his own errors and make the efforts to change this time. He knew where his continued actions would take us. I had set those boundaries stating I wanted to be together, but at the same time would not tolerate another infidelity. The trust in our marriage would not survive another emotional or a physical affair. Without trust there would be nothing to hold the foundation together. I so very much wanted him to be the one to step up. I wanted him to choose to be true. I spent the majority of that therapy session sobbing in this new admission and my crumbling denial.
The bittersweet portion of this came when I realized I was not the idiot I was certain I had become. The “How could I….” became “I chose to ignore.” I chose to believe lies. It was easier than attempting to deal with the truth on empty tanks. It was a delay tactic. I was believed there was more time to return to a loving marriage. I was sure things would never go “that” far. I was very wrong. Perhaps that leaves me unwise at worst and a wishful thinker at best.
I still believe we were put together in God’s plan. I also believe this was not the outcome of God’s perfect will. God was disappointed too. He wanted something different for us. I still believe when we were securely anchored in Him, God used us to reach and minister to several people. Some, maybe never reached before. I still believe we did find God’s will for our lives. Just like Eve with the snake in the garden, sin was permitted to come into the relationship. We did not let God do the deeper healing work needed to completely repair the marriage foundation the first time it cracked. We let our own superficial repairs replace structural soundness. In essence, we permitted the bedrock to be replaced with sand.
Where does this leave me? Am I as guilty as my spouse in the demise of my marriage for not intervening? In some ways I am guilty in the demise of the marriage. It does take two…right? (By the way that took a long time for me to be able to admit.) It is true that I did not step up to try to save my marriage again. I am guilty of wanting the situation to be different this time. I am guilty of of choosing to not rescue my ex husband again. I am guilty of maintaining the boundaries I previously set. I have asked myself and my counselor, if I had intervened—ran to the rescue again, would the marriage have survived? I really do not believe it would have. Not this time. Even disregarding the relationship he left to pursue, there were too many other emotional relationships he developed. This was not a crack, but a wrecking ball hit. There were severe foundation chunks missing in our marriage. We lost our partnership. We were not equally invested in the marriage or each other—perhaps for quite some time. The cloying sin of lust and its associate pornography had sank some pretty deep hooks into my ex husband. I had thought so many times he was free of this bondage, but obviously the hooks were still embedded. I was running on empty and had not taken care of myself emotionally. All of these placed wedges in those foundation cracks. When the wrecking ball hit, the cracks spread wide. They left our marriage wide open to the onslaught of the perfect storm that hit. The floods came rolling. The house washed away.