Divorce: When "Love, Honor and Cherish" is a Lie

Divorce. I was actually filing for divorce.

How? How had I gotten here? I'm a pastor. I don't divorce. I just don't. I told myself when things started going downhill it didn't matter how off-kilter things got—I'd made a vow that I would stay with and support this person "for better or for worse, till death parts us." Despite the fact that seven months after we were married he was arrested by Federal Marshals (for the first, but not last time) and officially diagnosed with a fun cocktail of personality disorders, I still held on. I'd taken a vow. A vow before God that I could not break. I'd just have to get through it... somehow. The manipulation, the emotional abuse, that was just a part of the deal I'd made.

Yet, here I was, sitting across from an attorney having to answer the question, "So why do you want a divorce?" and hearing me answer, "Because my husband's crazy. And he's in prison. And I just can't do this anymore." That was pretty much all I said at that point because the tears started to stream and wouldn't stop throughout the rest of the meeting. She asked a few more standard questions that I don't remember before I finally left her office a blubbering mess and wound up a puddle on my living room floor while a friend kept telling me to try to keep breathing.

Anger would soon replace a lot of my grief as I began to delve into evidence, emails and paperwork which revealed that the individual I thought I'd married was not the person I actually married. I won't go into details, but it was a rabbit hole of lies, threats, protection orders, and deceptions dating back two decades that I was completely unaware of. Once I'd unmasked the facade, the full power of his narcissistic rage was unleashed upon me and I spent the next year fending off attacks that tried to destroy me personally, professionally, and financially.

There's nothing easy about divorce. Even if you're not going through the trauma of realizing you have been married to a sociopath who'd been manipulating and emotionally abusing you for years, divorce still is a painful, painful thing. It's like the ripping apart of your soul and for a while, you just hemorrhage and wonder if the bleeding will ever stop, or if you'll finally just be emptied of everything and it's just going to eventually kill you.

And then there's that whole "I'm a pastor and I took a vow, how can I do this?" struggle I was facing. I knew I could not keep living the way I'd been living the past three years, but divorce? How could I do that either? I have to stand up in front of hundreds of people EVERY weekend and talk about faith, commitment... all those things that were supposed to be a part of my marriage.

Yet, here I was, penning a letter explaining to 400 households how my marriage had utterly failed.

Guilt. Shame. Embarrassment. Yeah, that doesn't even touch the surface of emotions I was feeling.

Now, I'll grant you, being told by my therapist, "You do realize you're married to a sociopath, right?" helped make that decision a little easier, but it would still take me some time to realize that for all these years, I'd been focusing on the wrong part of the vow.

Most people do. The part most people cite is that whole "for better or for worse until death parts us" bit and think "that was my vow. This is just the 'worse' that we promised to stick through them on."

Perhaps. But... we seem to always forget that there was a first part to that vow. There was a promise to "love, honor and cherish... for better or for worse until death parts us."

In many marriages, the first part of that vow, "to love, honor and cherish," is so egregiously violated, the second part becomes a moot point. Because if you're not loving, honoring and cherishing the person you married, what did you promise to do?

I know I did not stand up there in front of my pastor and colleague on my wedding day and state, "I promise to put up with all sorts of lies, abuse, and manipulation until I'm a completely broken shell of a person, for better or for worse, until death parts us." Pretty sure that was NOT the vow I took.

Pretty sure the vow he took as well was a promise to love, honor and cherish me, too—and given that vow was broken the moment he said it because there was this pile of lies he was hiding from me, it kind of made the rest of the vow null and void.

I'm also pretty sure God's intention for marriage is that two whole people are brought together into a whole relationship. Sort of like multiplication.  My fabulous therapist explained it to me like this... 1x1=1. Two whole people equal a whole and healthy relationship. But when you only bring half of one person into a relationship... 1x1/2 = 1/2. God's intent is not that our relationship be only half a relationship, or if two halves are brought together, they only equal a quarter of a relationship. Or worse yet... when you try to combine a whole, healthy person with someone who is so deceptive that their entire being is a lie, then you get: 1x0=0. The whole person becomes broken down and negated by the vacuum and chaos of the other. Who they were as a person gets totally annihilated in the midst of this destructive relationship.

There literally is no relationship at that point. At least nothing that is recognizable in the way in which God intends human marital relationships. The relationship is dead.

"Until death parts us." Most of us think this death is physical death, but the death of the relationship is a real thing, too. It lies shattered on the pile of hurt and deception that's been building up.

Marriage is a relationship that yes, requires work and a lot of self-sacrifice on both parts. It's not the romantic happily ever after we imagine from Disney movies. It involves doing things you don't want to do sometimes. It involves forgiving when you're still angry. It involves communication and honesty. But when both parties realize this is a partnership and they've been brought together to help edify and strengthen the other—that's when the marriage vow is being fulfilled. No, it is not easy and I'm not talking about quirky habits where they don't shut cabinet doors or toilet seats, or maybe they aren't quite the perfect person you once idolized them to be, or that they can't make mistakes... sometimes big mistakes. Disappointment in your marriage—that it wasn't the fairy tale you envisioned—and a destructive marriage are not the same thing.

People make mistakes in relationships. Its inevitable. Marriage does not mean there won't be mistakes, there won't be errors, there won't be things that you do that harm your spouse. That's going to happen. That's where forgiveness and love—by both parties—has to come in.

When the Bible describes the marital bond, it talks about serving one another out of reverence for Christ. (Ephesians 5:21) It also states that men are to love their wives the same way they love themselves. They should not abuse themselves and likewise should not abuse their spouse.

Abuse comes in many forms. Physical. Emotional. Mental.

Thus there has to come a point where forgiving over and over for the same harmful thing, being beaten down, being made to feel on a regular basis like your life is spinning out of control for no better reason than your spouse can't seem to learn to follow ANY rules and cares about no one but himself, is leading you down a path that has destroyed you rather than edified you... that's when you need to realize your marriage is destructive and nothing good will come from you staying together, other than you fulfill his need to be a toy he can yank around at his whim. That you're just a chess piece in his weird and twisted game. You become less of a person at that point. You are not a partner, you are a pawn.

God did not create you—or marriage—so that you would spend your life as a game piece, as an anxious mess, fearful of the person you share your life and bed with, wondering when the narcissistic rage is going to become more than just word vomit and turn physically violent.

That's not a marriage. That's not a partnership. That's its own prison sentence into destruction.

And that is not the vow you took. The vow you both took was broken long ago. Dissolving the legality of that marriage at this point is just paperwork because it ceased being a marriage—or in some cases never really was a marriage—due to the deceptive nature of one of the participants. The vow was a lie from the start, and thus invalid.

Now this is not an affirmation that one can just decide to get divorced when things get a little rough. This is about destructive, harmful marriages that will never BE a marriage, but will only be a means through which one person controls and harms another in some way. Where all the love, care and support in the world you pour into it falls into an empty abyss that simply feeds the monster.

Divorce stinks. There's no getting around that. Even when you know it's what has to happen for your own survival, it still hurts in your heart like no other pain you've ever felt before.

The bright spot is that there IS healing. Gaping wounds eventually heal over and become scars. Perhaps a bit more hardened than before, and the scar tissue never disappears, but the hemorrhaging eventually stops. Blood flow eventually returns to the other parts of your body and life. Life will never be the same, but you have a future now that has hope. A future that God continues to be a part of and guides you through. A future that involves a WHOLE you.

Some day, maybe even all the walls you've built up and surrounded yourself with so that you don't ever wind up in that situation again begin to crumble a little. But don't rush it. We need our walls sometimes to protect ourselves so our healing can be complete. Just be sure to leave a gate that can be opened at some point by someone, because when we keep everything out, we also keep everything in that eventually needs to be shared with others and the world. 

What Can the Brutal Scenes of Violence Against Women from "Game of Thrones" Teach Us?

The web has been a-buzz lately with disdain and anger toward the producers of the HBO series "Game of Thrones" depicting not once, but twice, a rape scene. The first was last year when Cersei was raped by her brother Jamie (with whom she had already conceived, presumably by choice, three other children). The debate primarily surrounded the question of why the producers felt the need to alter the scene from the books, where the encounter had been consensual as opposed to forced sexual assault where Cersei clearly was telling her brother, "no." It seemed unnecessary and gratuitous.

This past week, Sansa Stark was wedded to a ruthless, brutal, sadistic man, Ramsay Bolton. In a not so shocking turn of events (given what he's done to Theon throughout the series), Ramsay brutally rapes his new wife.

I'll be honest--I don't like the scenes. They disturb me on many levels.

But I may surprise when you I say I'm not angry at the producers for doing them - I'm angry at the fact that our response to this is to just say "boycott the show" rather than asking ourselves "how close to reality for women are these scenes, and is that why we're shocked and disturbed by them?"

I think part of what disturbs us most is that Game of Thrones operates in a world where violence against women is simply a part of the "culture." It makes many of us angry that a show would so blatantly and cavalierly toss these scenes in as simply part of the "every day" for these characters.

But the more disturbing question is: how many cultures exist in our world where this kind of thing is actually a reality? Even in America, we are seeing with the advent of social media a rising awareness of how common abuse against women - even seemingly "powerful" women - actually is. (And let us not forget that not all abuse is physical. Most of Joffery's abuse against Sansa earlier in the series was mental/emotional, but no less devastating).

As a pastor it never ceases to amaze me the number of women who come into my office and "confess" abuse they have suffered at the hands of a parent, spouse, significant other...or even a supervisor. Before I went into ministry, I truly had no idea how prevalent such violent and emotional abuse actually was. Now I think to not be in an abusive relationship of some sort (whether it be physical, mental and/or emotional) at some time in your life is the exception rather than the norm.

So as I ponder the debate that surrounds this criticism, I think our reaction to these scenes says more about what we want to shove under the rug and avoid as opposed to addressing the reality these scenes are depicting for many women across the world. Many say they're just "gratuitous scenes" that don't further the story line.

Um, ok. When is rape and domestic violence NOT gratuitous? When actually can you justify such a scene as a "necessary" plot device in real life? I don't think there's a woman out there in the middle of an abusive relationship that feels such behavior was "necessary" to move her story along.

People are angry because they feel Sansa is now a "strong" character and doesn't need to be victimized in this way. Well, I've got news for you. There are many strong women out there who find themselves in abusive situations and no matter how strong, intelligent or "powerful" they are, still have little recourse when it comes to escaping their abuser. Some abuse there simply is no protection against until it becomes a life-threatening situation. But many abusers are careful not to take it that far. In fact, many times, a woman doesn't even realize she's in the middle of an abusive situation until much later because it's far more subtle and just grows over time in such a way that one barely notices the shifts of power and manipulation that are occurring in a relationship.

People would probably be shocked if a "real" depiction of the Biblical stories were told in a way that highlighted the actual power structures at play. For instance, Hagar was a slave woman who had no real choice in what happened between her and Abraham. While we don't like to look at the story in this way, the truth is - Abraham raped her. She had no way to say no because she was a slave.

Dinah is raped - and the concern is not for the welfare of Dinah who is never given a voice, but is about how such a violation of Jacob's property will reflect upon the tribe. Thus vengeance is not so much about how emotionally and mentally devastating such an act would have been against the young woman, but is more about the "property rights" of the men. Rape was considered an affront against the father or the husband of the woman rather than a violent act against the woman herself.

Tamara, David's daughter, is also raped - by her brother - and the incident is completely ignored by her father. (Not so much by the other brother, but again, the story becomes less about the abused and violated woman and more about the power struggle that then arises between the two brothers).

As for David's relationship with Bathsheba? He's a king who decides he wants a beautiful woman - so he gets her. We have no clue whether Bathsheba said no, but it's rather irrelevant as the power structure was set up in such a way that saying no was probably not a viable option.

Thus, I think our problem with what Game of Thrones is laying out for us is (whether the producers intended this or not), it's saying something ABOUT us that we simply don't like. No, this kind of behavior SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED! (But then, there's a lot of behavior in that show that should not be tolerated, but again, reveals some sick and twisted realities of how people in power actually tend to operate.)

But it is tolerated. Every day. Even here in America. We tolerate it, we ignore it, and as women, we many times just try to find ways to "make it work" in a "man's world." That means we compromise at times things we don't feel we should have to, but we do it. We are conditioned to not even see misogyny when it happens because it is so "normative" for us. We are told to not make waves, to not make mountains out of mole hills, that for the sake of the company/church/institution, whatever we're part of, to just "let it go." When we run into a clearly sexist misogynist, excuses are made. "Oh, he comes from a different era." "Oh, that's just so-and-so being so-and-so."

No. That's what needs to stop. That's what needs to change.

Boycotting a show that unveils an ugly truth and reality about how our world operates in terms of gender inequality and violence against women is not really an answer that addresses the problem that makes such scenes so controversial and upsetting. I of course would NEVER recommend an abused woman ever watch those scenes or that show. PTSD is real and the anxieties that such scenes can trigger are not pretty.

Yet, in the world that Game of Thrones operates, such behavior is common - because it is common within so many of our cultures and our history as well. Perhaps that is the issue we need to be upset about and begin to look at more deeply and how do we effect a change? Yes, I'd love to see the show take a turn where they don't put up with that kind of abuse and degradation. Yet, that wouldn't be a reflection of what our actual reality is.

That's the part that saddens me, and the part that should disturb us most.