Religion, apart from Christ and grace, is nothing short of brutality. This article really went deep….

I overcame spiritual abuse, and thank God for freedom, but I have also been the abuser. I did what I felt the church wanted, what I thought God wanted, and told people they would go to hell if they stopped believing like us, if they left our ‘to do’ lists, rules and practices. I really believed it, sincerely. Thank God that we left that culture shortly thereafter and ended up establishing relationships with the people I did that to. They are doing well, thank God.

It is the hardest thing in the world to look back and see what I did, but God is a good… gracious… forgiving…. Redeemer.

I was grateful for your tone – thank you for dealing with me and my questions gently & honestly. It’s a (too) rare skill to find people who are able to articulate their thoughts that way! My heart needed that.

So many thoughts, but suffice to say – I very much appreciated your clarifications on the article as well as your insights on divorce and human nature. Lots to consider as I continue to journey on through the mess…

I might write more specifically at some point, when my thoughts become more organized, but for now just wanted you to know I read your words and wished we could sit down for coffee . Thanks again.

Warmly,
Katie

“But – here is my but – my mother left my father in the last three years after 35 years of marriage. And I am hurting. Within days of the divorce being official, she was dating The Other Man, though she always claimed he was “just a friend”. And I am angry. She is now living with The Other Man, my family has been severed irreparably, and I am being asked “how long” I’m going to have a hard time with this (my hurt and my anger are inconvenient, apparently).”

I think there are a couple of different things going on here that don’t necessarily have all that much to do with gender equality, legalism, or divorce, but more so with issues all humans have to wrestle with.

1. You have experienced your mother stepping out of the identity you have given her (aka, the story you told about her)…and it hurts.

We give everybody an identity of sorts—have a little story running in our head of who we think they are, and most of the time, though, our story is not exactly right…and we have a really really really difficult time dealing with it when we are confronted with this! It may feel like your mom has changed…but it may very well be that your story of who your mom is has changed. She is probably the same person she always was…it’s just that you didn’t know about those parts of her.

Allowing people to be who they are, as opposed to demanding that they fit back into the story we told ourselves about them, is a very very healing and helpful discovery. (I speak through bloody experience, lol).

The person may still do horrible things, perhaps, if that is what they do, yet now we are not suffering under the burden of feeling that they *shouldn’t* be that way. Now we can relax a bit and know that, hey, they are being exactly who they are (and then, in response, most of us will then get far away from them because being around people who consistently behave horribly to us is not really the kind of life we may want to live).

Or, we may find that the person isn’t actually doing horrible things at all. We just had a really warped story of who they were, and, turns out, they are really different from our story…but, when allowed to be who they are without our story blinding us (ie, once we remove the, “she *should* be doing such-n-such and thinking such-n-such”), they actually are really cool. We just couldn’t see it because our big fat story was getting in the way. That’s always a nice discovery.

2. You don’t have to ever get over it. You can let your anger go tomorrow or you can hold on to your anger for the rest of your life. You will let your anger go when it is the right time for you to let it go. Just like your mother’s life is hers to live (whether you like it or not), so is your life yours to live (whether she likes it or not). No one gets to decide for someone else how they will live, how they will think, what they will feel, or how long they will feel it.

Of course, there are healthy ways to work through emotions and unhealthy ways, and a very important thing for a person to do is learn what healthy ways work for them, as they process through (on your time table) their grief, hurt and anger.

“But when I read this, it made *me* feel judged – like in the name of love, joy, and peace I “should” (don’t we all love that word?) get over it already.”

No way! You do NOT have to “get over it already.” Ack! I’m so sorry you felt that way. It was not my intention in the slightest. Please forgive me if I worded something in a way that made you feel like you aren’t allowed to have your feelings of pain and anger.

I want to make it very clear that just like every marriage is a unique thing, so is every divorce. There is no, “every divorce is automatically good” rule any more than there is no, “every divorce is automatically bad,” rule. And the issues in each one, as you shared yourself, are complex, and, more importantly, the way the complexity affects people will differ from person to person involved in the process. One person may be just fine when their parents divorce, for example, while another person may go into a deep despair. That’s not right or wrong—that’s just normal every day life as humans. We aren’t all the same.

Some relationships are a gift for a person to be severed from (ask anyone married to a sociopath, for example—hallelujah divorce!). Some relationships are severed when they are still full of life and promise. Some relationships are severed when some people think they are full of life and hope, while others think they are dead and broken. Complex, all of them, no matter how the severing happens.

At the end of the day, the people who are married are the ones who have to decide whether or not the divorce is necessary for them or not…and that decision, after it’s been made, is not our business…because it’s their marriage, not ours. Our business is what we choose to do with the change.

<"…I came away feeling like the fact that I don’t think what my mother did was right was labeled simply “judgmental” – instead of being looked on as equally complex and multi-layered."

The difficult thing is that we will never know, and if we believe that humans should have the right to live the life of their choosing, then your mother’s choice is her business and only she can know what she can and can’t live with in a marriage.

The part that is your choice is in the ways her choice affects YOU. You can choose whether or not you will maintain your relationship with her and how.

People often try to make this a simple thing. I mean, I could say, “the right way to handle this is to put some boundaries up between you and your mother—put some distance in there because divorce is wrong and she is obviously bad.” But that would only be good advice if her behavior is harmful or abusive or disrespectful towards you. Obviously, then it would make sense that you would want to put some distance between you and your mother.

Or, I could say, “the right way to handle this is to be loving, to have compassion for your mother and treat her as you always have.” That might be good advice if her behavior towards you is kind, loving and respectful and the issue is more one of you struggling to accept change. There are a million different pieces of advice a person could give, all beginning with, “this is the right way to handle it…” but all would be imperfect attempts to try to distil your own very unique situation when it is something that cannot be distilled that way.

In other words, your response to her is part of the complexity of that unique situation and has much to do with the particular facts in this situation, how and why the divorce has happened, your relationship dynamics with your mom, your relationship dynamics with your father, the way you choose to handle change in general, etc…

Yet there is one thing that is simple, because it is something that is true for EVERYBODY in a situation like this, and it is this: not accepting change by fighting against it *after* it has already happened *will* cause you harm.

The divorce has happened. Spending future days, months, years, agonizing over what *should* have been done (even if you are right!) will hurt, and it will hurt you the most, because it is expending energy into something that is a black hole. Nothing can change that has already happened…so instead of using your energy to grow and go forward, dwelling on what *should* have happened sucks out life from today and from your tomorrow.

There is nothing that can be done about the past. The past has already happened…it cannot be changed. The most important thing you can do for yourself is to inwardly and personally learn how to accept and come to terms with the change that has happened in your family. That is NOT saying you have to like it. That is NOT saying you have to “get over” any feelings you may have.

“…And maybe all you were trying to do in your article was draw people more towards the middle of the road, sympathizing with the person who chooses divorce – instead of sitting on the end of the pendulum that merely judges them, as has too often been the case.”

ABSOLUTELY.

I didn’t address everything you shared but hopefully touched on most of the important stuff. I’m sorry you have been going through this painful experience. I’m so glad you shared. I hope this wordy (I’m always so wordy! laughing sigh) makes some sort of sense. Please know that ALL of the above is merely one person’s entirely fallible thoughts, so only take what you feels worth exploring to you and happily dump the rest.