“Ugh, this two door car!” I thought to myself as I moved the seat forward to get my 2 year old daughter and her 6 month old sister into the back of my husband’s work car. Date night was worth it, of course. We had just had a much-needed few hours out without children as new parents for the second time. As I finished up with the car seat, something caught the corner of my eye - a small square of paper on the floor... a paper that would change all of our lives - forever. Even as I type it, my heart pounds in my ears almost as loudly as it did that evening before what I remember as one of the longest nights in my life. As I sat down in the front seat next to my husband who was backing our car down my parents’ driveway, I read this scrap of paper which happened to be a Hallmark receipt. It had two Valentine’s Day cards listed on it... only one of which I had received. It’s strange, now that I think about it. The cards were listed on the receipt according to what they were. I’ll never forget. The itemized receipt read: “For My Wife”, and the next line was the life-changing part... “For a New Love”. My mind whirled, and I felt sick to my stomach. That familiar feeling had become all-to-common a part of our relationship... I got it each time there was a new and “icky” surprise - something I had no idea about but found out by a little bit of investigation on my part or just plain carelessness on his part.
Sure, there was friction in our relationship. I mean, a few months after the birth of our first child, my brother-in-law (who also happened to be my husband’s brother - you do the math), had found a love note with lipstick on the windshield of my husband’s car. We were standing outside in our front yard when he spotted it and said, “Hey, Brett, there’s a note on your car.” Brett looked panicked as he went to retrieve it and took it quickly into the house. I stood there talking awkwardly with my brother-in-law about our landscaping with that same feeling...sick and nervous and deaf... and blind to anything but the path from my yard to the front door. I wanted so badly to run in and tear that note out of his hands and have some more idea of why things had been so “off” between us for the past 6 months - for months during and after my pregnancy. Turns out, his explanation of that note was that there was a creepy stalker-ish guy messing with him at work. I was completely incredulous, and my experience has been that liars tell you just a grain of truth at a time. They don’t want to spill it all at once. So they spoon-feed it to you like they're nursing a sick relative. They give you just enough truth to placate you for the time being until you finally find enough confidence to come out and say, “You’re lying. I don’t believe you. There’s more. What is it?” True to form, when I had asked to see the note he’d taken into the house, he refused to show it to me. Then he claimed he’d thrown it away. He let me go through trash cans until I couldn’t find it. Then he finally admitted to having flushed it down our bathroom toilet. So my response was, “Um, right, and he’s so deranged that he went through the trouble of buying and applying lipstick to write you a psychotic letter with intent to ruin your marriage, and that you didn’t SEE it on the way home from work?” That was the miracle, after all. I had prayed for months for answers to our marital problems. The fact he had been blind to that note on his car on his way home from work was the answer. It was the beginning of an answer. We stayed up virtually all night - me: trying to get to the bottom of WHO? WHAT? WHY? HOW MUCH? him: trying to convince me that I was crazy and in need of postpartum counseling for not believing him. I was pushing him away by my suspicion and fear, after all. What could he do but confide in someone who truly understood him? What else could he do but lean on someone who would “really believe” him when he said he loved her? “Do you love her??” I asked in agony. “No...not really.” “So I should believe you when you say you love me, like she does - even though you’re lying to her?” Things get all twisted. They get all messed up in the lines of communication when one or both of you are breaking your marriage vows, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the hideousness and humiliating ugliness that plagues the both of you. Since that first affair, we had worked things out - kind of. He had changed jobs to get away from his mistress...at my request. We had gone to marriage counseling together. The key things we hadn’t done: forgiven one another for past hurts and worked to rebuild genuine trust. That’s the stuff that comes later - if you commit to the hardest work you’ll ever do... rebuild a marriage that has broken down.
So - here we were... another child, 2 jobs, and a thousand more suspicions later... two people stuck in a car with our children in the back trying to talk calmly about that little square of paper. Trying to tuck in little ones... Trying to act like a family while our family was falling apart... not even that... while we were finally realizing that the real work of marriage - the loving unconditionally, the forgiving, the resisting bitterness, the hundreds of daily things we should have done to live out the love we claimed to feel - was something we had not done. The hundreds of daily things we should have guarded our marriage against... the lies, the temptations, the anger, the exchanging of “harmless” confidences with others, the busy-ness, the discontentment, the materialism... We just hadn’t. In reality, that scrap of paper was just the spark that lit the towering inferno of the fuel we had been building up in our marriage since it had started 7 years before.
Sure, there was friction in our relationship. I mean, a few months after the birth of our first child, my brother-in-law (who also happened to be my husband’s brother - you do the math), had found a love note with lipstick on the windshield of my husband’s car. We were standing outside in our front yard when he spotted it and said, “Hey, Brett, there’s a note on your car.” Brett looked panicked as he went to retrieve it and took it quickly into the house. I stood there talking awkwardly with my brother-in-law about our landscaping with that same feeling...sick and nervous and deaf... and blind to anything but the path from my yard to the front door. I wanted so badly to run in and tear that note out of his hands and have some more idea of why things had been so “off” between us for the past 6 months - for months during and after my pregnancy. Turns out, his explanation of that note was that there was a creepy stalker-ish guy messing with him at work. I was completely incredulous, and my experience has been that liars tell you just a grain of truth at a time. They don’t want to spill it all at once. So they spoon-feed it to you like they're nursing a sick relative. They give you just enough truth to placate you for the time being until you finally find enough confidence to come out and say, “You’re lying. I don’t believe you. There’s more. What is it?” True to form, when I had asked to see the note he’d taken into the house, he refused to show it to me. Then he claimed he’d thrown it away. He let me go through trash cans until I couldn’t find it. Then he finally admitted to having flushed it down our bathroom toilet. So my response was, “Um, right, and he’s so deranged that he went through the trouble of buying and applying lipstick to write you a psychotic letter with intent to ruin your marriage, and that you didn’t SEE it on the way home from work?” That was the miracle, after all. I had prayed for months for answers to our marital problems. The fact he had been blind to that note on his car on his way home from work was the answer. It was the beginning of an answer. We stayed up virtually all night - me: trying to get to the bottom of WHO? WHAT? WHY? HOW MUCH? him: trying to convince me that I was crazy and in need of postpartum counseling for not believing him. I was pushing him away by my suspicion and fear, after all. What could he do but confide in someone who truly understood him? What else could he do but lean on someone who would “really believe” him when he said he loved her? “Do you love her??” I asked in agony. “No...not really.” “So I should believe you when you say you love me, like she does - even though you’re lying to her?” Things get all twisted. They get all messed up in the lines of communication when one or both of you are breaking your marriage vows, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the hideousness and humiliating ugliness that plagues the both of you. Since that first affair, we had worked things out - kind of. He had changed jobs to get away from his mistress...at my request. We had gone to marriage counseling together. The key things we hadn’t done: forgiven one another for past hurts and worked to rebuild genuine trust. That’s the stuff that comes later - if you commit to the hardest work you’ll ever do... rebuild a marriage that has broken down.
So - here we were... another child, 2 jobs, and a thousand more suspicions later... two people stuck in a car with our children in the back trying to talk calmly about that little square of paper. Trying to tuck in little ones... Trying to act like a family while our family was falling apart... not even that... while we were finally realizing that the real work of marriage - the loving unconditionally, the forgiving, the resisting bitterness, the hundreds of daily things we should have done to live out the love we claimed to feel - was something we had not done. The hundreds of daily things we should have guarded our marriage against... the lies, the temptations, the anger, the exchanging of “harmless” confidences with others, the busy-ness, the discontentment, the materialism... We just hadn’t. In reality, that scrap of paper was just the spark that lit the towering inferno of the fuel we had been building up in our marriage since it had started 7 years before.
For those of you who’ve experienced a marital affair on either end, I don’t have to explain how I felt that night. For those who haven’t, I couldn’t explain it to you if I had the rest of my life to do it. You know how people say your whole life passes in front of your eyes right before you die? The same thing happens when your marriage starts to die. You see it all... and then you see the future. You see two kinds of futures. Neither of them is one you would ever choose. The first kind of future you see is one in which your joint belongings and the home you’ve loved and built together (our was literally a home we had designed and built together) become pawns in a half-and-half game played by lawyers and judges and an “ex” with a new, cute, younger wife. Worse, your beloved children - the ones God created with a part of you and a part of your spouse but who are their own unique, special, and amazing human beings you’ve ever known - are taken from you for HALF of their lives... half of their holidays, half of their weekends, half of their vacations from school... all spent away with a new “pseudo family”. You also picture yourself being replaced in the hearts and lives of your children as you sit at home alone eating whole meat-lovers, stuffed crust pizzas and half gallons of ice cream and not showering (not that I ever did that). :) You imagine yourself struggling to make ends meet and trying to find a good enough job to send them to a good school, live in a decent neighborhood, and give them as much as their other parent does. You picture trying to find quality time to console, instill your values into, and help repair your broken children. Then there’s the other future you picture... and, if you can imagine, it’s even scarier than that first future. It’s the one in which you choose reconciliation. The one in which you dig DEEP, find some way to forgive and try to trust again... one in which you live in constant fear of the next breach of trust and wonder if that’ll be the one that breaks you in half or destroys your marriage or both. I have lived through a type of both versions of these nightmarish futures. Looking back, there are a few things I wish I could tell my then-self and my friends and family about how to deal with the immediate aftermath of the knowledge of an affair.
To back-then me:
1) Don’t panic. Going off the deep end emotionally will lead you to say and do rash things that will only add to the pain and problems and will most likely lead to choices and words you can’t take back but will wish you could.
2) Don’t borrow more trouble than you already have. God will give you grace to get through each moment as you ask, but He won’t give you grace for something you may never have to face. He doesn’t need to do that. Don’t just take each day at a time. Take each moment at a time. Focus on the needs of that exact moment and nothing else.
3) Don’t say the “D” word. I know you want nothing more than to have a judge appear in your living room this very moment with divorce papers for you to sign - in theory, ending your pain immediately AND getting back at your spouse for being an awful human being. Uttering the word “Divorce” opens a Pandora’s box of emotions and utterances you’ll wish you could take back at some point. If you don’t say the word “divorce”, you can’t get one. You don’t want one... not yet. Wait until your emotions calm down so that you can rationally process and think through what a divorce will mean for you and your children and family relationships and even your friendships. Everyone you know will be affected by your choices about your marriage. This is a massive and momentous decision with repercussions that will last a lifetime and beyond. It should not be undertaken lightly.
4) Don’t go on the offensive. You are hurting. I get that. Right now you’re thinking of a hundred types of revenge and how you could get away with pouring sugar in gas tanks, slashing tires, and/or spray painting slogans on the houses and cars of the involved parties. You want to punch someone(s) in the face. That’s what pillows and punching bags are for. You want to scream at the top of your lungs. That’s what closets and secluded, heavily-wooded areas are for. Avoid taking out your anger, hatred, and frustrations in ways that have the potential to make your life more difficult by adding fuel to an inferno.
5) Journal. This is a journey for you and your children. Bad and difficult things are happening to you and them. Those things will continue to happen. Write it all down to keep good records, but choose to use those records only if absolutely necessary.
6) Forgive...daily. Keep forgiveness a priority for your sake and for the sakes of your children. Every hurtful thing that happens to you carries a potential for you to become a bitter person. These things are seeds that you can choose to plant and cause to grow into a root of bitterness or to give to God and let Him do with them what He will. See Forgiveness blog linked HERE for more information on the hows and whys of forgiveness. If you choose forgiveness, you will be able to keep your identity and emotions intact. You will not become and ugly, twisted person bent on revenge. You will not lose yourself in your circumstances.
7) Choose to love your children by loving their other parent. Face it... your children are half of your estranged spouse. When you run down or bad mouth your former spouse within earshot of your children, they take that very personally. Even when you think they’re not listening, they ARE. They are scared and will try to understand what is happening in their lives by gaging your moods and listening to your words. Don’t let your emotions control you into saying things that will stick with your children and solidify in their minds forever the thing that they may fear the most: that at least half of their being is evil, wrong, or bad. I know that love is the LAST thing you feel or want to give your estrange spouse. I’m not telling you to feel it. I’m telling you to choose loving acts and words when you feel the opposite because a) you took your vows seriously regardless of whether or not your spouse did and b) you love your children more than yourself and the emotional volcano that wants to erupt inside of you, and c) you want good for yourself and your children and acting with integrity is the only way that you’ll bring those things about in your lives.
8) Sleep on it. When you get a chance, even if you have to drop off your children with a sitter or family member for a couple hours, sleep. Rest every chance you can. Snuggle with your child during nap time. Catch a few winks in a church pew if you can or over lunch hour at work. Your whole being is going through extreme trauma. You feel it. Don’t feel guilty about it.
9) Focus your limited time and resources on relationships that feed you, but do NOT get romantically involved with anyone. You have limited time, energy, and resources - spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Don’t invest those valuable resources in relationships that bleed you dry in any of those areas. People will tell you they are on your side, and they may be. Invest in relationships where that is proven out by actions on you and your children’s behalves. Some people are just looking for more fodder for the rumor mill. Others are takers who pounce on vulnerable people for their own purposes. You’re going to need comfort now more than ever, and there will be no shortage of people and/or situations that promise to give it to you. You need relationships with those who are supportive of your decisions going forward - come what may. Draw close to people who have historically proven to have your best interest at heart. Stand off from anyone else - especially those of the opposite sex. You are in no position to start a new romantic relationship, and anyone who would try to coax you into doing so is selfish and certainly does not have your best interest in mind.
10) Get/stay involved in a local church community. God is the only rock who was always there for me during the process of my divorce. He was there with me when I cried myself to sleep night after night. He provided for me in every possible way. He was all I had much of the time. I don't know how I would've survived this process without being able to focus my energy and prayers and hope on God. His people, my church family, gathered around me and provided child care, auto maintenance, lawn mowing, companionship, financial and prayer support and encouragement, and a place of belonging. They loved me and my children unconditionally and were nothing but a positive asset in our brokenness.
11) Don’t give up hope. You have every reason to feel helpless and hopeless about what’s happening to you. Don’t let that feeling rule you. Don’t entertain it longer than it takes to dismiss it outright. Unless you are in a relationship that puts you and/or your children in imminent danger, you need to give yourself the right to consider reconciliation, because even though that’s the last thing you want right now, you don’t want to be sitting on your front porch 30 years from now wondering, “If I had reconciled with my spouse, we could be sitting here together surrounded by children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.” Wait for things to calm down before you make any rash decisions seeking that “d” word I mentioned earlier. Divorce doesn’t provide more options or freedom, NOR will it give you the control of your situation that you so desperately crave right now. It does the opposite. It gives RULES to your relationships with your children and former spouse. It gives control of your actions, visitation with your children, choices about their schooling and healthcare, and a thousand other things - petty and monumental - to a piece of paper enforced by your former spouse and the court system. You will never be more helpless or out of control than when you are divorcing/divorced. That is why you see people using their children as leverage and pawns against one another. That’s all they have left, and it’s devastating to all involved. Don’t go there. There is no timeline in which this relationship has to be fixed. You have all the time in the world to work at it and get it right. New relationships are just as much work and even harder when exes and step and half children are involved. Hope for something better. Pray that God will bring it to pass.
12) Don’t harden your heart. Whatever happens next, your heart MUST be soft in order for you to be open to the possibility of reconciliation until that possibility has passed. Guard your heart as it is under extreme duress, and pray for a soft heart in your estranged spouse.
These are the things I wish I could go back and tell the me that was trembling while I held that little square of paper. They wouldn’t have fixed my situation, but they would have made things a whole lot easier. I would like to add that, at the time of my divorce process is 2004, Facebook was in its infancy, and social networking was hardly even a “thing”. If I’d had access to it at the time, it wouldn’t have been a good thing. So I’d like to add that, if possible, you should seriously consider deactivating (temporarily) or severely curtailing your social networking during separation or estrangement from a spouse. It can easily become a source of discontentment, venting angry words, becoming gossip fodder, and finding out information you’re best not knowing. It cannot help your relationship and it could do the opposite and, at very least, is an unproductive waste of your time, emotions, and resources. If it’s not possible to deactivate, hide your posts from people who might use them to spy on your social activities to use them against you in any way, and hide posts from negative people or people who are openly supportive your estranged spouse’s behavior.
If you are able, try to remember that Jesus Himself was no stranger to the feelings of hurt and rejection and outright abuse that was heaped upon Him, but the Bible tells me in 1 Peter 2:23 that, "He (Jesus) did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when He suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, Who always judges fairly." That became a daily - even moment-by-moment reminder for me. If Jesus could wait upon God's hand of judgment, so can I. If He could forgive and put away my great many sins, I can certainly forgive another person's.
If you are able, try to remember that Jesus Himself was no stranger to the feelings of hurt and rejection and outright abuse that was heaped upon Him, but the Bible tells me in 1 Peter 2:23 that, "He (Jesus) did not retaliate when he was insulted, nor threaten revenge when He suffered. He left his case in the hands of God, Who always judges fairly." That became a daily - even moment-by-moment reminder for me. If Jesus could wait upon God's hand of judgment, so can I. If He could forgive and put away my great many sins, I can certainly forgive another person's.
