Our wounds are to be embraced. They are an essential and necessary part of our journey.
But, every family I walk alongside on this journey is a family in Crisis, and there is no joy there.
I received a call from a friend who told me that she made the decision to leave her husband of 10+ years because of his alcoholism. His inability to kick his habit, in spite of rehab, recovery programs, and counseling, made her life just as unmanageable as his. They have young children in the home. But my friend knew that hers was a life lived in insanity, that her kids' lives were lives lived in insanity, and in order to be able to step outside the daily affects of alcohol abuse, she needed to break free from it once and for all.
She told me that reading Wings Like Eagles has helped her open her eyes to her denial, and find the courage to take a stand against her husband's behavior. As much as I feel that this was a good decision for my friend, I have to admit that my heart has been heavy with grief over the loss of their marriage.
Divorce is wrong. It isn't how things are supposed to be.
As I do my work in Crisis Recovery, I come upon this all the time. Holding the hand of a spouse who has been abandoned for addiction, who has been abused, and kept in dysfunction, and then see them come to the gut-wrenching realization that divorce is their only way to freedom from the insanity, is never an easy pill to swallow. It is never celebrated, or taken lightly.
Quite honestly, that first step taken out of the insanity of a dysfunctional and troubled marriage is like taking a step off a cliff, and down into an abyss. It takes so much energy to finally wake up and make the move to divorce, but our energy level soon plummets, as the reality sets in.
Subtle realities, often times. Going out to eat with the kids as a family, but without your former spouse. Filling out school, or medical forms, and having to check the Divorced box for your marital status. Recreating holiday traditions. Learning how to live as a single-parent.
I have a friend who has been a housewife and at-home mom for all the years that she has been married. Now, she is divorced, and still feels strangely foreign in this life that used to be well defined for her. She was a housewife before. Even though she was awarded alimony and financial support so that she could continue to be an at-home mom, she isn't a housewife anymore. This is devastating for her, as she happened to like her job title.
My ex-husband couldn't afford to support me financially so that I could stay home with the kids after we divorced. (I have to be totally honest and admit that my independence and pride wouldn't have wanted him to, even if he could afford it.) So, I had to change my whole status entirely, and become a working mom who had to miss birthday parties, holidays, and precious time with my kids--everything I cherished.
So, basically, I took that much-needed step into divorce, and down I fell. Depression. Discouragement. Financial struggles. Loss. Emotional pain for not only myself, but all of my kids that needed to be worked through. Kids' failure in school. Evidence everywhere that life wasn't OK.
But, as bad as it all was, and it was bad, I knew that that step into divorce, even if it led me down into the pit, was the step I absolutely had to take, in order to raise my children in an environment free of anger, control, and abuse. It was a step I had to take so that I could be free to develop the parts of me that were created for a purpose greater than covering up the bad behavior of my husband, and expending all of my energy convincing the kids that their dad was a great man, even though his actions showed them otherwise.
Falling into that pit was painful and dirty. Climbing out of the pit was exhausting, and defeating at times. But the climb developed muscles I would never had known I had, had I stayed in the chaos and insanity. And as horrifying as it was to see what my children went through, when I work with adults who never had the opportunity to step outside the power of a dysfunctional family, I know that every bit of pain and hard work was well worth it, as my kids grow into healthy, functional individuals.
My daughter was with a friend recently who got into a horrible verbal assault with their family while my daughter visited. Profanity flew from child to parent, verbal assaults flew from enraged parent to child, and the entire episode was played out in the presence of my daughter who was caught in it, unable to escape. She was shaken, because the moment reminded her of years past, when her dad would verbally rage, and attack.
She was affected by the verbal violence, but rather than just stay quiet and out of the way, she spoke up after they calmed down, and she shared with them (including the adults) how wrong their behavior was. She handled herself respectfully, but assertively. She was well-muscled from her climb out of her own pit.
We are who we are, as life takes us from one thing to another. Or as we take ourselves from one thing to another. And the vast majority of us (OK, every last one of us) have been hurt, or have gone through a time in our life we didn't like, or want, but we journeyed through it, and if we did our work right, and climbed upward, we gained strength.
With that strength, we are able to see almost with super-hero eyes, others who are on a similar journey as our own. So we reach out to them. We extend them a hand. We do our part in tooling them so that they can climb out as well, and join us on the other side.
This statement was made by Teresa McBean, Executive Director of the National Association for Christian Recovery. It's an awesomely true statement.
I am thankful for my wounds. They help me understand others who are around me who are hurting, and they allow me to feel a compassion for that pain that speaks to them, calms them, and gives them an ability to look to someone who knows their pit. And knows the way out.
Divorce will happen, whether Mike, Tracey, or I write about our experiences, or not. But, Mike, Tracey, and I have been in unique, but all too common places that are very familiar to many people out there. So, we share, we advise, and we show how wonderful it is to be on the other side of Crisis. And we bring as many over to our side, as we are given the opportunity. Because there is more to life than living in a dysfunctional nightmare, and teaching our children that Family Crisis is normal.
As I do my work in Crisis Recovery, I come upon this all the time. Holding the hand of a spouse who has been abandoned for addiction, who has been abused, and kept in dysfunction, and then see them come to the gut-wrenching realization that divorce is their only way to freedom from the insanity, is never an easy pill to swallow. It is never celebrated, or taken lightly.
Quite honestly, that first step taken out of the insanity of a dysfunctional and troubled marriage is like taking a step off a cliff, and down into an abyss. It takes so much energy to finally wake up and make the move to divorce, but our energy level soon plummets, as the reality sets in.
Subtle realities, often times. Going out to eat with the kids as a family, but without your former spouse. Filling out school, or medical forms, and having to check the Divorced box for your marital status. Recreating holiday traditions. Learning how to live as a single-parent.
I have a friend who has been a housewife and at-home mom for all the years that she has been married. Now, she is divorced, and still feels strangely foreign in this life that used to be well defined for her. She was a housewife before. Even though she was awarded alimony and financial support so that she could continue to be an at-home mom, she isn't a housewife anymore. This is devastating for her, as she happened to like her job title.
My ex-husband couldn't afford to support me financially so that I could stay home with the kids after we divorced. (I have to be totally honest and admit that my independence and pride wouldn't have wanted him to, even if he could afford it.) So, I had to change my whole status entirely, and become a working mom who had to miss birthday parties, holidays, and precious time with my kids--everything I cherished.
So, basically, I took that much-needed step into divorce, and down I fell. Depression. Discouragement. Financial struggles. Loss. Emotional pain for not only myself, but all of my kids that needed to be worked through. Kids' failure in school. Evidence everywhere that life wasn't OK.
But, as bad as it all was, and it was bad, I knew that that step into divorce, even if it led me down into the pit, was the step I absolutely had to take, in order to raise my children in an environment free of anger, control, and abuse. It was a step I had to take so that I could be free to develop the parts of me that were created for a purpose greater than covering up the bad behavior of my husband, and expending all of my energy convincing the kids that their dad was a great man, even though his actions showed them otherwise.
Falling into that pit was painful and dirty. Climbing out of the pit was exhausting, and defeating at times. But the climb developed muscles I would never had known I had, had I stayed in the chaos and insanity. And as horrifying as it was to see what my children went through, when I work with adults who never had the opportunity to step outside the power of a dysfunctional family, I know that every bit of pain and hard work was well worth it, as my kids grow into healthy, functional individuals.
My daughter was with a friend recently who got into a horrible verbal assault with their family while my daughter visited. Profanity flew from child to parent, verbal assaults flew from enraged parent to child, and the entire episode was played out in the presence of my daughter who was caught in it, unable to escape. She was shaken, because the moment reminded her of years past, when her dad would verbally rage, and attack.
She was affected by the verbal violence, but rather than just stay quiet and out of the way, she spoke up after they calmed down, and she shared with them (including the adults) how wrong their behavior was. She handled herself respectfully, but assertively. She was well-muscled from her climb out of her own pit.
We are who we are, as life takes us from one thing to another. Or as we take ourselves from one thing to another. And the vast majority of us (OK, every last one of us) have been hurt, or have gone through a time in our life we didn't like, or want, but we journeyed through it, and if we did our work right, and climbed upward, we gained strength.
With that strength, we are able to see almost with super-hero eyes, others who are on a similar journey as our own. So we reach out to them. We extend them a hand. We do our part in tooling them so that they can climb out as well, and join us on the other side.
"Our wounds are to be embraced. They are an essential and necessary part of our journey."
This statement was made by Teresa McBean, Executive Director of the National Association for Christian Recovery. It's an awesomely true statement.
I am thankful for my wounds. They help me understand others who are around me who are hurting, and they allow me to feel a compassion for that pain that speaks to them, calms them, and gives them an ability to look to someone who knows their pit. And knows the way out.
Divorce will happen, whether Mike, Tracey, or I write about our experiences, or not. But, Mike, Tracey, and I have been in unique, but all too common places that are very familiar to many people out there. So, we share, we advise, and we show how wonderful it is to be on the other side of Crisis. And we bring as many over to our side, as we are given the opportunity. Because there is more to life than living in a dysfunctional nightmare, and teaching our children that Family Crisis is normal.
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