Some may have already proceeded
to a another stage of divorce healing.
You may already be on the positive side of finality, and you can offer a
hope. If you feel as though you have
indeed recovered and healed from your tragedy, I would ask that you keep that
under your belt, at least for the time being.
Bear witness to the hope you feel.
But be aware that someone more vulnerable could be intimidated.
Your confidence and claim can
overrun another still searching, still in the shock stage. For such a tender person‑‑though
looking finality in the face (as you see), such a person most likely does not
want finality. Remember, that is
normal. Forcing that person into your
stage is wrong and unhealthy and painful for them. Unchristian too. Do not
forget those pushy persons you encountered.
Instead, as you proceed, lend a
subtle and gentle ear. Listen closely
and patiently. Wasn't the greatest
comfort that you received, received from those who respected you in your
tragedy? Who honored you with a
listening ear?
For many of you, as it was for
me, you may have asked the question, "Is this really happening to
me?"
There are many questions like
it. If you were in love, divorce is a
crisis. If you were married in the
biblical, traditional, and committed sense, then divorce was major surgery. Your heart was broken in two, laid bare to
the elements of a cruel world.
The more you loved and the more
your marriage meant to you, the worse and more painful was the divorce. Your emotional home burned down. Your relational life was scattered as if to
a foreign land. The familiar landmarks
changed radically. And, oh, what of the
children?
Added to all of this is the
vulnerability. Anytime a heart is
broken and laid bare to the world, there will be those emotional buzzards that
will pick at the soft spots. The carnivores
that will chew at the hard spots. As
allegiances shift, the standard coping skills fail. Predators lurk to take advantage of the weak.
Woe, woe unto the BrokenHeart
that has no warm home into which to go after dark.
The shock stage is most clearly
seen when the decision by the first party has been made and which the second
party has received. The couple then
struggles with the mental permanence of the decision, and acceptance of the
likelihood of permanence may be delayed in the second party. More often than not, though, this mental
permanence is a separate issue from the final acceptance of the decision in the
heart. The distinction between the
mental permanence and the final acceptance in the heart will be shortly
illustrated as the Struggle with Finality.
The shock stage could have been
short for one party. As in an abusive
situation, the decision to separate was likely preceded by shock; after the decision, there was little
struggle with permanence. Later,
because of love, the struggle with survival and finality proceeded toward some
kind of resolution.
Usually, the second party deals
with shock in a more classical kind of grief pattern: the first party's decision struck hard, was unbelievable at
first. A whirlwind of confusion and
hurt and rejection pummel mind and heart.
There are many questions asked
in the shock stage of divorce. Is this
really happening to me? No, no, this
cannot be happening to me‑‑can it?
Why me? I am so confused, what
shall I do? I don't know if I can
survive. How will my spouse survive without
me?
If you were the defendant, then
you asked yourself these questions:
"Why can't we work this
out?"
"Can't you be biblical
and forgive?"
"Why don't we seek some
counseling?"
"Why are you doing this
to me?"
And when the divorce came, you
may have asked,
"Was this all my
fault?"
"Am I truly and solely to
blame for all this?"
"Will I ever be happy or
whole again?"
No, no, no. Or you might attempt to prove your wholeness
by a complete avoidance. Worse still,
you might attempt to prove you are whole by grabbing and clinging to the first
accepting set of arms.
If you were the plaintiff or
petitioner, then you may have said or asked these questions,
"I love but can't live with
__?__."
"I wish there was a way
to make __?__ change."
"This seems to be the
only answer, but why do I feel guilty?"
"Why did __?__ make me do
this?"
"I wonder if I am doing
the right thing?"
If you were truly married, then
the first stages of your divorce were a shock to the very depth of your
soul. When we talk about divorce, we
are not talking about a decision of the judge and the slam of a gavel or even
the retention of a final decree. We are
talking about a whole process: stated
above as the dissolution of a commitment between a biblically married couple
(from first thoughts, to separation, through the courts, shock, movement in
healing, and onward beyond some kind of finality).
Some of you may not have felt
any shock at all when the gavel fell.
Some of you may have cried when you went home that night with the
decree. Some of you may have indeed
felt a sense of relief.
Regardless, if you were truly
in love with the person you married, the first stages of your divorce were a
shock, which may have meant months prior to separation. Which may have meant months prior to the
slam of the gavel. For some the divorce
of hearts may have come months or years prior to the decree.
For others the shock stage may
have begun when you suddenly found divorce papers on the table when you came
home one day.
Again, divorce is a process
that most likely began before the gavel fell and may certainly extend beyond
the moments of legal decision.
Regardless of whenever your divorce began for you, in the first stages
there was some denial and numbness and disbelief: this is the shock stage.
"Is this really happening to me?"
This is natural. This is also crucial to recognize.
Recognizing the shock stage is
a major step forward. Regardless of
whether you are in shock now or whether it is well past you, recognition of the
shock phase is crucial. If you still
sense the need for some healing, looking back and identifying the shock stage
will be very informative and helpful.
This is especially needful if you are the victim of several divorces
where true love was present. Any such
redirection in life, any such turn in the road is a shock and major trauma to
the inner person. Looking at how the
shock affected you can be some of the most informative parts of the journey
toward adaptation and healing.
Such a shock shakes the
individual to the foundations of his or her soul. Identifying this stage is the identification of a major turning
point. Looking at the epicenter of the
quake, the fault lines, and the after shocks inform the geologist about the
constitution of the earth. Viewing the
shock of divorce will inform us about the constitution of our personhood and
inner self: the strong and weak
features that had been hidden till now.
The fault lines and aftershocks will help map out areas of danger and
areas of safety in the next relationship or in singleness.
Taking stock of the seriousness
of the shock-trauma is a major step forward‑‑like taking stock of
just how serious the open wound is or just where the amputation needs to take
place. Doctors do this daily and suffer
dire consequences to both their consciences and pocketbooks for any
misdiagnoses. Even if you are well past
the shock stage, looking back at your shock and how you responded are important
to healing, especially if the broken bone was set crooked.
The shock phase of my divorce
lasted several months. Finality was not
coming to me very easily. Not at all,
actually. I was a stubborn sod (or a
bit obsessed). I did not want
finality. And for me, no sense of
finality would come until many months after the slam of that judge's
gavel.
We are so very close to the
issues, so much closer to the person.
We wish we could avoid the subject altogether, for its very thought
brings pain. Like a smoldering fire in
our chest that no cold shower can extinguish, so is the struggle of our
BrokenHeart.
I resist change, deny hurt,
shield pride, and blame, blame, blame.
I am in shock, but not really. I
have entered into the wasteland.
Between the shock phase and the last struggles with finality, the
BrokenHeart makes its most noble efforts.
As the permanence of decision
settles, a struggle with finality begins.
This struggle with finality is the most confusing (impossible to fully
describe). Such is the uniqueness of
each heart. The exit from the shock
stage is seen in the permanence of decision, and entrance into the struggle
with finality is seen in the struggle of heart with the consequences of the
decision. See the diagram below.
http://www.preciousheart.net/images/DvProc-Fig-3-jpg.jpg
We understand the decision‑‑whether
the first or second party‑‑but only after the permanence of the
decision is resident in the heart will the heart be able to deal with the
consequences. By consequences, we do
not mean the simple logistics of the court and finances (though these are
difficult). By consequences, we mean
the struggle of heart and soul of a person who has to depart from a life-style
and from a loved one.
The largest struggle is not
with the physical logistics of the separation, be they ever so cumbersome in
themselves. The largest struggle takes
place in the invisible realm of heart and soul, in the near mystic realm of
social and emotional ties. The struggle
is with a change of direction in the heart.
An eternal love that has a natural inclination to endure must now run
against nature to adapt itself either to getting needs met from somewhere else
or to changing the needs themselves.
The struggle with finality is a
struggle with a new kind of heart settlement.
How can a love that has developed into an eternal love face rejection
from the loved one? How can an eternal
love take comfort from the need for survival?
So many more questions could be asked.
Words fail us. Only those who have traveled such a road
understand. Though permanence is
understood, with the struggle with finality, there is a heart struggle that
continues toward healing. But not
really. For the struggle with finality
resists healing and resolution of every kind.
In accepted grief work with the
dying, after shock there is anger, bitterness, and a sadness that works toward
resolution. Yet the finality of death,
the finality itself becomes an ally to a healing resolution as does the
acceptance of death as the universal destiny of all humankind. We discuss some comparisons later.
In divorce, finality is
protracted and resisted. The heart that
has loved and grown in love, then must learn to live without the expression of
love to the loved one. The heart and
mind and life must learn how to live with what has become an eternal love
without an expression of love. Or with
a greatly reduced or permanently reduced love.
This is not so in death, where
finality is forced by the immediacy and permanency of the loss. While love struggles with expression in a
similar way, the dissimilarity is in the reception of love. As will be seen later, death usually
enshrines love, and divorce invariably changes the love itself.
At this point in the divorce
process, the struggle with finality is where the heart goes through its most
noble struggles with faith and life itself.
The whole institution of marriage is questioned. The nature of love. Men?
Women? What is actually of value
to heart and soul? The greatest battles
with self-discovery take place during the struggle with finality.
In death, where there was a
pathological dependence upon the dead loved one, there is a struggle with life
and the nature of love that could be considered tantamount to the struggle in
divorce. But even with a pathological
dependence, the protracted and uncertain nature of divorce force the struggle
to last longer and to go deeper than in the struggle of grief in death. The broken trust, the redirection of an eternal
love, and the resistance to letting go force a noble heart to struggle with
finality in the fashion of a person struggling to survive in a wasteland. See the following poem.
The Wasteland
In a wasteland,
Thirst and hunger go on for days without relief.
In every direction,
There are only cacti and tumbleweeds.
As the tongue clings to the mouth and
The lips dry out from a lack of use and no moisture,
The body wearies of the journey.
Mirages begin to appear in the distance.
But the water spots turn out to be nothing,
Nothing more than illusions
Created out the need of the moment.
After a while, you get desperate.
One is tempted to draw water from anywhere,
To draw water with abandon
Without concern
To draw from the parched sand itself
To draw water without concern
For personal safety or social scrutiny.
Just to quench the dire thirst,
You will draw from the contaminated pond
or find yourself digging in the dry dirt.
Denying the prickling needles,
you chop up a cactus.
Suitable animals for food are too fast and too few.
The only hope in the wasteland . . .
Is . . . getting out or being rescued.
In the struggle with finality,
there is little hope for either exit or rescue.
In coming to a workshop or in a
book on divorce, you are making a statement.
That is, you are already on the road toward healing. Maybe unsure. Maybe insubstantial.
Maybe no true growth at all.
Still confusing.
You have said,
"YES." You have begun. You have begun to take some responsibility
in your healing. The shock is
past. But what is the future?
There is no pain quite like
that of a divorce. Quite like the
experience of unrequited love. Quite
like loving someone who cannot love or who has quit loving you. Rejection.
Betrayal. Anger. Loneliness.
Insecurity. Fear. Confusion.
Depression.
Words, words, words. Is there no end?
Hate and Love perspire and
bring a foul stench. There are times
when the very concepts of love and hate seem ugly and hated. There are times when just the word,
"hate," can open a trap door of the heart and in flows a flood of
images that sum up all the bitterness and disappointment. There are times when just the word,
"love," brings a dagger to the heart as if to wound every dream and
hope and affection. These two words, so
common, become catch phrases in expression as the heart purges the pain. No person or power can pull us from the
perspiring stench of these words.
Expression upon expression‑‑the
mainspring releases the heartache through inner then outer bouts with
survival. Our desire keeps us in
tow. In tow to where? Toward our beloved? Toward a separation? Toward a reconciliation? Toward a resolution? All the while, our aloneness grasps at the
apparition of our beloved. At the same
time our fury pushes us away. Our
confusion and dismay chain us to the present.
I have learned so much about my
inner self, about my weaknesses and strengths through my divorce. The depths of my own love were tested.
According to my wife, I did not
love her enough. A painful
confrontation like that from one you love will reveal some very tender
areas. It did for me. How painful they must have been for her to
say. How a tailspin could be entered
here on who loved who, who denied who, and who did not love who. What a mess.
What a wasteland. The most heartfelt teardrop dries before it
touches the ground. I am so separated
that my groan is never heard.
All of my courage‑‑it
will take all of my courage to focus on my own feelings, my own love, my own
loss. But I must look at my own
heart-struggle. I must look hard and
look steadfastly through the fog of my own illusions and inadequacies at my own
heart-struggle. It is difficult to
avoid a complete denial, or on the other hand, difficult to avoid
obsessing. I do not know the difference
at times. But I must stay with the
struggle for as long as it takes.
There is a song out called
"Achy Breaky Heart." Do
everything but tell the heart. Because
if you do, that heart just might explode and kill this man. Those Country and Western songs have such a
way.
Despite the difficulty, one
thing I do know: I will move more
easily toward adaptation in the company of an open person, a person who can be
with all of me. Nevertheless, I may not
find such a high-quality person all the time or precisely when I need him or
her. They are not everywhere, that is
certain. You and I, both of us would be
fools to trust just anyone with everything that we are in our dark hours.
For if I am convinced of one
thing in life, this is it: there are
more people who cannot listen than there are who can. The sphere of my own risking is limited only to those in whom I
have some amount of trust. Even then I
am sometimes disappointed. Likewise
within my limited sphere of associations, there are many who cannot‑‑no
fault of their own‑‑be as open and caring and tolerant as Jesus
would have been. In fact there is no
one. But thank God for those who tried.
I cannot blame others or life
itself for not providing me with more persons who could be like Jesus. How often we fail to be what is needed for
each other in the wasteland.
But I am thankful, indeed
indebted, to those who tried to be what Jesus might have been. The challenge remains mine. It will continue to take courage. Healing will not be forced upon me. Another thing I have learned is to
appreciate more deeply that we are all limited and frail.
So I can most confidently say,
if direction is found in the wasteland, direction will come through the warm
heart of another.
I failed with respect to what I
thought I knew about my strength in many areas. After having been single for so many years, I never thought I
would miss her as much as I did. Let me
emphasize that: I never, never had any
idea.
I was clueless. Never in my wildest imagination did I think
or believe I would miss her so much.
Never. So words of separation
were easy for me. I thought I could
just say, "Goodbye," and walk away anytime. "Well, then, if . . . then I guess it is
over," flowed fairly easily.
How I must have hurt her. How terrible I feel for having said those
words.
In retrospect, my ignorance of
my own inner self was so great. Writing
about the ignorance is very embarrassing.
But write about this I most certainly must. For that area of self-ignorance was one of the several minor
areas. I am too embarrassed to reveal
the more important. And I am still
learning.
My fears and insecurities were
made as real as the trees in my back yard.
I was aware of them before. Sure
was. Now I walked hand in hand with these
trees of insecurity and fear. I climbed
a few of them. I tripped over a few
fallen ones. Had a few of them fall on
me. As a counselor, myself, I saw for
the first time how painful the loss of a love can be.
And . . . damn
. . . it hurt. Bad, bad,
bad.
You see, I had never fallen in
love with any woman quite like I had fallen in love with my ex-wife. I suppose that is the way it always is and
should be. Nevertheless, I had no idea
before what a true BrokenHeart felt like.
For a counselor, that is a good experience (though I am not suggesting
that a good counselor needs a BrokenHeart).
Anyway, I will never again
approach a BrokenHeart in the same way my former ignorant self would have. In the experience gained, I feel a powerful
growth in compassion. I will continue
to grow from this pain.
The incredible pain of loving
without having that love accepted or returned cannot be adequately
described. I feel that my ex-wife would
say the same thing. For one of our
differences was that she too felt unloved.
She felt I was rejecting her love and not loving her, and I felt she was
rejecting my love and not loving me.
This contradiction of each other made the pain worse for both of
us. Though it was impossible for either
of us to accept.
What makes matters even worse
is what goes deeper than the words.
Though I would like to believe the words and believe even in the painful
contradiction, in my heart, I cannot believe that she truly loved me (though I
wish). I think?
For her too. This is what she said. The contradiction between us was
insurmountable.
Does she feel this way
too? Judging intentions is circular.
Beyond the words. Maybe.
Maybe not. How confusing. Beyond the words and the limits of our language
and our abilities in communication, how else can the heart show feeling?
To my inner self, how she feels
is not nearly as important to my healing as what I believe she feels. For her too. How much more painful it all becomes when the divorced person
cannot any longer believe that the departed truly loved him or her?
But right after saying all
this, I want from the depths of my being to believe her. When she said she truly loved me, loved me
in the sense of I Corinthians 13, I want to believe she loved me with an
enduring love. I will always want to
believe this. Just as with the
"cannot believe" above, there are times that in spite of everything,
I will believe she truly loved me.
Whether true or not.
How rough these waters
are.
With the likelihood of
reconciliation ever receding and the forced look toward the Bridge of Finality,
I may never know the whole truth of her love.
How circular this becomes, like getting caught in a whirlpool, where my
little craft is whipped round and round in the Bay of Heartbrokenness.
This is the loneliest hour.
Words and songs, poetry and
music fail to describe the pain of rejected love when the rejection is
obvious. That is clear. When such contradictions are added, where
the love given is called false‑‑the pain is much worse. How much more torn is the person who
believed in the departed's love, then lost that belief, though he himself (she
herself) continues to love the departed?
Confusion upon hurt upon
confusion. How the riptide pulls and
the maelstrom swirls the emotions.
What happens when conspiracies
come? When some well thought of friends
facilitate the separation? When
allegiances shift out of the blue sky?
When your best friend cannot see you anymore? When family members console and tear down? When religious authorities bind or twist
motives? When what feels
"right" is declared "wrong"? When what feels "wrong" is declared "right"?
What happens when there is no
one, not a single friend or family member or associate in whom you feel
confident? When a confidant turns out
to be less trustworthy than you had hoped?
When neighbors and associates are caught in the crossfire?
Alone? Helpless?
Weak?
A few months after my wife left
and just a few weeks after some papers were tendered, I was out of town and
alone in a park on a moderately warm April day. I wrote the following in an expression of my pain, fittingly
entitled I believe.
L O N E L I N E S S
From the very essence of my living
Is pulled the rough substance of my being,
And I groan deep inside with a screaming
As if to scratch from the darkness a seeing.
Thrown onto the hot pavement it crackles
As helpless I sit here in these shackles,
Listening to what seem like rude cackles.
For the absence of a love becomes crude
As even the furniture seems to brood
While the heart attempts to become shrewd.
And the shackles become even tighter
As one's essence crackles even brighter,
Struggling so hard to become a fighter.
Upon the pavement, I watch its slow glow,
Shackled as I ponder what I do know
That my way it will never again blow.
I leave the ashes of my essence there,
Attempted to cover my heart laid bare,
Shielding a blood-curdling scare.
To claw and scratch in this darkness weary,
Becomes a task that makes each day dreary,
That at the day's end leaves the eyes teary.
For a vacancy never before filled,
Is a vacancy that cannot be drilled,
A vacancy that won't be taxed and billed.
But once the room is filled, then vacated--
And with the drilling was fabricated--
Then the deep hole can never be placated,
When two hearts--once one--are separated.
Oh, how I hurt. How angry, sad, confused, and worried I
felt. How helpless. Ambivalent.
Is this really happening to me ?
Oh, how Jesus must have hurt as
he looked down from the cross. How God
must have hurt when he saw his son on the cross. How heavy the duty must have felt as he moved to the cross all
alone and with no one understanding.
How God must hurt today.
The positive aspect to your
presence in this chapter is that you are on the road toward healing. You have found direction in the
wasteland. You could not have endured
this without at least having said, "Yes," to the desire for
healing. In the loneliest hour you have
perceived a beacon.
Some of you may have been
working toward healing for a long time.
Some of you may have just begun.
Nevertheless, wherever you are, seeing the need for healing is an
approach towards some kind of finality.
With God's love, addressing the pain is the first and most substantial
step toward a tomorrow of hope and inner peace.