"There are those who believe it is simple selfishness that leads people to divorce;
for those of us who have lived it, it's hard to see why anyone would
rip out their veins for some immature or narcissistic desire
to get what they want, because that is what [divorce] feels like."
Wendy Swallow in Breaking Apart
It wasn't that I didn't know divorce was gut-wrenching, horrifying, difficult . . . fill in the blank. My mom had been divorced. I have family members who have been divorced. I have friends, too many to stop and count, who have been divorced. It was always before me as I packed up possessions, met with a lawyer, called friends to tell them, and did the never-ending tasks that make up divorce.
Still, the day I pulled out the eight boxes of photographs (this was before digital cameras were common), sat down, and sorted through hundreds--if not thousands--of pictures was the day that I understood a new truth: the divorce was merely a legal instrument, a nod from the state that said, "Yes. We hear that you have come to a place at which you believe that this relationshp is untenable. We will no longer hold you responsible for each other in any way. We won't think about you as a set anymore. Go your own ways and forget this ever happened."
But sitting on that floor surrounded by 17 years of recorded life, I got it: the divorce that people want--that I wanted--was really a myth. There is no forgetting. I could cut my ex-husband out of the photograph, but I could not excise him from the memory of the moment. Even now, I could more elegantly Photoshop him out of the pictures of my time touring with Covenant Players, but there was no splitting the shared memories, or the shared relationships.
Over the last eight years, the myth has been underscored again and again. A marriage is made up of at least a thousand connections (even when the most important and intimate connections have been broken). Friendships, family, experiences, books read, travel, dreams, places lived . . . I could go on and on and on and on and on.
The pictures weren't just of him and me; they had others in them. Who gets cut out of the picture? Who leaves the friendship?
Shared experiences are intimate connections. Take our dear close friend who died while we were married. Her death was an agonizing blow for both of us. We had toured with her for a year. She was thisclose to us. Every year on the anniversary of her death and of her birth, I mourn quietly. There is only one other person in this world who knows my particular loss, who understands why I can barely breathe two days of the year. I can explain it to my (present) husband, but he didn't know her and he simply can't fully grasp the grief.
Nor is there a way to cover over the loss of relationship with my ex-husband's mother and brother, whom I loved dearly and miss in a way I cannot articulate. She was my mom, he was my brother. And it's worse than if they had died, because I know that they are just half a continent away, living, breathing, and yet they might as well be on the moon. I miss them just about every day.
Wendy Swallow, in Breaking Apart, states that "As a fantasy, divorce has a lot to recommend it. A good divorce fantasy can feel like an open window in a life otherwise shuttered in on itself. It can comfort a heart stinging from marital strife . . . Most people, though, will tell you that divorce is a nightmare rather than a fantasy. Many, in fact, will tell you it is the American nightmare of the late twentieth century. And in may ways they are right."
Why am I writing all of this? Am I regretting my divorce? Did I make a mistake by divorcing my ex-husband?
I am writing this because Facebook brought me, well, us, to another juncture at which I have been confronted with the myth yet again. Just about daily.
But to back up one step: No, I don't regret my divorce. I do regret the sin on both of our parts that led us to that specious place. I hate that what God put together someone did put asunder, including the two of us. Dan Allender, in Intimate Allies, puts it succinctly: "Our only option in all encounters is to glorify or to degrade." My first marriage was more about the latter and less about the former.
I am grateful for my present husband and for the healing and redemption I have found in my second marriage. But make no mistake: God has used this second marriage to show me where I had deceived myself in my first marriage. The sinful behaviors that I used to blame on the ex-husband are still with me, even though he is not. I am keenly aware (as God has revealed thus far) of where I failed/fell down/sinned. And I am flinchingly grateful that God will continue to reveal my heart to me as I live in this second marriage.
Back to Facebook. My ex-husband has a profile. How do I know? Because every time he friends or is friended by one of my friends, I get an update: "Ex-Husband is now friends with Good Friend!" Yippee! Skippy! Yea!
At first, this sent me reeling. I felt intruded upon and very proprietary of my friends. This was my turf! Hadn't I divorced him so that I wouldn't have to think about him, see him, know his movements . . . so I could pretend he didn't exist? It's not that I bore him malice; I actually wanted good for him and desired a certain reconciliation. Earlier this year, when going through a serious medical issue, I had very much wished that I could speak with him and apologize for the things God had brought to light.
And those desires were still there, just . . . at a distance (cue Bette Midler).
Ah, but there he is. A real person. Alive. Friends with my friends. Enjoying Facebook. And again I am Faced(!) with the reality that divorce is a myth: our two lives are joined by those thousands of connections that were formed throughout 17 years.
In the past month as I have watched the Facebook Status Updates, I have become aware of a question--perhaps a call?--from God: What would redemption do to the myth? What would redemption even look like between two people who used to be one and now they aren't, but who have the memories of being one? And memories of putting the oneness asunder?
As the status updates have continued, I have found myself beginning to prayerfully reflect upon each friendship that is shared, the story that is of a fabric. I am grateful that just because the marriage died doesn't mean that those thousand connections died--for either one of us. I ponder my first marriage a little and ask God to continue to show me the unfaced-sin in my own heart.
I realize that Facebook offers an opportunity to turn the myth on its head. As I take joy in the longevity and richness of all those shared connections (over 50 and counting!) and I continue to ask God to "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Ps. 139.23-24), I am more divorced than I have ever been. What I held onto was the selfishness (my friends, my turf) and the anger ("I will cut him out of the pictures!") and the old story of a dead marriage ("I refuse to remember him; he is dead to me.").
God is a Redeemer. Redemption is the story of the Bible, told and retold and being retold now. We are a people of the Book. I am called to live out the Gospel, to repent and beg mercy and "forgive and cancel debts and love boldly" (Allender). It is good to hunger for reconciliation and to be open to what it might look like in this cyber-rich twenty-first century.
What's it looking like is that Facebook gives me an opportunity to remember my first marriage and husband in a new way, as one for whom much, much, much has been forgiven and given back and made new.
It is a taste--the briefest, most subtly-exquisite taste--of heaven: repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, fellowship, worship of the Redeemer. When all myths die at the feet of Reality.
Posts
