Here's something I immediately learned upon receiving all of those messages, We need to trust the grace of other Christians. Not everyone will be safe, but it's worth being hurt by a few to receive the grace that will be offered by the majority.
Why don't we trust that majority? Maybe it's our own pride keeping us from being vulnerable.
We say "I'm scared of how others will respond" but the deeper reason (the reason which we hide behind) is that we're too proud to share our failures, or too worried about how other people perceive us that we don't want to reveal our struggles. At least, I certainly believe that to be true of myself.
I'm gonna share a story that I've processed through with several friends and therapists. As the whole point of my public blogging is to overcome the shame I faced and to possibly help others do the same, I'll process publicly something I've already shared with various people.
We both had crutches. We all, to be honest, have crutches. Some are more consequential than others. I've talked with quite a few people about a couple of crutches I'm going to describe and I've been given various opinions in regards to how to interpret them.
My first crutch, as I referenced in an earlier blog, was to check out. And I did, check out, about 75% of the time from The Declaration till The Move Out.
When I was checked out, I noticed how many nice looking women my age at church weren't wearing wedding rings and I began to wonder what it would be like to start over.
That wasn't great. Not at all. It certainly didn't help. No, it was a strong contributing factor to le divorce. As I've processed it with some people, they've suggested it was self-defense. Maybe, but self defense isn't always justified.
The other crutch was an emotional entanglement. It was basically a professional relationship, met on professional terms and with a somewhat professional goal. Maybe the best way to describe it is that we both had a shared interest in linguistic and cultural betterment (is that clinical enough?) I could sense where the line was and felt I only approached it once, in regards to sharing too personal of info.
But where I truly crossed the line was in using that friendship to cope with what was happening in my marriage. Where I crossed the line was hiding that from my wife (at the time, though I eventually told her). Even though it never became romantic, I used the fact that a smart and attractive lady was interested in my life as a crutch to deal with my pain. Even with no romance being involved, it still felt great to get that attention.
Here's the ironic part; she never saw it that way as a result of both my subtlety and her being in a different place, relationally, than I was. Which just goes to show how messed up my thinking was at the time, how I was desperately grabbing for anything. Any type of attention feels like cold water when you're emotionally dying of thirst.
Those were two unhealthy crutches.
When I was checked out, I noticed how many nice looking women my age at church weren't wearing wedding rings and I began to wonder what it would be like to start over.
That wasn't great. Not at all. It certainly didn't help. No, it was a strong contributing factor to le divorce. As I've processed it with some people, they've suggested it was self-defense. Maybe, but self defense isn't always justified.
The other crutch was an emotional entanglement. It was basically a professional relationship, met on professional terms and with a somewhat professional goal. Maybe the best way to describe it is that we both had a shared interest in linguistic and cultural betterment (is that clinical enough?) I could sense where the line was and felt I only approached it once, in regards to sharing too personal of info.
But where I truly crossed the line was in using that friendship to cope with what was happening in my marriage. Where I crossed the line was hiding that from my wife (at the time, though I eventually told her). Even though it never became romantic, I used the fact that a smart and attractive lady was interested in my life as a crutch to deal with my pain. Even with no romance being involved, it still felt great to get that attention.
Here's the ironic part; she never saw it that way as a result of both my subtlety and her being in a different place, relationally, than I was. Which just goes to show how messed up my thinking was at the time, how I was desperately grabbing for anything. Any type of attention feels like cold water when you're emotionally dying of thirst.
Those were two unhealthy crutches.
Worse than any of those crutches, though and what I believe to be the most significant contribution to the end of my marriage was that my heart became calloused. I wrote earlier that from The Declaration till The Move Out, I was only fully engaged for about two full months. Those were the months I felt like the engagement was being reciprocated. Sure, there were many days in which I woke up determined that "today I'm going to love her like I should..." only to give into the emotional resistance that immediately came up between us as soon as we were in the same room. That emotional wall felt stronger than any physical wall.
There's so much other shit I could share, but I think this is a good start. Shame loses its power when brought out into the open.
To quote that insightful prophet, Marshal Mathers, "... cause tonight, I'm cleaning out my closet." Though I think the similarities between my story and that video stop with that quote...
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