During the courtship, honeymoon, and good times of our marriage, we were on dry ground that was firm and comfortable. We were land-lovers and always knew where we stood with each other. There was a steadiness to the relationship. Hearts were confident. Communication was free and invigorating. The struggles of life were a challenge we could meet together‑‑would meet together. Fantasy was rife. Love would see us through. We were on solid ground.
Yet when the divorce came, both of our hearts were tossed into the Bay of Heartbrokenness. In the raging bay, our emotions were confusing and laden with anger and bitterness. Depression and inadequacy.
In this raging sea we eventually came to ourselves and our need for survival. The storm is fierce. After the shock stage, there is a need for survival. What is survival? Everyone knows. Survival is the movement toward healing.
Healing and adaptation will be accomplished when a sense of finality eventually settles in the heart. This movement towards healing is, in a very real sense, a search for the Bridge of Finality. On this side, there is a raging sea; on the other side of the bridge, the grief is viewed as past. The Bridge of Finality is the marker.
As I struggled toward the bridge, there were at least three stages in the movement: the approach, the site, and moving beyond the Bridge of Finality. There may be more. All of this is so mysterious. Each effort so individual. Every heart unique.
Though there seem to be several stages, these stages will not be discussed anymore. For the Bridge of Finality is a common and universal goal, and the struggle is as common. Struggling for a sense of finality, a sense of ending, a sense of acceptance of separation from the one you love. So though there are several stages, such a human and individual struggle should not be looked at in terms of stages to be accomplished, like a check list to be marked off upon completion. As everyone already knows, progress is beyond full description anyway. What is more important to see is that too much description and analysis cheapen the journey.
All of this, simply, consists of my snap-shots of a horrendous, yet wondrously expansive journey. I share them with you. But unless you have traveled a similar path, full appreciation will escape.
Mere snap-shots cannot do justice to the journey. The smell of the air. The lack of breath on occasion. The height and color of rogue waves can be painted, but the strength it took to hold on to the boat cannot. I was blinded by the lightning of my own anger. I was almost swallowed by the whale of my own inadequacy. Snap-shots help, but fail so miserably.
Why do we have trouble with that. "A picture is worth a thousand words." Certainly. That is why we take pictures, to capture the moment of great joy and meaning. Yet when we ourselves are hurting, it seems that no description can help until we are well on the way toward healing.
In any grief there is the search for finality, for some kind of resolution. In divorce, there are some unique elements that separate the grief of divorce from other types of loss.
Just as in death and every loss, we seek to free the departed from our needs for them. While love is usually affirmed and immortalized in death, the painful rejection in divorce often throws stones at any residual or resilient love. An almost irresistible force brings a temptation to reject and deny love.
Similar to death, but in a greater degree, the task of grief in divorce is to loosen some of the binding ties and free the departed from our needs‑‑without losing the love.
After the shock stage, a long way off, there looms the large Bridge of Finality that connects the edges of the huge Bay of Heartbrokenness. Into this bay the divorced person has been cast. As the divorced person paddles his or her small craft through the raging sea of emotions that love and rejection foment, survival means reaching and then passing under the Bridge of Finality.
One should never rush the boat. But the sooner the Bridge of Finality is approached and then passed, the more that healing will come. The farther past the bridge one can go, the more the heart has mended.
If I never pass under the bridge, then I will become entrenched in either self-pitying inadequacy, bitterness, or stoic self-denial. The resulting symptoms are usually a miserable singlehood, a rushed marriage or series of marriages (or promiscuous romping), or an obsession with reconciliation that is near manic.
Once past the bridge, the clearer the sailing will be. If I do my time well, time will often help place distance between my little craft and the Bridge of Finality.
The goal past the Bridge of Finality is simple and clear‑‑to become a land-lover again. Safe and secure from the raging tumult.
The waters of approach are the most difficult. After the first stage of shock, even looking at the Bridge of Finality is painful. During the approach, you do not truly begin to loosen the ties. The inner needs‑‑the open wounds as it were‑‑are so demanding.
The approach is not the time to look seriously at loosening the binding ties. Loosening the ties takes second place to survival during this time, for the effort is not on healing at all. The effort is expended upon surviving, and surviving means healthy expression. All effort is expended on energy management, expended on expression of the emotional turmoil wound up in the mainspring. Only as you approach the Bridge of Finality, and then as you pass it, can the loosening of the ties truly begin. The farther from the bridge you can go, the easier you will be able to loosen the binding ties that remain and free the departed from your needs.
The loosening of these ties in divorce is against nature. Like tacking the wind, you sail against the wind of nature, against your inner desire. This reversal of nature is imposed, not just by a legal decree, but by the will to survive.
I can see Rocky, now, punching the air, while the song, Eye of the Tiger, plays in the background. We all love the "will to survive" and long to be such heroes who, by shear force of will, overcome great odds and many adversaries. We love them, because in many ways we are heroes too. Much more than a fictitious Rocky, there many persons who are greater heroes. We could see them and know them, if the rest of us would just take time to listen and hear the enormous struggles of heart. Perhaps at WalMart or the local Texaco station, beside you, there stands a man or woman who has battled loneliness and brokenness on a greater and more threatening field of battle than did Rocky.
To loosen binding ties is a great battle. Perhaps you know what I mean.
In such loosening, you have to go against the love that holds so tightly. This is never natural, never a good and happy experience. This is more like the choice between the lesser of two evils. Painful. The weight of the binding ties are heavy. True love clings, yet reality pulls us forward. The mind knows. The heart rebels.
The reality of the divorce, the pain of separation, the bitterness over the lost dream . . . whatever‑‑the Bridge of Finality must be approached. This is happening. This is real. There is no way out, but I wish there was. Rocky shore to my left, dragons to my right. If I give up rowing, I will crash against the rock of bitterness or be swallowed whole by the whale of inadequacy. If I attempt to go back, I risk rejection again.
More than this, if I attempt to go back, I might lose my inner self and die. I might deny the truth or live a lie. I might give up what I should not give up, or make her give up what she should not give up.
Going back‑‑though a wish‑‑just cannot be done without complicating my life or her life. Though I want to, I must not look back. Yet I do anyway. I am not sure how to direct my heart in the midst of the reality facing me. The storm rages. So far removed am I from my normal struggles (Rom. 6:14-24).
Such is the approach toward finality. Slow though it may be, I would feel the temptation to curse those who rush me.
Though reluctantly, I am heading and must head for the Bridge of Finality.
Indescribable.
I will not lose my love for my ex-wife. But I have to set her free from my need for her. I have to see the finality of divorce, grieve, and look toward healing. But I do not want to. Back and forth I go. I resist finality. Even as I write. Facing my weaknesses and mistakes and insecurities is hard work. Giving up on hope in "us" is hard work. Against nature. Against my will. Beyond description.
My religion offers little help. I thank God for the few passages on divorce that do exist. I take comfort in my faith, attempt to shore up my faith, and ask God for help with my unbelief. What can I say, but that I am caught between wanting to hang on and wanting to move on past the bridge. I should not be hindered, nor should I be rushed. It is slow, has to be slow. But I want to hurry the pain. Yet, at the same time, I do not want to hurry.
Oh, what a wretched man am I.
During the approach to the Bridge of Finality, again, there are only a few if any binding ties that can be loosened. Though no longer a shock, the word that could describe the approach to the Bridge of Finality would be "struggle."
Rowing through the cold night winds. My arms are sore, my mind cloudy. I tire easily. My hands blister at the oars. Concentration is difficult. Damn the rain and the cold. I look back. I look forward. Back. Forward. Back. Forward.
The sheer struggle of it all is crazy making maze of emotion. The loss of sleep in insomnia. The unending hours late at night. Then there would be sleepiness without end. There is some disorientation and confusion. I no sooner crest a wave than find that the wave has placed me closer toward the rocky shore. One day, I could go and eat out alone. The next I did not feel like eating most of the day.
Row, Row, Row. The wind blows and the rain falls. Row, Row, Row. "God, you are not all of what I expect right now." "I do not really like you, God, for all that you are doing." "Surely there is an end somewhere to all this rowing." "And I am not sure I want to find an end at all." "Oh, God, I know you are there, somewhere. Help thou my unbelief."
There is a great fear. For in the approach to the bridge, there is a whirlpool that is small at times. At other times it is a huge maelstrom. The incomprehensible nature of my fear is not so much in the whirlpool itself. The fear is at my own desire to let go of the oars and allow the maelstrom to suck me into its core of anger and bitterness.
For I am tired of rowing toward finality. I just want to quit. Since I lost her, what good could my rowing do anyway. I will not find another. And it is so hard to row in the wind and rain.
Row I must. For I cannot give up. But I want to sometimes.
Though my heart seems to tell me it is the end of the world, my mind and eyes tell me it is not the end of the world. Look ahead, yonder is the Bridge of Finality. Others have made it. Somewhere there is life‑‑life somewhere beyond the Bridge of Finality. If I can only get to it.
Row, Row, Row. The wind blows and the rain falls.