Category: Evil

Steps of Healing: Mourning

How does one recover from divorce? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I want to make clear I have not arrived. I am still healing. If I had to write this when I was completely over matters, I doubt I would ever write it. My own DivorceCare leader even admitted something said in our support group recently showed him some matters he needs to work through. Saying you can move on and not be affected by this ever is like saying you can never be affected by the death of your child after awhile.

However, having said that, I do want to write about some steps that I have taken. After all, we’ve had a week of negative things not to say. We need a week of positive matters to do.

The first step I think is really to recover from divorce is to be able to mourn. You have a real loss. When the time came for me, I fortunately had a friend come over who was there as I was crying my eyes out. Now before someone tries to tell me that real men don’t do that, Jesus Himself did it and at the graveside of Lazarus when He knew He was going to raise Him from the dead.

Sorry, but I think Jesus was the most real man who ever lived. If He can do it and be a real man, so can I. I’m not ashamed to admit that that happened.

This has been a great benefit. I have real friends that when I am down in the dumps, I can call and talk to them about matters and it’s a great help. It reminds me that I’m not in this alone.

Sadly, I think we in the church have lost the art of mourning. We don’t know how to mourn. We treat sadness like it’s a disease too often that has to be cured. Many of our songs on Christian music stations aren’t songs to God. They’re songs to us. They’re meant to help us overcome. I don’t listen to a lot of secular music, but I don’t think secular music from what I hear has as much of that.

There are some exceptions. I remember hearing in Georgia a song on a radio station in a store with the lines of “Sometimes, I don’t want to be happy.” There are times like that. There are times where not only do you not want to be happy, you shouldn’t be. In Christian circles, Dallas Holm has a song called “I Just Don’t Feel Like Dancing.” I also don’t think that song has anything to do with whether or not he’s a Baptist.

If we had the death of a loved one and there was no sorrow and crying but only partying and celebrating, I would think there was a problem there. In Scripture, Paul tells us we mourn, but we don’t like those who have no hope. We are supposed to be sad.

What about those we know who are mourning if we aren’t? Well, Paul tells us to cheer them up. No. Wait. He tells us to also mourn with those who mourn. Again, do we treat sadness like it’s a disease that must be removed from the body of Christ?

This doesn’t mean never say anything encouraging or do anything fun with the person, but if some friends have me over for a game night and during the night I get a memory and just put down my controller and want to mourn, one of the best things they could do is come alongside me and let me let it out and mourn. Divorce is certainly a real loss for many of us. We have lost something very important to ourselves.

Now is a Christian supposed to have a joy still? Yes. We are supposed to know that God works all things for good to those who love Him, including divorce, but that doesn’t mean what happens is good and that the immediate effects are good. They can all be awful. It means that we realize it’s not the end of the story somehow. Of course, if any mourning does turn to suicidal ideation and activity, that is the time when something does have to be stopped. I don’t know anyone who has gone through a sad divorce who at one point hasn’t been tempted along those lines. I remember when my DivorceCare leader said about it that we’ve all been there.

However, we are not told to just put on a face. Sometimes, that might be necessary, but when we are with ourselves alone or with friends we trust, no. When I joined my new church here, I told the pastor beforehand that a requirement of me joining a church is eventually I want to serve somehow. I don’t want to sit on the sidelines. He told me he wants that, but right now, I need to let myself be served.

There is a time to let myself be served indeed. There is a time to let friends be friends and come around me. Time of mourning is one such time. The best ones to mourn with also have been those who have gone through it. These people understand the best what it is like. They also assure me they have walked this road before. It’s also one reason I am writing this blog series on it. I want to help someone else who is going down this road.

Thank you, fellow travelers, who have mourned with me.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Things Not To Say To A Divorced Person #5: I Know How You Feel

Do you really understand? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

This is one of those statements that applies in so many situations, but it also applies to divorce. There is one exception to this like the others. That is with someone who has gone through a painful divorce. No two divorces will be exactly alike, but at least there is some relationship there.

So if you have gone through a break-up, you do not know what it is like. If you and your boyfriend or girlfriend have been lovers and lived together and broken up, you don’t know what it is like. If you have lost a spouse due to an unintentional and unmalicious death, you don’t know what it is like. All of these may bear some similarities, but they are still different.

What the intent is:

The intent is to show sympathy with the person. That is a noble attempt. The problem is that you can’t do that. If you have not walked in those shoes, you do not know how it feels. I hear across the board from people that divorce is worse than the death of a spouse. With death there is closure and you live on good terms. The love is never questioned. With divorce, the opposite is true.

I think of a friend who a few years ago told me of how his first wife died. Someone meant to have sympathy for him and said, “I know how you feel. My cat died recently.” The death of a pet is hard, but it is not the same as the death of a spouse.

Why it’s wrong:

As said, you don’t know how it feels. Divorce carries with it a personal rejection and a breaking of the covenant. This is something that makes it different from other break-ups. A marriage covenant is a solemn promise to not betray one another and to stay with that person until death. This is not to say that no one can ever justifiably divorce, but I argue in those cases, someone else has already broken the promise.

Throughout the day now, I am constantly reminded of how I am divorced by so many things. A small event could remind me of a joke we shared together. Seeing a happy couple together can remind me of the longing. Going to bed at night and waking up in the morning reminds me that there is no one else there.

Being in society doesn’t always help much. My job is one of the most public places I go to and it can be one of the loneliest places of all. It’s a very real reality to be in a crowd of people and feel utterly lonely. I can say through the two other major trials in my life, I didn’t have the fellowship that I have now, largely through social media. The internet has been a great boon to me in developing relationships.

Do not try to relate if you cannot relate. Accept it. That doesn’t mean that you can do nothing to help.

What to say instead:

I thought originally of “Tell me how you feel”, but then that sounded too forceful. Instead, a simpler answer could be “Would you like to talk about it?” If it could help the person, take them out for a glass of tea or a slice of pizza and just meet and discuss it.

I realize this isn’t the traditional guy approach, but sometimes, I want my male friends even to stop telling me what to do in a situation. Instead, listen. Listen to my concerns and listen to my issues. Perhaps there will come a time later, but speak too quickly and it can seem like my concerns are being dismissed. I certainly realize that is not the desire, but it is what happens.

Sometimes, the best thing to say also could just be absolutely nothing. When my friends want to get together with a game night, that is just fine for me. I think one benefit of something like Final Fantasy XIV is for awhile when I am interacting with people on there, I am not the guy going through a divorce. I am the tank or the healer or one of the damage dealers. This is also one reason gaming can be so beneficial for me now. I get to play a different role for a time than the one I am in now.

Now for those who have been through divorce before, many of our conversations now are invaluable. Right now, I am dialoguing with someone in email who has another similarity to me in that his ex-wife had BPD as well. For those who have been divorced, the more similarities there are in the cases, the better. He too, was accused of abuse. That, by the way, is something that makes it even worse. Everyone who knows me knows I would be absolutely aghast at the thought of hurting her. Unfortunately, after years of giving, this is what I have been given in return. It’s betrayal on top of betrayal.

My plan now for this blog is to go through Scripture and see what it says about divorce. I don’t plan on this answering every question. People like Mike Winger and Craig Keener have done much more on this than I have. Still, I want to attempt to answer some questions people have for me, including about the Bible and remarriage after divorce.

Thank you again, fellow travelers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Things Not To Say To A Divorced Person #3: Why The Spouse Is Gone

Should we avoid speculation? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Why? It’s one of the most common questions out there. Consider the lyrics to the classic Beatles song Yesterday.

“Why she had to go?
I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.
I said something wrong,
Now I long for yesterday.”

Sometimes, we ask the question and we want an answer, but we don’t. If anything, we hope God would give us an answer to explain our suffering. However, when others who aren’t God, which are abundant around us, can attempt to answer our question, it doesn’t help.

The good intention:

If a divorced person is asking why they lost their spouse, many people want to come up with an answer thinking it will help the person emotionally. After all, if they knew why they were suffering, it could make the suffering all the easier for them. Besides, isn’t this the problem of evil and aren’t we supposed to give answers?

Why it’s wrong:

With the problem of evil, one can give general answers, but one cannot give specific answers without a divine word revealed to them. This is often given with events we’re not directly tied to. If someone is emotionally invested in some event, the last thing to do is to give pat answers.

I have told many a man in apologetics that if you’re ever serving in a church and a woman in the church comes crying to you because her teenage son died in a car accident just now and she’s wondering why it happened, you’d better not become a philosopher at that moment. She may ask why, but that is not the question to answer. The point needed at the time is that she needs a listener and a friend. Bottom line: She needs a pastor.

Now it could be that when she’s gone through the grief process that she can meet with the pastor and they can discuss the problem of evil generally. Even then, it is best to not try to give specific answers to the question as we do not know the specifics. Unfortunately, in our day and age, nearly everyone in Christian circles and their mother thinks God is talking to them and are more than ready to tell them what God says on the matter.

Someone going through a divorce can still be in the grieving process. They may ask the questions, but it is more of a venting process than anything else. Remember, Job’s friends were excellent friends, when they were saying nothing. When they spoke up, they actually added to Job’s sufferings and blamed him for what he was going through.

Not only that, but theologically, many of us take claiming to speak for God way too lightly. Even in things that seem mundane, such as when people say they are doing what they feel like God is leading them to do. I get concerned when a pastor says before a sermon that “God put this message on his heart.” Am I supposed to accept that this sermon is from God then and every word should count as Scripture?

Also realize that even if the marriage they left was a bad one, they are still grieving and do not need the pat answers. Very rarely is any marriage entirely bad. There are many good things that can be remembered. I remember yesterday on the job sorting through items people left behind and seeing a cross-shaped object with what looked like a small nativity scene on it and the saying “God bless this home.”

Don’t get me wrong. It’s a good sentiment and something wonderful to share, but for me, I just thought immediately, “I used to get items like this and we had them in our house.” That was painful. One of the worst aspects of divorce is that good memories become bad ones. If a spouse is widowed, they can remember the good times, but the divorced person sees the good times tainted by a rejection the widowed person doesn’t.

When a person asks why then, don’t give vain speculation. That will do more harm than good. So what should you do instead?

What to do instead:

It’s simple.

Be quiet.

Seriously. There’s no need to answer the question. Instead, just be a friend to them. Take them out for a meal or a movie. Have a game night with them. Go for a hike. Do something fun and active with them. If they want to cry or even angrily rant, that’s okay. Just listen.

One of the oddities in our society today is we think we always have to say something. We don’t. Sometimes silence can be one of the best gifts you can give someone. It tells them they can talk to you without getting platitudes and without judgment. For the latter, rest assured people who are divorced get more than enough judgment.

Speaking can many times make matters worse. People who are going through divorce or have been divorced have questions, but not all questions are seeking answers. Giving wrong and/or hurtful answers can just lead to more questions which leads to more wrong and/or hurtful answers. It’s a vicious cycle.

Best thing to do then? Just be quiet and listen. It will be appreciated a lot more. Again, be Jesus to them. Don’t think you speak with the authority of Jesus. You don’t.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Things To Not Say To A Divorced Person #2: Work On Your Relationship with God

Why is it improper to tell someone what they should truly be doing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In continuing this series, I want to remind everyone that this is not saying anything about the intentions of people who say these things. When they are said, I fully think they are normally said with good intentions. However, they are usually not a salve to the pain of a person going through divorce, but if anything, they can actually make it worse.

So what is intended by this?

Someone can say that now that the person is single again, they can focus on that relationship with God. Didn’t Paul say he wished that everyone was as he is with the ability to be single? Isn’t this a great time to get one-on-one with God then and work on that walk with Him? What more could you desire?

Why it’s wrong:

First off, this doesn’t apply really to divorced people. Everyone needs to work on their relationship with God. Married people, single people who have never married, widowed people, and divorced people all need to work on their relationship with God. For some reason, the divorced person is being singled out this time.

Part of the problem is that it can often come with the idea that if the divorced person desires anything else, such as a new relationship, then they have the improper focus. They need to turn to God. How could they want anything else?

Unfortunately, reality doesn’t work like that. Go look at the Garden of Eden. If anyone had the chance for a one-on-one relationship with God, it was Adam. No sin in the world. Adam was free.

And yet it was not good. He was alone.

Wait. Wasn’t God there with him? How could he be alone?

You know, it might be a bit dangerous here, but I think if God says it’s not good, I’m just going to agree with Him. God decided man needed something else. Man needed an earthly companion.

And some of us who are divorced long for that companion again too. Of course, you could point to pure sexual desire, and that’s certainly a part of it, but there’s something else too. I miss driving and having her by my side and especially if it was rough weather, she was an extra set of eyes for me. I hate going to bed at night and realizing I’m sleeping alone. I hate not having someone there who is watching me play games or who I can turn on YouTube videos and laugh with. I hate how many jokes I used to have with her that made me laugh now only bring me pain.

It would be a lie to say I don’t miss the physical aspects of our relationship, but it would be just as much a lie to say that’s all that I miss. It’s okay to say that you miss the physical aspects of interaction with another human body. We’re Christians after all, not Gnostics. We don’t see the body as a bad thing.

We can often look at the Psalms and see how the Psalmist says he desires nothing but God. Should that really be literal language? The Psalmist doesn’t desire to sleep when he goes to bed at night? He doesn’t have a longing for food? He doesn’t have a desire to go to the bathroom? Of course, the Psalmist is speaking in hyperbolic terms.

A divorced person should readily agree there. The desire for God should be greater than all other desires, but it’s foolish to say that those other desires don’t exist. For a divorced person, they have had many of these good benefits of a unique relationship ripped from them without their consent and are floundering wondering what their future holds.

When we hear we need to work on our relationship with God, we often think that all our other desires are being treated like they don’t matter. They do. It is not saying they have to be fulfilled, though that is desirable for many, but they can be there. Now there are some divorced people who have no desire for a new relationship, and that’s fine, but many do.

Sometimes, there can also be a hidden accusation here and this depends on the situation. It can be implied, “If God had been your main relationship, this wouldn’t have been taken away from you.” At those times, it can also look like God is the one who took away the person’s beloved.

This definitely does not help a divorced person. I said in my first post on this to imagine saying something like this to a Christian couple trying to conceive a child. What would be gained by telling them that instead of focusing on a child, they need to work on their relationship with God? Would you want to imply the reason they are not having success in achieving pregnancy is because they are not focused enough on God?

This adds to the problem by saying the divorced person is the one directly responsible for their own suffering. They neglected God and God let them have it by taking away the person they loved. I doubt many people would come out and directly say it this way, but that is the way it can come across.

So now let’s talk about what to say instead.

Last time, I said to be the love of God to the person instead of telling them about it and I think the same applies here. Be that person who walks with the one who is suffering. Want them to work on their relationship with God? Often to do a book study with them on a book of the Bible or maybe a good Christian book on recovering from divorce.

This is also why groups like DivorceCare are so helpful. People who are going through divorce can meet with others who are doing the same. We can all share our sufferings and questions together and yes, have a lot of laughs as well as we form friendships together.

If a person wants a new relationship, that’s also not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a natural desire for many of us to not want to be alone. There’s no need to just automatically pour cold water on the idea. Now you can talk with them and ask them how ready they are and give them your assessment, but be fair and listen to them. If they express desires, don’t get after them for it. Just listen to them about it.

Everyone needs to work on their relationship with God. Saying it to someone going through divorce can often leave them with guilt and can be very uncaring. Lead by example. Show how you are working on your relationship and guide the person in their walk with God.

Be Jesus to them instead of just talking about Him with them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Things Not To Say To A Divorced Person #1: God Loves You

Is there a time to let a person mourn? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For this series of posts, I am going to look at things Christians say to other Christians going through divorce that is well-meaning, but wrong. I plan to say why it is wrong to say it and what can be said instead. Again, none of this is to doubt that people mean well when they say these things, but they do more harm than good.

I still remember it well. I was ringing up some customers at my store and well, going through a divorce, I wasn’t in the best of moods. It wasn’t anger. It was sadness. At the end, the customers said to me, “You should smile more. God loves you.”

I remember being hurt even more by that statement.

Why would that be?

Why you shouldn’t say this:

None of this is to deny the truth that God loves us and yes, a divorced person needs to remember that, but there is a time and a place to say that. I can grant these people didn’t know what I was going through, but in reality, that’s part of the problem. Had they known and said the same thing, it would actually be worse.

I follow a simple kind of rule for this. Let’s suppose we have a Christian married couple who have struggled for years to have a child and are not having any luck. Naturally, they are quite depressed by their bad luck. Would you say the same thing to them?

The intent is to no doubt remind someone of a truth that is good, but the problem is that it ignores why the person is sad in the first place. It ignores why they’re grieving and goes straight to the result. It’s treating the disease without dealing with the root.

I have said before that if your theology contradicts Jesus, it’s wrong. Go and look at Jesus praying in the garden and saying His soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Does anyone think for a moment that He doubted that God loved Him?

When a person is going through a divorce, they are grieving. It is a kind of death. Just saying “God loves you” doesn’t remove that pain. When I had my back surgery as a teenager, I could be told “God loves you” all day long, but I had to take medicine for physical pain. Why think it’s different with mental and emotional pain?

I don’t want to give false motives to people, but could we sometimes say this because we are uncomfortable by the pain of others and want to say something to alleviate our own discomfort? Could it also be we think a life of joy means being happy all the time? There is a time and place for a Christian to be sad.

What to say instead:

In this case, maybe nothing. We get on Job’s friends rightly for what they said to Job, but they did something right. At the start of his suffering when they visited him, they just say with him for a week and said nothing. Sometimes, someone just needs you to be there with them. They don’t want to hear platitudes meant to make them feel good. Those are often insulting.

They just want a friend.

One of the best gifts I have had is a friend who has had me over for a game night or gone to a movie. Why do I play Final Fantasy XIV with friends? That for a moment allows me to be someone who is not a divorced person so much as an adventurer traveling with friends. The fellowship is the gift.

This is not to say there is no time for words or solutions to problems or answers to questions, but let wisdom tell you when is and isn’t the time. Just saying God loves you comes off as saying that the reason for your pain doesn’t matter. Move past it. It would be nice if it was that simple, but it isn’t.

Not only that, you can get the Gideon response. When Gideon was told the Lord was with him as a mighty warrior, he asked then why Israel was being defeated by these armies? We know it was because of the sin of the nation, but Gideon did ask a real question. Someone going through suffering can say “I know God loves me, but why am I going through this?” The Christian in response answering this can too often try to divine the will of God, which will only lead to pain.

Ultimately, instead of just telling them about the love of God, one of the best things you can do is be the love of God. For me, it’s been the support of friends on Facebook, donors to the ministry, people around me wanting to do fun things with me, etc. I understand that for some of you on Facebook and other places, words can be about the most that can be given, but many of those words have been kind and uplifting and just expressing sorrow for me and doing what Paul said to do, mourn with those who mourn.

I can tell you on my end, something has died. It is in a way the past, present, and future. The past has died in that I have to look and say “What was true and what was a lie?” The present has died in that I deal with the divorce constantly throughout the day and wish my station in life was different. The future has died in that what I had hoped to be will not come to pass and I wonder if I will ever find love again.

None of this is permanent. I realize I do not live in a hopeless situation. Plenty of people recover from divorce and plenty remarry and find love again. I am just saying that this is the way the situation looks for the time being. Those of you who have come alongside of me have acknowledged that knowingly or unknowingly.

In essence, just knowing people are there can be enough. Divorce can hit you with an emptiness because someone who was part of you, someone you were one flesh with, is gone suddenly and it is forcefully and by intention. That makes it different from death, unless the death is suicide. Friends tell you that you are not entirely alone. They are different from family also in that friends are people who have no blood obligation to love.

So my friends, I know that God loves me, but right now, what I have been grateful to have is not theology in words, but theology in actions. Don’t just tell me and others going through divorce that God loves us. Be God’s love for us.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Divorce And What Lies Ahead

Where is the blog going? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

As we near the weekend, I am doing my last blog of the week. So what lies ahead? One first series I want to write on is what to not say to someone going through divorce. Some of these I have heard in some variant. Some I have heard from others. I do not doubt that many of these are from good people who are well-intentioned, but they do a lot more harm than good.

After that, my plan is to look at what Scripture says about divorce. Many people have seen me posting about a desire to remarry and have asked if I have biblical approval to do so. Please understand that I am also doing this from a classical Protestant perspective. How the Catholics and Orthodox handle this will be different, although I have friends in both camps who do agree I can remarry within Scriptural grounds.

I have gone through the three views book on divorce and remarriage and I have gone through Mike Winger’s series on this on YouTube. I do plan on reading Keener’s book on one who marries another. I hope I will deal with most questions on this topic by the time the end comes.

From there on, I plan to go on the route that I have been taking in healing. Now I have heard that we who are on the spectrum respond to trauma better than others because our brains have a higher degree of plasticity. We do learn to adapt, but that doesn’t mean it’s always healing. Just a couple of weeks ago my DivorceCare leader who has been remarried for several years and had his marriage ended years and years ago based on a comment said he found some memories he needs to heal of. Thus, if anyone ever says you need complete healing before you move on, I don’t think so. There are some events one never completely heals from.

I hope that while doing this, it will help you out as I am writing this when I am going through the process. I am not just reflecting on this years later and what it was like. We can consider it a kind of real-time.

I also do plan on doing what I normally do in writing my candid thoughts out. Many of you have said that you appreciate that because it is real. One advantage of dealing with me on the spectrum is I can be an open book. That can be a disadvantage at times, but my hope is one of you will read this and be able to say, “Yes. Someone at least understands.” When that is encountered, it can tell a person that they are not alone in what they are going through.

I do want to thank so many of you who have reached out to me in this time as well. I also like knowing that I am not alone through every aspect of the divorce process. We have been fellow travelers on this journey and it means a lot to me.

Thank you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Divorce and Family

How do your family relations change? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

All relationships change to some extent when divorce takes place. Some are minor changes and some are major. This can include changes with both family relationships that you have.

I am glad that it has not been that I have ceased any contact with my former in-laws. Normally when a divorce takes place, it is easy for each set of parents to side with their own child. The other child becomes the bad guy (or girl) and becomes the one responsible.

That hasn’t happened yet, if anything, they have assured me that I will always be a son to them. Her brother has assured me that I am family. Her Dad helped us pack that day when I had to leave Georgia and he did assure me that they will always see me as a son. I am grateful.

At the same time, communication becomes awkward. We have talked some, but not as much as we used to. I suppose this is natural. If anything, whenever I remarry, things are likely to be more different as I will have a new set of in-laws.

I can assure anyone that there is no bad blood between us. Mike and I will even be rooming together at ETS this year. They would not say I was a perfect husband, as no one is, but that if anyone was wronged in this one, it was me.

That’s one family. What about my own?

My family’s love for me has never been called into question. We have had our difficulties and our struggles, but they have always been there for me. That also includes my sister in Nashville.

Still, there is something different. Since I have had to move back in with them, family relations are here and really, I am so independently-minded I don’t care for it. When I moved out, I meant for it to be a permanent thing and to be on my own. Returning back here was not what I wanted.

Disability has always been a part of the relationship seeing as I am on the spectrum, but now you can add divorce to that. Every now and then, something will be brought up to remind me of that as I try to work through it on my own. Shortly after the 24th fo July, my Dad actually said to me, “Did you realize that was your anniversary?”

No. It never once occurred to me all day long. Not a bit.

There are also aspects of your life that you don’t want to talk about with your parents. One reason I definitely want to get out on my own is that I think that will make future dating easier. After all, unsolicited advice is problematic. That’s not the only reason naturally. As I sit here, I see Shiro and wish I could give him a whole new apartment that he can run around in instead of just one room of the house due to my parents already having a cat.

For my sister, I’m not sure how much change there has been. We have talked some, but my sister and I have a relationship where we are committed to one another, but we also only talk when there’s something that needs to be said. We don’t talk to talk. This is something my mother hasn’t really realized about us.

Note that none of this indicates any animosity with anyone in this post. It just means that it’s different. If anything, I think the difference with my own blood family stands out the most, but that’s because I live with them. Things will be different I’m sure when I get the extra income to be on my own.

Thanks for being there, fellow travelers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

The Ghosts Of Divorce

Does divorce leave a haunting presence? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Yesterday, I wrote on divorce and the future. Today, I would like to look at how it affects the past. By this, I am speaking a lot of the ghosts of divorce. No. I don’t mean ghosts in the sense of dead souls wandering around. Let’s see what I mean.

On September 20th, I went with a friend to the movie theater to see Free Guy. On the side, that’s an awesome movie and you should go see it. The movie was playing at a theater that met at the mall. It was a movie theater that a church she and I used to attend met at regularly. A lot of time was spent by us at the mall.

I had a free birthday slice from Sbarro pizza so I got there early. With time, I walked around the mall and noticed how awkward it was. The mall seemed to be haunted with her presence wherever I meant.

There’s Build-A-Bear. I used to get her a lot of stuffed animals there. Did I get her that Harley Quinn one that she wanted so much? I bet she sure would like those that are there now from Animal Crossing. I remember she even got me some there.

There’s Hot Topic. We used to go through there on a regular basis. Both of us had different pop culture interests that we could go and share with one another. How many times did we walk through just looking at goofy items?

There’s Godiva chocolates. I remember that I told her that it was good to always just walk through because you could get free samples any time. She always loved chocolate and I wanted to get her more if I could, but the money wasn’t there.

She liked to go into Spencer’s. I didn’t care for the store. Most of the stuff seemed off-color to me and inappropriate, but I did remember going there.

There’s where the church office was. It had a rented space at the mall as well. It’s no longer there, but we spent many a day just hanging out down here.

I could go on and on, but ghosts of the past are always there. Fortunately, the movie was so good they didn’t haunt me during that, but I talked about it with my friend who has been divorced and is remarried and he told me the first time he went to Disneyworld with his new wife, his ex’s ghost was there. It does get better, I was told.

The mall isn’t the only place those ghosts show up.

Sometimes, it can be a simple phrase that someone says that can remind me of a joke that she and I shared together. There are so many that I think I can never do again because they were ones that we had. Laughs that we shared together can never be brought back. It’s sad to think that she chose to sacrifice all of those.

For a guy, physical intimacy is one of the great gifts of marriage. Now even that brings pain. Those times were good, but now they feel so distant and far away and you wonder if such times will ever come again.

As a Christian man, this is something that hits me hard. After all, I played by the rules. To this day, I do not do pornography. This is not to say the temptation has never been there and sometimes very painfully, but it has always been resisted. It’s still something that does bring to mind the idea that nice guys do finish last.

For that part, I am working on other areas. No. Definitely not getting into pornography or breaking my Christian morals, but on learning more on how to interact with women and working on being more forward. That kind of growth I take to be good anyway. This is one time where the past can be harmful, but I can also choose to say that love is something worth fighting for and go searching.

I have had people I work with who are normally much younger than I am ask me about such items as anime and I see people with t-shirts with anime characters on them. That can be painful because anime was something she loved and something we watched together. Now I choose to not let the past hold me down again and avoid anime for the time being, but that doesn’t mean pain isn’t there.

Of course, other simple things can bring her to mind. Just going to bed at night can bring her to mind as I am with my parents again and there were times we visited for holidays where we would go up here to sleep together at night. I wonder if I will ever share that again.

Back in December when I was still in Georgia, I had to go to see my parents for Christmas. She was in the facility then and I think about how hard the drive was to get to Knoxville as there was such bad weather that I was going down the interstate at 20 MPH. If she had been with me, she would have been my extra set of eyes. She always was.

These ghosts are often around me and can pop up at the strangest times and I cannot possibly name all of them. I do refuse to let them hold me back. I am trying to do what I can to go out there and meet people and do more interaction. I am working on getting more done here so I can get away from my parents and be out in the world on my own meeting people and being self-sufficient. I have decided I can either conquer or be conquered and I choose the former.

Still, for now, the past is there and it doesn’t go away. I have to make a deliberate choice to learn from it and move on. It will take time, but I want to come out of this stronger than I was.

Thank you, fellow travelers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Divorce and the Future

Where do you go from here? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When you marry someone, you make a promise to them that they will have a central aspect in your life until the day one of you dies. Love is a choice. You promise to love. You do not promise to have a feeling for the rest of your life. You promise to live in such a way to celebrate that person.

When that changes, everything else changes. I suppose the closest analogy I could come up with would be losing a child, and I do not speak from experience. Parents have plans for their children and build up a college fund and everything else for them, and then if that child dies, which is not expected, what do you do with all of that?

So it is with being single again. Now granted because of situations Allie and I could not both hold jobs, but I have to work on a budget again, which that part granted wasn’t hard for me. I have known how to do that. I have heard that in marriages, normally one person is a spender and one is a saver. I’m the saver.

At the same time, you wonder about your future relationships. As a man, one aspect that definitely changes is that you have to learn it’s okay to turn your desires towards other women and realize you could be with one of them someday. You also have to realize as a Christian that unless you remarry, sex is now something that is again forbidden. I understand the temptation to turn to porn for some and I am thankful I have managed to resist that.

For each of us, our personal questions will be different. One of my first goals is getting to be out on my own again. I am an independently minded person so either I find a way that I can afford to move out on my own, which right now will cost $3,000 a month. That’s because average rent is $1,000 a month and you need to make three times that. I do have a Patreon (link below) for that and I ultimately hope to make enough through YouTube videos and writing that I can do that full-time.

What about relationships with other women? This is something really difficult, especially if you’re 41. If you’re in your 20’s or even early 30’s, there are normally plenty of candidates available. It’s much harder as you get older. Put in being on the spectrum and not understanding social cues and it gets harder. I could have someone flirting right in front of me and I might not even recognize it.

Not only that, divorce can be a stigma. Some people could rule me out because of it. I understand it as if someone is divorced, then there is a story and you wonder why. The problem is some people don’t bother to find out what that story is.

All of these are once again, unknowns. It’s tempting to wonder if matters will ever change. Unfortunately, such worry does no good. I have to instead choose to get up and face every day. I will either conquer what lies before me or be conquered by it.

One other aspect I have to consider is charges of abuse. Yes. She has made them, but I really don’t think they will come to any fruition. I have plenty of people, including her parents. Still, if you learn something from the gaming world, it’s that you have to be prepared for every contingency.

None of this also means any animosity towards her. I try to remember that she has some severe mental issues and I hope that she believes what she believes from serious delusion instead of willful dishonesty. I really hope the best for her.

What does my future hold? I don’t know. I never would have thought it would hold divorce, but I have to trust God is still in charge. I still want to play a role in the Kingdom and I don’t want to let anything stop me.

Thank you to all of you who have supported me on this painful journey, fellow travelers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Divorce as Rejection

What ultimately is divorce? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I have my laptop back and everything looks to be working fine, so let’s jump back into this topic. When it gets down to it, what is the #1 pain of divorce? If I could sum it up in one word, it would be rejection.

Many of us have experienced a break-up in our lives or have asked someone out and been told no, and those can compare, but divorce is just so much worse. Divorce is when someone makes a promise to you and then breaks it. Divorce is when in a marriage you have given everything you have to someone and they have said that it wasn’t good enough.

For me, this has hit quite hard as if you asked my parents about me growing up, I always wanted a woman in my ilfe, and this was long before I knew about the birds and the bees. I never had that faze in my life where girls were icky and had cooties or anything like that. I can still remember the first crush I had was back in elementary school in Transition and that lasted all through elementary school.

I also had got used to being told no later on when I would ask any girl out. No. No. No. I still want to roll my eyes when I hear a lady say something like “I just want a nice guy who cares about me and my feelings.” Let’s face it. We’re all a bit superficial at times and those looks play a big role in it. I would just prefer the honesty.

So when she came into my life and was interested in me, it was something incredible. I had never once encountered a girl that was actually desiring of me. Not only that, she didn’t get turned off by the Aspie traits that I have. Everyone who saw us thought we were the best couple. My best man at the wedding in his toast said he didn’t think there were two people more suited for each other. The counselor doing our pre-marital counseling said he had only met seven couples he thought were a match made in Heaven and we were one of those couples.

And yet something went wrong.

Did I make mistakes? Obviously. Everyone does. Only a fool says he goes into a marriage and makes no mistakes. Anything worthy of this? Not a bit. The message given is that things were so bad with me that she thought she had to break her promise to God to escape.

Now I realize that sometimes people divorce over issues like divorce and adultery being done. In that case, the party that divorces when their spouse is unfaithful in that way is responding to a rejection already. I recommend trying to work things out if possible, but if the other party isn’t willing, there’s nothing you can do.

Today, I notice that I am very sensitive to rejection. It’s different for different people. A girl I used to go to DivorceCare with said once the ultimate one breaks the promise and rejects, the other rejections don’t really hurt anymore. For me, they do. They remind me of that rejection.

I used to tell people I was on the spectrum and have no problem with it. Now I do it and get nervous beforehand worried that they will reject me. If I make a mistake at my job, I am sure for some time that I will be fired. It hasn’t happened yet, but that is still there. I do try to approach women, but I am still again sensitive to any hint of rejection.

Rejection is so painful because the message given is not just your actions but that you as a person are inadequate. You are not good enough. I find this ironic since what she always complained about was other people saying she wasn’t good enough. Now who is the one saying that?

By the way, I want to stress that while I am honest about her behavior when I speak of it, I am not trying to speak ill of her honestly. For her, I really do want the best for her. I want her to have a holy and happy life eventually. I do have my concerns about that, but I try to eliminate any animosity. That doesn’t do me any good after all.

My DivorceCare leader and I had a discussion a few months ago that covered rejection. I told him that I didn’t understand when he said he wanted me to speak less, but was always praising other people when they spoke. That was one thing among many. He thanked me for sharing and said “I thought you knew that I was encouraging them because they were new. I didn’t realize you didn’t see it that way.” In truth, I didn’t. It felt like a rejection every time.

I also realize that ultimately, this is not an issue with other people. This is an issue with me. I cannot demand that other people change to fit my happiness. None of us can. Anyone has a right and freedom to reject me if they wish. It could be wrong perhaps, but it is their choice. I also have a right to not accept everyone who comes to me. I have a desire to remarry, but I don’t want to remarry someone who isn’t a Christian.

I do know that at my workplace I will soon be able to have health insurance. I have a therapist already, but one of my plans is also to get a psychiatrist then so I can work on the issues that I am dealing with and if need be, get medication. I wonder if I might have a form of PTSD from everything I went through and I think a psychiatrist can best determine that.

Now some of you might be tempted to go all spiritual on me and say “Well God accepts you. Isn’t that good enough?” In a sense, it should be for all of us, but God also made us social creatures. We are not meant to be alone. Even in the most glorious state in creation for man, it was not good for man to be alone. When our Lord walked this Earth, He had friends. Could there not be a hint of the pain of rejection in his words when he says to His disciples in John 6, “Will you go also?”

If I desire friends in my life and don’t want to be rejected, will anyone really tell me that’s wrong? If I desire for even strangers to like me and not reject me, is that wrong? If I also, which I do, desire a lady in my life to share my journeys with, will anyone say that that is wrong? These are all desires that I think are God-given so we should celebrate them and try to meet them.

Can this kind of thing be taken too far? Yes. That is something that I have to work on on my end, but at the same time try to better myself for my interactions with other people. I have read some books on interacting socially lately to try to work on this all the more. I can easily say I don’t ever want to go through the pain that divorce brings and is bringing again.

I say bringing because everything I do around me often is a reminder of it. When I go to bed at night, there’s no one lying next to me or no one who can reach over and touch me or vice-versa. She was the only person who I really craved the touch of. I live with my parents again now and I don’t even like it if they touch me.

When I am at work, I wonder if I would be where I was if she hadn’t rejected me. When I find myself going out there trying to make friends again and trying to win the heart of a lady, i often think about what I have lost. Yes. Despite the wrong that has done, I have lost something.

The Scripture says the two become one flesh. How can you become one flesh with someone and then when they are gone not have a real loss? When you marry, so much of your life becomes integral around another person and then that person says they don’t want you anymore? What are you to think of that? In some sense, does your identity not come into question?

I look through Facebook memories and so many times, I see myself making a post on how much she means to me. In the comments, I can sometimes see her talking about how much she will always be devoted to me and always love me and how thankful she is. Yep. That stings every time I see it.

I had a coworker ask me about animes recently. I don’t remember what brought it up, but that was hard to talk about. After all, the main person I know about those through is her.

When you’re 41 also, it’s much harder to find someone who is in your age range who is still looking for someone for marriage. Put in all my eccentricities and it can become even harder. Still, I think it’s worth it. I have a therapist working with me in this regard, but it is difficult.

If you’re in a marriage and struggling, please do try to work out your struggles. Aside from abuse and adultery, divorce should be a last option. It is a great pain to the person who is being rejected. I have met people who have lost a spouse to divorce and death and to a person, I think aside from just one maybe, all of them said divorce was worse.

Yes. Divorce is worse than death.

It’s worse I think because it’s an ongoing living death. You know the other person is out there and has intentionally acted in this way to get away from you. This person has decided that you are unlovable. Now I still maintain that if you think your neighbor is unlovable, the real deficiency is in you and not in them, but that doesn’t change that it hurts.

Yet I think the more I stay hidden away and don’t get myself out there, the more I am just bringing that rejection on myself. As I go out in the world, will I still get rejected? Obviously. Whether it’s for friendship or a date or a job interview, it will always hurt, but that’s life. You can’t control that other people will do hurtful things to you, but you are in control of how you respond to them. I have to make a deliberate choice to choose to overcome. Everyone has their choice to make. I also have mine.

Thank you for all who have been supporting me on this journey, fellow travelers.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)