More on Marriage

Someone happened across this blog recently and left a comment about how it resonated with her. It came on just the right day - a day when I was feeling very misunderstood. I read her blog and also felt a conneciton. She lives on the other side of the country and until she left that comment, she was a complete stranger. I love that about the internet and think maybe I've found my answer to why I felt the need to blog instead of write privately in a journal at home. OK, I know that sometimes I take a long time to get to my point and you might be saying, that's great, but what does this have to do with marriage and the title of this post? I'm getting there. This same person left another comment, under my "Anniversary" post and said she wanted to hear more about this divorce/annulment thing. I responded with an email and oddly, gave more details than I would have imagined giving to a complete stranger, but for some reason I felt compelled. I'm now reminded that I need to write about it here. Not in the same detail, but to express my views on marriage. The discussion is very appropriate for this tension I have between my faith, my womanhood, my feminism and my liberal tendencies. I'll warn you that what I have to say may not be very popular with you if you are a feminist, but for me, it's truth.

First, the extremely abridged version of my story. Met my husband 7 years ago. Married 1 1/2 years later. Moved from Los Angeles, back to my home state of Kentucky 1 year later. Got pregnant less than 6 months later. Baby #1 was born (obviously, 9 months later). During the course of all of that, hit some major road blocks in our marriage. Husband decided he wanted to separate. Soon after, husband said he wanted to divorce. I didn't fight it. We divorced. We lived lives that were still intertwined and took oddly, much criticism for our efforts to raise our child together. About 9-12 months later, husband came to his senses. We reconciled. I discovered that in Kentucky you can annul your divorce. Filed a motion with the court, divorce decree was set aside. Legally, it never happened. Surprisingly got pregnant only 1 month later. Baby #2 was born 5 months ago.

So, here's what I have to say and what I learned.

(1) I don't believe in divorce. I begged my parents to divorce, and they did. They were miserable and they are happier now. I have known women that I thought should leave their husbands and vice versa. And I know people who appear to have met their "soul mates" in a subsequent marriage. BUT, I realized that I, personally, don't believe in divorce. Of course, all of my close family and friends thought our breakup was my husband's fault. I'm not going to assign blame here because the truth is no relationship ever fails because of one person. But what I learned and what I kept explaining to everyone about why I found it so hard to even try to move on was that if I did, I was breaking a covenant. On our wedding day, in front of all of our family and friends, and more importantly, God, I made a promise - and it was unconditional - to love, honor and respect him. Period. I didn't add the words "if you do the same for me." Now, I don't want to start a debate about the potential dangers of this way of thinking. Let me be clear, I don't believe women who are abused should ever, ever stay in an abusive relationship. I do believe, however, that as long as my children and I are safe, I am obligated to fulfill my promise to God, and to my husband. It sounds weird, but when I finally got this, it was very freeing. I didn't feel trapped at all, but I felt like I was choosing and honoring my choice. Frankly, I think it's much harder to think lightly of marriage and to keep looking around for perfection. Marriage is hard - harder for some than others. I have a friend who prefers the word "challenging" to "hard," but however you couch it, it's not Cinderella and Prince Charming. The idea of a constant quest to find what doesn't exist makes me feel trapped. Loving the person I choose, faults and all, is freeing. (I suppose it's the lawyer in me, but I feel that I need another disclaimer - I am not suggesting that this is truth for anyone else - it's mine. Every situation is different and I firmly believe every person's relationship with God is extremely individual. Divorce is an unfortunate reality in our world and I don't judge anyone who makes that difficult decision.)

(2) People want you to be bitter and angry. They thrive off of it. Really, it's eery. I felt so much pressure to be mad, to talk bad about my husband, and even to make it difficult for him to see our son. And this came from Christians, non-Christians, men, women, etc. It was amazing and very disturbing. Children, especially very young ones, don't chose divorce and I am constantly amazed and appaled at the educated, successful people who behave selfishly in relation to their children in the process and aftermath of divorce. I don't feel like I've done a lot of things exactly right in my life, but I have to say, I could not be prouder of the way that my husband and I handled our relationship with our son while we were apart. And I know that I was right in choosing (yes, that word again) to not be angry. I watched someone live with bitterness my whole life and that person still carries it around. It literally eats away at them. And it only hurts them, not the person at whom it is directed. I don't want anything to do with it.