After the shock, I began the approach toward finality. After a significant and prolonged inner struggle, I arrived under the Bridge of Finality.
However, not everyone arrived at the same time. For some, it takes years. For others, in little love, it may have been a matter of months.
Betrayal or abuse or threats may have ushered in finality sooner. Made the passage quicker. Grief began well before the final decree. Even if you are still in love, because of some especially painful or abusive or betraying situation, finality came sooner. For someone else, the exit of the spouse may have simply forced him or her to look toward finality without any other clear reason than that spouse's absence and the reality of that spouse's rejection.
A great threat blew the sails of your small craft forward. The hastened journey seems quick compared to the extended venture of others. Such is the individual nature of grief. The length of the journey is not the concern.
In other divorces, there may not have been any great physical threat to life. Some may have been more forgiving and loving. Some more tolerant of the stress. For some strong persons the journey toward the bridge was extended. The endurance of the person may have protracted approach for a long time.
Misunderstanding and lack of communication tear at the soul. Love itself wants clarification and naturally clings to hope.
Regardless, when love is involved, finality never comes quickly. For one it may take many months, for another several years. The struggle is the same.
Reasons compound and elude and, therefore, delay arrival under the Bridge of Finality. Nevertheless, arrival cannot be pushed, should not be rushed. Love and the ideals of marriage naturally prevent a hasty arrival. All the while, impatience, anger, and selfishness push love and ideals aside; these want love to quit, push love out of the way.
Ironic as it might seem, this may be the reason some women last so long in abusive relationships. Love empowers many women to endure what most men would or could not endure. A good number of men cannot tolerate very much interpersonal abuse, because‑‑I believe‑‑they just cannot love as well. The other side of this coin is this: the woman who hangs on, hangs on because letting go of the husband is letting go of her primary source of self-worth.
What makes some men hang on so hard? Principles or tasks often empower many men to endure what most women would or could not endure through sheer principle. Many women cannot tolerate much placing of principles above interpersonal concerns, because (I think) they are not as principle- or task-driven. The other side of this coin is the man who values principles or tasks above human concern.
Notice the extremes. Note the gray areas.
In our society, there are gender differences and social tendencies, especially with respect to the interpersonal and to principles. Statistics bear out these facts: a much greater number of men than women will leave their families and children behind this year. A likewise disproportionate number of women will be the sole providers and primary caretakers of children in single family homes.
What is driving the men? Women?
Simply put, it seems our society more than most has quenched the enduring power of love in a good number of its men. Another embarrassing statistic bears out the ignoble principles to which many men have succumbed: across our nation, over 85% of the federal and state prison population is male.
But we can get way off track with this. We must not ignore the great number of men who love their wives and family with a great love‑‑a love that would sacrifice their own lives and personal pride in the preservation of their family. And there are a likewise great number of women who are as dedicated to quality principles and significant task accomplishments.
We affirm both love- and principle-driven lives.
The point in noting the disparity of focus is how dark the clouds can become in the Bay of Heartbrokenness. If a divorce is the result of an inability to communicate the different focuses, then how much more of a tumult will the couple face? In the heat of a divorce and after the shock stage, renegotiation of allegiances is not any easier when principles are ignored or when interpersonal sensitivities are offended.
Another point in noting the disparity is that even a hope for reconciliation can delay arrival under the Bridge of Finality. Hope itself can continue to drive one back to old ways of communicating. To believe in a return to Eden. To deny the reality of the offenses.
The journey toward finality is fraught with many perils.
The first illusion that needs to be jettisoned is the belief that everyone sees the world in the same way. Therefore, the first of the binding ties to be loosened just may be below the surface of my own faulty expectations in styles of communication.
Regardless of the delay‑‑because of love‑‑arrival under the bridge does not have to end all hope of reconciliation any more than arrival means an end to the love in one's heart. Said in another way, if love can be shut off, then it was not true love to begin with.
Though some already know, others may question just what is meant by "finality." This finality that we search for is that state of mind and heart‑‑though still painful‑‑where we are fairly certain that the separation is serious and probably permanent. The separation cannot be resolved in reunion without some significant changes or compromises. While the heart may still struggle, at least the mind knows and has some confident resolution that the break just may be beyond repair. The fantasies of a return to Eden have almost ended, though one or two might still occasionally crop up.
The mind has seen so much. There were personal joustings of betrayal, abuse, rejection. There were rude behaviors in arguments, phone hang-ups, threats. There was avoidance in absences, secrets, double-dealing, misunderstanding. All in all, the communication was sloppy, and there was so much hurt, miscommunication. That hope of reconciling the former status quo is no longer reasonable.
The emotions have been ridden hard and put up comfortless too many times. The very absence of your spouse has forced a permanence upon your solitude. Once under the bridge, though the heart may still cling to a heavenly castle, the mind has touched down.
If you have navigated the approach to the Bridge of Finality successfully, then you have passed through whirlpools and maelstroms of bitterness, anger, self-doubt, and deep distrust. Though the memories of these dark times are still fresh as an open wound, though the emotions still crash in on occasion, you no longer become dizzy and lose control. The whale of inadequacy still nudges the boat, but he is tiring of the chase. You have found a few friends with whom to share, friends or family who are open enough to listen with compassion.
However, unsuccessful navigation has some likewise clear and unmistakable marks. Bitterness and anger are foremost. Popping off at friends with little provocation. Wanting to hide. A deep and almost uncontrollable distrust. Resolutions to either isolation or flagrancy. Stereotyping all men or women. An almost uncontrollable anger or bitterness (openly expressed or not) toward persons like your ex-spouse.
Similar to some deaths, there is a churning of negative emotions. Yet in a sordid and twisting way, this very churning is another aspect of divorce that makes it distinct from death and unique among all of the losses encountered in life. Though hard to fully understand by anyone who has not traveled the road, it is quite natural that anger, bitterness, and distrust result. What makes divorce so distinct is the results of the emotional churning: stereotyping a gender, a radical change in the divorced person's personality, or something worse.
The results of the churning pain cannot be painted clearly.
In a very crude comparison, who would trust any daycare center if there was a single instance of his child being abused or assaulted? If you have ever been robbed, you never again would leave your home without checking it over. If you have ever been the victim of an assault, you are always more careful.
In a divorce, you have for the most part been betrayed and assaulted after you have made yourself most vulnerable. To extend the crude and inadequate analogy, in divorce you yourself have placed your most precious relationships‑‑the children‑‑in the hands of an abuser. All that you own and all of your daily activities are known to the thief. For some poor souls, the home itself is the very place where physical assaults take place.
There is no way to explain the affect of an assault to someone who has been sheltered all of his or her lives. To a far greater degree, divorce is devastating to the soul in a manner comparable to the most severe tragedies. Such tragedies call us to be sensitive at the very least. Our fears escalate. Caution widens. It is natural that some anger and distrust and possibly some stereotyping would result.
If these emotions were part of the temperament when the marriage began, how much harder will be the task of working beyond the contrary emotions after a divorce? We are in a world that is so inclined to make one distrust and hide anyway. How hard the task becomes for even the most astute. How much harder becomes the task for one who has endured the greatest kind of heart-betrayal so often present in divorce?
Being poor and having to struggle to survive add an even greater burden. To have to endure everything alone? And, oh, pray for the children. Mere survival would be an accomplishment worthy of the Nobel Prize.
Landing under the Bridge of Finality is a significant event and is also marked by several characteristics. The struggle is not over. The pain is still with us. Nevertheless, the pictures and other memorabilia no longer cause the sickness of revulsion or the strain and longing. The shock and disbelief are past. The emotional roller coaster has fewer turns now, and we are well past all of the double loops and unexpected swoops that dismay and confuse. There are no more whirlpools or heart-wrenching maelstroms.
If you married late, then past the Bridge of Finality, you have begun to do what you once did before the relationship. If you married young and kind of grew through adulthood with your spouse, then past the Bridge of Finality, you have begun to develop a new kind of social comfort; that is, you have developed skill in your singleness. In either case, you have come to the point where you can carry on your social life for extended periods of time without the burdening or distracting thoughts of the departed. Not completely. Not altogether.
If you are somewhat past the Bridge of Finality, then there is no more hour-by-hour obsession. The inner dialogue is not constant anymore. Some kind of resolution has come. And you are not sure just when this came about, for you were not on a schedule of healing and expression.
When one comes under the Bridge of Finality, some healing has taken place. Perhaps some of the wound has stopped bleeding, and the bone has started to reset itself. For the first time, the divorced is actually and truly looking toward healing.
No matter how successful the approach (with or without the baggage of bitterness, anger, etc.), and no matter how you got there‑‑you have arrived under the bridge when the issue of reconciliation at least seems to be accepted in the heart, not just on paper or in the mind.
Being under the Bridge of Finality is a peculiar place. Often, it is a surprising place to be. News of the arrival just sort of dawned on the heart. One day‑‑without notice, like a Spring rain. Unusual. Bizarre. Curious. Maybe even cool and fresh.
Maybe even disappointing. It was for me.
Almost like going through the shock stage again, the mind and heart renegotiate the thought of arrival. The struggle has gone on for so long. Then a few days or few weeks go by that seem unusually calm. In retrospect, you look back over the last few days or weeks, then you peer at the present moment. The reality of having arrived under the Bridge of Finality comes into the light.
You are not told. You did not plan. Neither you nor anyone else could have brought you here. Only as a result of your continual struggle with the love in your heart‑‑one day, you simply and quietly arrived. Peculiar place.
Like seeing something new in the neighborhood for the first time. Like perceiving a novel idea. Like solving a puzzle. The fact of separation, the circumstances of the divorce, all the pain, the rejection, the misunderstandings‑‑all seem to make some kind of cruel sense now. In the balances between the hope of reconciliation and the need for hope in a future without your spouse, hope of reconciliation has lost some significant weight.
Your deep inner need and hope of a positive future without him or her sort of pushes up from some inner well. Your will to survive sort of plunges into your consciousness the reality of arrival under the Bridge of Finality. Finally, though there are still some chest pains, the mortal wound in the heart has closed.
For the time being, at least from all observable angles, hope of reconciliation is not a viable option. Communication may still exist, but the only kind of reconciliation that will be negotiated beyond this point will be a new and fresh kind of relationship; that is, there will not be any more hope of a return to a previous status quo.
Another hope has begun to push up from the inner resources of the soul, a hope in a future somewhere yet to be. The reality of separation and the need for survival have forced the survivor to look toward the future for hope. A future reconciled with the spouse, a future alone or even a future with another spouse (a spouse yet-to-be met). This other hope is now impelling you forward.
You are not merely surviving anymore. You are a survivor. You have found the "Eye of the Tiger." Your will has some grit to it. "And about time," you think.
Does this mean forever alone? Does this mean no hope of reconciliation exists? Does this mean that no communication should even be considered? Does this mean that no consideration should be given to another? Not at all.
But let us not get side-tracked. The future with or without or with another is not the issue‑‑and should not be the issue. We simply mean that the survivor has reached a state of mind and heart‑‑though still painful‑‑where they are fairly certain that the separation is serious and permanent. That the person has come to own more responsibly their aloneness, however dark that might be.
Said in another way, if you have come under the Bridge of Finality, then you have lost almost all hope of things returning to the place where they once were. The dream has crashed. It crashed hard. Not only has a realistic appraisal of the crash begun, but the appraisal is in the last stages. At least by the party looking toward healing, he or she is a survivor.
If in that party there remains some residual hope for a reconciliation‑‑way down deep where true love still flickers‑‑that residual hope no longer looks to a return to Eden. Once under the Bridge of Finality, though still painful, one has come to at least one conclusion with a solid assurance. There will be no return to Eden. Any residual hope for reconciliation that exists, exists solely in a hope in the future; toward a hope of change, a hope of compromise, or a hope of renegotiation.
Otherwise, there will be no reconciliation.
For the person who has come under the Bridge of Finality, the only kind of reconciliation that can exist is that based on love. Love sees potential but not a return. Though there will be no return, love will retain some kind of hope and belief in the potential for a new level of relationship. For the person under the Bridge of Finality, there is no return to Snowy River, only the making of a new home. A new home alone, reconciled, or with another.
Truly, with finality in hand, you have begun an honest and realistic appraisal of the crashed dream. That is what being under the Bridge of Finality is all about. Taking an honest look at the dream that has crashed. Finding what your ex-spouse meant to you. Seeking to identify the significant binding ties and loosening them.
To sum up: the shock of divorce has long been passed. You have crossed the troubled waters of the Bay of Heartbrokenness and arrived under the Bridge of Finality. The damage of the waves and the swirling of the whirlpools and maelstroms have left you weary and damaged. But you have learned, grown, and become a better person for the journey.
This comes by way of a few warm and open persons, persons who were similar to Jesus to you. Who cared about all of you in your need.
Finality has come.
In the process, grief tasks one and two have worked together hand in hand. You have identified what your spouse had come to mean and some of the needs she or he met in you. You have identified some of the binding ties in the discovered meaning. In identifying the binding ties, you began to loosen them. Sometimes they were loosened in the very identifying, but others took more struggle. Nevertheless, once under the Bridge of Finality, with self-discovery and expression upon expression‑‑inward and outward‑‑a couple of major ties were loosened.
I feel I am in fact surviving. Within my heart there is a living and growing hope.
The most important binding tie that was loosened, though, was in the arrival at the Bridge of Finality. For on arrival, we at last let loose of a realistic hope of reconciliation. With this, true and deep and meaningful healing began.
Through hard rowing in the wind and rain you arrived under the Bridge of Finality. On the way you learned the currents of bitterness and longing. You met the whale of inadequacy, and you were swirled round in whirlpools and maelstroms of anger and fear. The cliffs and rocks of offense and miscommunication jogged your small boat.
Till now, the healing that you thought had taken place is somewhat illusory. What has taken place on the way toward the Bridge of Finality is sort of like learning to walk through a path of broken glass bare-footed. The dream crashed, leaving broken pieces everywhere. On the way to finality, you learned how to walk bare-footed across the room where all the broken glass lay.
You have learned the path from room to room, and you can walk without cutting your feet. There is a success in this. But this is not quite healing or growth. This is survival. Now I must begin the honest and realistic appraisal of the crashed dream, making sense out of all the broken pieces. One piece at a time.
Negotiating the broken pieces without cutting my feet is a significant accomplishment. Congratulations are due me. My confidence has a boost, boosted in proportion to my level of navigational skill. This accumulated skill is what becomes the illusion of healing. I have control. There is little uncontrolled anger, bitterness, depression, and stereotyping. I am not losing any more sleep.
Yet the mess of the crashed dream is still all over the floor of my heartbroken life. Once under the Bridge of Finality, I can now see some of the mess more clearly. And only under the bridge can an honest appraisal of the broken pieces begin.
No other place is right, nor should one be forced early.
Healing begins here. Whether I ever encounter the opportunity to consider reconciliation, whether I ever risk marriage with another, or whether I pursue singleness‑‑wherever‑‑true healing and adaptation to my BrokenHeart begins here under the Bridge of Finality.
Unfortunately, some have come under the bridge and remained there. They have learned to walk through the broken pieces and have come to believe they are actually and fully healed. They have not yet made the distinction between survival and healing.
The most substantial growth commences at the Bridge of Finality. The divorce process ends beyond the Bridge of Finality when a higher level of loving begins. See the diagram below illustrating the whole divorce process.
The Bridge of Finality is reached when acceptance of the separation takes place in the heart. This is the beginning of significant and meaningful growth. The struggle with finality is almost over. With acceptance of separation in the heart, it is just a short time before you move into a frame of mind and heart where a higher level of loving begins. As you accept separation and love the departed, the forces of healing have come full circle; self-discovery has revealed deep insights, and expression has been released to a satisfying degree. And love's eternal nature has not only been kept intact, it has been forged, as it were, into a more informed and solid affection.
No person can spotlessly sweep his or her life. The goal is not to sweep the house completely. That would be impossible. Nor is the goal to learn how to walk faster and faster through the pieces. The goal is to get the big pieces off the floor.
For instance, you may resign yourself to a lonely and bitter life that could never risk being vulnerable to love again. That may be all right in and of itself, especially as you get older. The Apostle Paul affirms singleness. The likelihood of finding a suitable life-partner decreases for a good many folk. Nor is there anything innately wrong with singleness. But if you remain single or search out a mate because of the bitterness, well then, there are still some very large broken pieces.
One could resign his or herself to a life of sporadic encounters without any depth‑‑running away scared each time a certain degree of depth or vulnerability has been touched. One could settle in on worthlessness (or selfishness), content to be used and abused (or to use and abuse) through varied encounters without being able to honestly commit again. One could opt for not taking any responsibility. Or one might get caught into a low level of . . . whatever. There is no end to this kind of speculation. If one moves into psychological labeling, then the entrenchment that labels foster might become an even more difficult quagmire to negotiate.
If I would move on past the Bridge of Finality toward a more secure tomorrow, toward a tomorrow as a stronger person, then I must deal with the crashed dream and the broken pieces. I must find the significant binding ties and loose them. To some extent, I must find my inner needs and free my ex-spouse from my need for her; I must free her from how she met my inner needs.
Never completely. Nevertheless, the larger broken pieces need to be swept up off the floor. There must be a clear path if I am to walk upright like a man again. If I am to adapt and be able to live a normal life again, then I must move to a higher level of living where my living is freed from a constant attendance to avoiding those broken pieces.
Among the several people I turned to, I only found a few who were willing and able to be warm and open. Only a few were close to what Jesus might have been: an open warmhearted friend that listened to all of me in all of my confusion and contradictions. Who attended to me without judgment.
Yet I could not fully give to any one of them. I feared overloading them. Overloading can push away even the best of friends, can make even the closest of families bitter. So I opened up to several, some more than others. How I wished I could have found someone in whom I could entrust with all of me. How much more I wished that person was my ex-wife in whom I could have fully confided (and I wish I could believe she would say the same thing).
Despite all, I learned something precious about life and
living. Something very precious. Some of what I have learned I try to carry
with me each time I sit down with another hurting soul. Of all the learning experiences gained
through my tragedies, including my divorce, this seems to be one of the most
valuable:
it is hard to approach what Jesus might have been to someone so hurt.
But we must try.
Several months into her absence, I wrote a poem reflecting some of my feelings. Though I was well past the shock stage, I had not yet come under the Bridge of Finality. But I was approaching. So painful. So confusing. Here is that poem.
The Hope-Trip . . . of a
BrokenHeart
Beyond the one you love to a lonely tomorrow,
Nothing can be seen but a heart filled with deep sorrow.
Here in the early morning dawn, I stand so very alone,
Grasping at air for a sun that had so brightly shone.
To understand the shading clouds of distrust and fear
Is like pulling from my heart a long and jagged spear.
But pull I must, lest the dawn turn quickly to dusk.
For, without the pulling, I may lose all my trust.
The day must and has to most assuredly arrive
When from the ashes I can see that I might survive,
When the dawn moves to mid-day and I can see the sun,
When among my friends I can have some semblance of fun.
So pull and struggle I most assuredly will
From this hole to come and climb my rugged hill.
For if bitterness is allowed to kindle within,
I will lose more and more of my friendship kin.
Doubts and fears, beat and cold every step of the way--
And several stand ready--energized--to cut and slay.
I hold onto the dawn with an ever increasing grip,
As on a weary road, so cruelly named The Hope-Trip.
For there's only one source of strength for my broken heart,
And with help from above and my tight grip, I will not part.
Through the dark clouds of my past I must set my scope,
Grasping, pulling, I must never--ever--lose sight of Hope.
Beyond all my many fears, I must unfurl my small sail,
Pushing through the waters--no matter if I feel so frail.
My confidence seems so thin so much of the time.
Yet a ray of hope does from the thunder clouds shine.
As a little boy with his father in a bright park,
A friend can help heal and rekindle a small spark.
And my heart does know that dawn will turn to bright mid-day,
As long as upon the path of friendship I do stay.
I penned that poem on a gloomy day. One of those days when the whirlpool whipped my craft about. But even though I was storm tossed, I was looking ahead. I was nearer finality than I had been in a long time. I was passing under the Bridge of Finality, but did not know it at the time. There was light down that tunnel, and I was walking toward it.