Some days the pain is so great.
Some days it is too much.
But still I must put a smile on my face
And walk out to face the world.
I must pretend all is well.
But inside…
The pain is too much…
Too much…
~ Linda, Sept 2013
This week I am struggling. I can feel myself spiraling downward. In just a few short days, it will be “that day.” The anniversary of the day Bruce died… The day my world imploded in one quick moment. Already, I find myself feeling like I have been thrown back four years. All the pain and loneliness closing in, and I have no place “safe” to go…
I can still remember that night like it was yesterday… Waking up to find Bruce struggling to breathe… calling 911… doing CPR on the man I love terrified by what was happening. I remember the doctor coming in to tell me Bruce was gone… spending time with Bruce as we waiting for the medical examiner – touching him and begging him to open his eyes. I remember that last kiss good-bye that he never felt. I remember going home to an empty house and making phone calls to family and friends… But most of all, I remember being alone… totally and completely alone.
Here I am four years later, and despite having family here, when it comes to my grief and this week’s journey, I still feel completely alone. It’s no one’s fault, except maybe my own… the closer I get to “that” date, the more I find myself pulling inward and away from everyone around me.
I don’t want to face this anniversary again. I don’t want to “do” another year without Bruce!
Last night I had a dream… I dreamed Bruce and I were on the beach. It was beautiful, and we were so happy. Then, suddenly he was just gone! I kept looking everywhere for him. I was crying and felt so desperate, but he was nowhere to be found. I kept thinking I saw him. But each time when I touched the person and they turned to face me,… it wasn’t him. Then, my daughter appeared and started helping me look. She kept saying it would be okay… We would find him… But we didn’t – He was gone… I was completely devastated and woke up in tears.
Life in its cruelty
Gives us a gift of love,
But along with it
Comes an hourglass
Counting down the moments until it is gone.
~ Linda, Sept 2013
I know I am spiraling down this week. Nowadays I don’t usually give myself this much space to grieve, but this week I need it. However, I am walking a fine line because I also need to keep my head above water… and that is hard.
Earlier this week, my grandson and I were having a conversation. He was telling me that he was praying for something specific for his Mommy. I struggled here, not wanting him to think of God as a magic genie or to be disappointed if the answer to that prayer is “no.” I tried to explain that God’s answer may be “no,” but we need to have faith that he has something better in store. We need to ask, but then we need to let go and be willing to accept something different… something better in the long run.
But, here was my struggle with the whole conversation… It has been four long years since I lost Bruce. I have worked through a lot of emotions. I have been angry with God and made my peace… Yet, in spite of all I “know,” in spite of all my “good” days, I still grieve for Bruce at some point every day. He brought so much good and happiness into my world, and I miss him. I still want him back… So, do I trust that there is something “better” in store? Do I believe the very thing I am telling my grandson to believe?
I want to… but if I am honest, I don’t know…
I believe God (the universe or whatever name you choose to use) loves me. I believe there is some good to be found even in this loss… I have learned to be stronger that I ever thought possible. I have learned a lot about who I am as a person and my desire to serve others. I have struggled with my faith and came out on the other side with a much stronger faith that is completely mine. I have learned to be more accepting of others, their beliefs and their struggles. I have learned that people are what are truly important in this world… not just some of us, but all of us. I know that until we learn to love and respect each other and all our differences, this world will never find peace.
I guess I am saying, in the quiet of the last four years, I have been reflecting… and growing and changing… which is good. But, I learned all this at what cost? Did I really have to lose Bruce to learn these lessons? That is the part I struggle with… The idea that I don’t know… In fact, I’ll never know…
I just know I am sad this week… more so than usual. It will be four years on Thursday, and no matter what I have learned or what good I can find, I do know I would give it all back to have Bruce back again.
Another year alone;
A year of tears;
A year where no one cares.
Another year of smiling when I feel like crying.
A year of telling everyone it’s all okay.
A year when I feel abandoned.
Another year of going to bed alone.
A year of coming home to nothing.
A year without hugs or smiles.
Another year without love.
A year without laughter.
A year without you, Babe…
It feels like a lifetime.
~ Linda, Jan 2014
What about you? What have been your struggles when “that” anniversary approaches? Have you been able to find the good? Would you say the price of that “good” was too high? How did you come to terms with it? Or do you still need support in that area? Would you be willing to share your story or your thoughts?
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Oh Linda, only God knows what will happen after the process of waiting on Him. But in the process of living for Him, at least you’re not sitting still. All you can do is pray and raise your children and grandchildren in the way you know honors God and teaches them to love and honor God and others. If you haven’t figured out how to co-parent with Michael’s ex yet, but you’re on speaking terms enough to talk about how he disciplines the kids, what they are and are not allowed to do, and what motivates them, that’s a great conversation to have and use the information. Raising kids is always a balancing act, but we have a few added obstacles in the mix. No one should look down on that. You must do what God desires with the life you have been given and whatever anyone else thinks, just pray God shows them Himself through your life. It’s tough going from being married back to single with children. I know we have both been on the receiving end of some really hurtful abandonment, but God is good and restores and lifts us through it all. I still struggle with self-worth from time to time and feel like my future relationship will fail for no reason at all and there will be nothing I can do to stop it. Life’s not always easy, but life eternal is worth it. I know betrayal and abandonment is currently a sore spot in my life from the hurts in my marriage and I have to work on those weaknesses; to let go of the fear in allowing my heart to feel that way again…my fight or flight mechanism kicks in and I often respond poorly to judgements and name calling. I isolated myself this past few week because it was Jan3, 2011 when I lost my wife 6 years ago as she abandoned our marriage and our children.
My story is very convoluted and is greatly wrapped around shifted loyalties away from the marriage toward my in-laws over religious control, emotional infidelity, and plain selfish jealousy (which is really just a byproduct of one of the other two). I didn’t seek to be divorced either, but everyone assumes the man is the one who is at fault (and it does take two to quarrel so I will never claim innocence)…she left the marriage on Jan 3, 2011 and filed divorce the next day. She chose to live with a homosexual woman for the rest of her life as they made claims in court and they have lived together for the past 6 years. She had an affair with this woman and lived with her for 6months half way through our marriage (at 5yrs), but that relationship never ended and it came around again at our 10yr mark. This time she left permanently for a homosexual relationship. But the state of Florida is a no fault state so there doesn’t have to be grounds in evidenced here. My exbride did try to present evidence of child neglect/abuse on me with pictures of our children’s sunburns and bug bites. That was incredible disturbing to the court that she would present such shallow evidence on such an important topic. The judge question her integrity and saw right through these false allegations. In FL though, one just has to say that they are unhappy with the marriage and file law suit to petition for divorce. Obviously, I have a lot to say on this subject since I was abandoned after 9 years of marriage and 3 children while she was in her third trimester of pregnancy with Tobias just five years ago.
I do realize that some folks are going to misunderstand me because I’m a single father with three small children. Many father friends of mine even feel intimidated by that fact alone with juggling full time employment and raising three children when they have a hard time handling just a couple hours alone with their kids…LOL. I do understand why folks sometimes feel on guard with me and think that the man would be the one to blame for a broken marriage with three small children (I do take blame for my parts by the way because I will never claim innocents in the mess). After all who in their right mind would leave a loving husband because of arguments over religion and prophetic tongues (or divers tongues as my in-laws call it). Obviously it is much more deeper than that and I think the real cause of my broken marriage is the shifted loyalties to a birth family enmeshment (of course I know it’s really about two imperfect people trying to live together and blaming the other for their imperfections). You see my ex father-in-law is a pastor in a small charismatic church of 10 people in Port St. John and he claims to be a “Prophet”. Only sad thing about that title is that he rules his congregation with religious abuse and control with unbiblical claims about God’s word. I do not make those claims lightly, but came to this conclusion when he convinced his daughter to file for divorce because he received direct revelation from God as being His will for her life. He claims that I was holding her and my children back from God’s true purposes for their life since I had an unwillingness to engage in their church and their religious control. This is why 96% of my father-in-laws congregation has left his church and they are completely sunk with only 10 members (8 of which are immediate family members). The whole thing is really about religious differences and her family feel that I am not filled with the Holy Spirit because I don’t speak in tongues and disagree with their religious perspectives. According to their beliefs, our marriage was never ordained by God because I was always a non-believer and they use the unequally yoked scripture as their justification that our marriage was only bound by an earthly contract and never a heavenly covenant. The reason they feel that I am a non-believer is because I do not have a desire to speak in the tongues of the Holy Spirit. To them speaking in diverse tongues is the only evidence of the Holy Spirit in one’s life (a very Pentecostal belief system). I do not believe this at all as even Paul said that speaking in tongues is the least of the gifts of the HS. It is not edifying to each other or the lost…It is only a communication between you and God. I can speak in English to talk with God so I saw no point in placing this weird mysterious language of the HS as an essential doctrine in my life. Anyway, I saw many red flags that should have warned me even before marriage when my father-in-law declared to me that he wouldn’t allow anyone else to per-marital counsel his daughter except for him when I wanted Pastor Rick Heilman from CCM to do so. My father-inlaw felt it was his responsibility since he was going to marry us as the pastoral head. I felt he couldn’t give unbiased counsel to either one of us, especially his daughter. Anyway after we got married, my inlaws had full expectations that I would be the lead youth pastor in their church. After the first three years in marriage when I wanted to stop teaching at my father-in-laws youth ministry in Port St. John to attend the church I was going to before our marriage and where we met at CCM, my in-laws argued with me that I was leading my family into deadly ways and that I was in grievance to the Holy Spirit because God would never call me to do those things without specifics of where he is leading me to go. I felt that was a controlling guilt tactic to keep me/us in their possession of loyalty to in-laws and my finances toward his church. This was all before Zoe (our first born) was born and then the 7 yrs following, her family has been trying to convince my ex that I am holding her back from God’s true purposes for her life and for the lives of our children. In the end, I guess I started barking back at her family for treating me like a worthless dog for so long. I’ve come to a place where I have zero tolerance for religious abuse and authoritarian control from so called men of the cloth. I guess I shouldn’t have told my wife that a I felt her dad is acting like a false prophet since he keeps declaring that he is a prophet in which God gave him direct revelation that his daughter should not remain in an unequally yoked marriage. I just got tired of their control tactics and started to lay into her dad to stay out of our lives. To let us make decisions for our children without their constant influence. Now my ex and her family allow the homosexual woman that she lives with to make more decisions for my children than I do. The state recognized as declared in the order that she lives in the pleasure of another woman, but didn’t matter from a child visitation standpoint. I feel that my loyalties are now misplaced and my ex has become a boat anchor to me for moving forward in life (which I need to do) that has completely taken the wind out of my sails. Ever since she left they have tried to keep the children away from me like when I went to my father-in-laws church to celebrate with my son for his baby dedication service just after he was born (a friend told me about the dedication service). They called the police on me and claimed that I was trespassing because it was not my weekend to be with the children and I was not allowed at their church anymore (the same church I taught the youth ministry in). It is very closed minded isolation and authoritarian control over my ex. She was probably raised her whole life under this kind of mind control/legalism, but every time I tried to help her with her unhealthy need for biological enmeshment, she felt I was the one trying to control her. It really spiraled when she stopped going to church with me and the kids a year before she left the marriage. I saw it coming, but didn’t want to believe it. I have received some really bad treatment from many that claim to be Christian.
The real problem I see though is the lie that continues to be spread by most in society with the perspective that marriage is for our happiness and that when a relationship turns south, the children would be better off if they live in two separate homes where there is no bickering or fighting. THAT IS A LIE! The children will never be better off in two separate homes violently separated from both parents. The pain of divorce is incredible, especially for the children! Instead of looking for loop holes in the twisted beliefs for justification of one’s actions to divorce, why doesn’t one exercise spent efforts to look for ways to restore the marriage; ways to stay in the vow? When you divorce, you are bringing violence to the family. Divorce is choosing to violently rip apart what is suppose to be ONE, into two separate entities. That’s why Jesus in Mathew 19 tells the Pharisees “What God has put together, let no man tear apart.” Divorce destroys the beauty and purpose of marriage. It destroys the beauty of oneness within a couple, oneness within the family unit, oneness conceived by children born within the marriage. In fact, society ought to hate divorce simply because of what it does for that immediate family and the children within the home which cause the society to be torn apart as well.
The broken relationship with Jocelyn and I has become even more hurtful by her enmeshed and controlling family. There seems to have been a pattern in her that every 2 yrs (after nursing), she would become discontent and jealous about the children wanting to spend more time with me than with her. This is why she left over similar religious reasons when Zoe was 2 yrs old to live in a relationship with another woman. Now when Josiah was 2.5yrs she left again for good to live with the same homosexual woman. I just don’t fit the family dynamics in her family’s pentecostal belief systems. The religious fight caused her jealousy over the children’s attention to become a shift into blaming me that I was pitting the children against her. I tried to encourage her that this was only a phase and soon they would want their mother’s attention again. I know that her family wants me to react I poorly towards them in order for them to justify the actions of leaving the marriage to begin with. I have learned when I respond with love and understanding, she will eventually feel that I have accepted the separation and I will begin to draw her out of the stone wall she has created for herself (surrounded by her family). I hope that some day she will see my attention as concerns for the matters of her heart and a loving concern for the children. Only then can a healthy parental relationship start to form even if the marriage will not be able to become unified again. Forming a healthy communication pattern is very important to me for the sake of the children’s well-being. I want her to recognize that the children have the right to be treated as interested and affected members within the family and not as pawns or possessions of either parent. Allowing the children the right to receive the love, care, discipline, protection and guidance they need from both parents during visitation times and special events should be a driving factor for both of us. The children have a right to positive and constructive relationships towards both parents and to be regarded as persons within the family. Anyway, I know this is long and I know the hurt you are going through. I’ve lived with the hurt of abandonment for 6 years now!
Brad, I hear a lot of hurting in your comments. I am so sorry for your pain and struggle. I know divorce is hard. Years ago, I left a violent marriage after 23 years. (Bruce, however, brought so much healing to me and my children.) While I realize you may disagree with my decision of divorce, I understand the grief you are still experiencing. I am here if you ever need or want to talk.