The Christian Girl's Guide to Divorce

We fought extensively over email.

I read an article that my husband had written, covering an after-party of an industry event in Australia.  The pictures posted on the website that accompanied his story were of people partying, naked women, women kissing one another, and general debauchery, drugs (one can only assume) and mayhem.  He talked freely about all the women.  He described their clothing, their beauty, their eyes, their lack of clothing…

I hopped right back on the train to Crazytown.

I told him he made me sick, that he had manipulated me, and that I was done.  He defended himself and said he had done nothing wrong. He had written the article with me in mind.

YOU WROTE IT WITH ME IN MIND?? — THAT IS FUCKING BULLSHIT.
How about TELLING ME ABOUT IT FIRST???????
THAT is how you build trust.  But what do I know?  I’m just petty and small.

I was irate.  I was also referring to a previous email where my husband had explained to me that he needed the “literary storyline”, and wouldn’t apologize for living life at the “small and petty” level.

We yelled and screamed at each other – as much as you possibly can — over email.  I tried to Skype with him, but he would not answer.  I called him a coward, and told him I was filing for divorce.

In essence, he said that he was done, too, that I could do whatever I wanted, and, “goodbye goodbye goodbye.”

I challenged him to come home and do it himself.  But I knew he wouldn’t.  He had left, on a one-way ticket to a foreign country.

The next day, I sent him an emotionless email entitled “Business”, wherein I laid out my desire, and plan, for a divorce.  I told him I was willing to hold off on filing until March 16^th, which was the date we had agreed upon in counseling.  I asked for his input about our official date of separation, what to do with the house, and offered that I was willing to negotiate some credit card debt (however, I would NOT be paying for his hotel rooms, flowers, gifts and whatever other shenanigans he had been up to over the past year and a half).  I also asked him if he wanted to save money and not hire a lawyer.  We didn’t really have anything to fight over.  The only thing I had cared about was my beloved piano, and I had to sell it — months prior — to pay the mortgage.

I wanted our divorce to be clean, simple and amicable.

Note: Divorce is never “clean, simple or amicable.”

He told me he didn’t want to talk about responsibility in divorce.  He simply didn’t want to talk, at all.  He suggested we take a week off from each other and reconvene later, to “see how we feel”.

And, like that – poof! – he was gone.

I was left with unpaid bills, our impending mortgage payment and property taxes, and no money in the bank.  In fact, my husband would not contribute financially to our household ever again.

I pulled myself together and figured out how to prepare our taxes on my own.  Thankfully, I got it done quickly and received a large enough refund to be able to pay the mortgage.  I also met with Kathy, my good friend and realtor, and started the process to put our home on the market for lease.  There was no way I would be able to pay another month’s mortgage on my own.

I realized how God was taking care of me.  Even though my husband had abandoned me, I knew God would never abandon me.  I clung to Him. He never let me go.  (He still hasn’t let me go!)

Zephaniah 3:17 ~ “The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save.  He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.”

I was seeing evidence of God’s faithfulness, yet still in the thick of the new storm.

Nights are so hard, I wrote. It is when I am most alone.  The fear of the unknown; the fear of losing everything.  The rejection.  The fact that, as each day passes, my husband continues to choose everything contrary to our marriage.  His cowardice is maddening.  He sticks me with all responsibility.

God, I cried, I want to look at life from a different perspective.  To trust that moving forward with divorce is Your best for me; that You will make it clear…whether I should file…not out of anger or malice…I continue to pray for my husband, that You would wrestle with him.  Of course I do not trust him at all, and his absence and silence only confirm what is inevitably true: he is untrustworthy.  Running.  Running from responsibility because he wants to be “great”.

 I don’t know if I could stand seeing him in the future; in another relationship.  That would be most painful.  I guess I have already experienced it, so…

I am starting to wonder if my entire marriage was a lie.  I was just a pawn in the game.  I simply do not believe him, nor do I believe in him anymore.  Maybe I failed the patience test, God? 

Life still goes on…but my heart, Lord.  My heart is his.  My heart belongs to him and he tramples on it, turns his back on me and laughs.  He walks away with it, crushing it between his palms as he interlaces the fingers of his left hand between another woman’s.

Foreshadowing is an amazing, literary gift.