Forgiving my ex-husband, talking to my therapist, taking it day by day

When I was a little kid, I’d tag along with my mom wherever she went. Being the youngest, I was her little sidekick when the older kids were at home or doing something. Mom and I would walk along the dirt shoulder of the road in our rural community, where most people lived on Main Street, and the moms were all at home in the daytime. We’d go in the kitchen or living room, and the two ladies would start talking. I’d get to overhear a lot of things. Women talk freely while the men are away at work. Anyway, one of my mom’s best friends was a large and deeply unhappy divorcee. She never remarried and had one topic above all else that interested her: her ex-husband, Ken. From the other room, I could hear his name flying freely as the minutes ticked by.

After visits with this particular divorced friend, my mom always debriefed me as we walked home by sharing her ample opinion. “My gosh. When is she EVER going to let it go about her ex?” She’d ask me. “She has got to let Ken go.” Being only 6 or 7, I heartily agreed. She really did need to let that man go.

Fast forward lots of years. Now it’s me that’s the divorcee. Thank the heavens that I have found my way to a new, loving marriage with a man that I adore. But despite my wonderful marriage now, and even though my divorce was 6 years ago, I still feel unable to accept what happened to me sometimes. It was such a desperate 18 years for me. And I want to let it go.

I finished writing the first draft of my marriage memoir a few weeks ago. So much confusion and pain has come to the surface in the process. My first draft went out to some readers, and I saw in their feedback. They said the manuscript was very heavy. What am I supposed to do, I wondered? It’s the truth. But its so heavy. Can I lighten it up somehow? Edit it with more compassion, a little humor, a little more self-blame/self-responsibility… how do I balance this narrative in a healthy way? Maybe the root is that I’m not forgiving enough, not letting go enough, trying to do something unholy with this manuscript. Or worse yet, am I turning in to my mom’s old friend, unable to let go of something/someone that needs set free?

Have I become that person?

Heaven knows I’ve been trying to let go. I’ve read articles on forgiveness from my church. I’ve been to therapy over this divorce. I went to therapy DURING the divorce too. I’ve written ridiculous amounts in my journal, read “The Book of Forgiving” and even got to the point a couple of times where I even considered reconciling with and re-marrying my ex in the earlier years. I’ve bent my poor husband’s ear and my ex-husband’s ear with my insights and quandaries. I’ve built a happy and full life. I’ve tried not to blame unduly, and to look at my own faults. I’ve tried not to shame myself and also recognize the power of others' choices. I’ve philosophized over the problem of choice, free will, and God’s right to judge. I’ve listed out, again and again, the ways I learned and grew from the experience, how I am a better person because of all this. In short, I think I’ve done “the work.”

And yet the pain persists. Sometimes so deeply, sometimes so sharply, that it leaves me feeling worthless and unsure of my own identity in rare, but real, moments of reflection.

So I asked my therapist yesterday the following question:

“Have I forgiven my ex-husband when I continue to find confusion, hurt, and incredulity when I remember things that happened?” and “What’s wrong with me? Am I wallowing? Why can’t I let go? Is it even healthy to reflect so much?”

This therapist knows me well. He worked with me and my ex-husband many years ago when we were still married. He has treated two of my boys. He’s worked with one of my stepkids, and he has seen my new husband and I through 2 ½ years of our relationship. So I trusted that he could guide me here.

And I was truly surprised by his answer.

He said, “Shara, you are the master of moving on. You are the queen of sublimation. What you haven’t LET yourself do is fall apart or wallow. You’ve always tried to understand this from your head and make sense of it. You need to let yourself feel it. Allow yourself to feel compassion for what you went through. To let yourself say that it ‘really was that bad’ and to believe it.”

I said, essentially, that I appreciated that and I could see some truth in that, but that I think my manuscript was too harsh for people to read. I was allowing myself to tell my story but was it too harsh?

He then told me something that I need to keep repeating to myself. I need to learn. I need to make sense of it. He said that the anger I had from my helpless situation was real. And when I tell the story of the anger, that is venting it. But it's still not the heart, not the vulnerability of my experience. He asked me what it was that I actually felt under the anger all those years. I had to think hard. I guess it was abandonment. Abandoned in goals and values for the family that I’d thought we’d shared. Abandoned in duties and responsibilities that I genuinely needed his help with. Abandoned in needs and feelings and conversations where he wouldn’t show up or he’d tell me to calm down and not need to talk.

Of course, I was crying. This was real. Yes, it was abandoned to the core.

We continued to talk. Now we were getting somewhere. My therapist pointed out that I had an unusually strong set of emotions about helping the underdog, and in my powerful devotions to God. (He’s pointed that out to me before.) Why he wondered, was I so adamant about these things?

I hated the question. Why? I don’t know. I’d always been that way. I couldn’t think of a time where God wasn’t my #1 priority, and I wasn’t aware of the depths of human suffering and our responsibility to help others. So I told him I’d always been that way and wasn’t that good enough?

He waited quietly. He wanted a real answer. Then it hit me.

Safety.

Safety is what clinging to God and his commandments meant to me. I also found safety in helping the underdog because I knew the threats that the world held, having come from insane abuse.

Yes, he agreed, my commitment to God AT ALL COSTS and my powerful desire to protect the underdog did represent safety to me. He elaborated on this. He said that in my marriage, my sense of safety was continually, constantly undermined. That I lived year after year having that sense of safety taken from me, threatened, or mocked again and again and again. My tears were flowing freely now.

He went on to say that my ex-husband did not equate safety the same way. He didn’t condemn him or me or say one of us was right or wrong. That’s what was so lovely about it. He told me I had the right to feel as if my safety had constantly been threatened because it had. And that it really was THAT BAD. And that I needed to feel it and allow myself to fall apart when I could and recognize how awful it had been for me. Only then, over time, will the feelings settle down to be a bit more acceptable. They’d always be the same feelings, but they’d find their place in my life and not feel so overpowering.

Then he went on to add some insights that I needed very much. He asked me, “does God have any unresolved emotional issues?” Of course, I had to say no. God is perfect. Then he went on to tell about when God was talking with Enoch, and Enoch watches God cry, and Enoch asks how it is that God could cry. God says, “wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing that these shall suffer?” (Moses 7). God grieved because he had done so much for his people and they weren’t showing love.

My therapist continued. He said that the most emotionally painful moment in scripture was in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus asked if he could avoid having to experience the pain he was about the experience. My therapist believed that although it doesn’t say so, God probably wished he could have relieved Jesus of this burden. He was not able to do so, so he sent an angel to comfort him. This angel was not able to do anything to relieve Jesus’ burden. He couldn’t take away the things that were about to happen. He couldn’t reduce the number of sins he would have to bear on his shoulders. There was nothing he could physically do to make it all stop. But the angel did sit with him. He felt compassion for Jesus. And he sat with him.

“So that is your task.” He told me. “To sit with yourself and feel compassion.” To allow myself to get wrapped up in how tragic it was and to go in a corner and feel it and tell myself that it really was “that bad” and that my safety had been taken away, and that it was devastating, exhausting, and lonely. That I’d felt shut out and abandoned. And that it happened over, and over, and over again with very little relief. For half my lifetime.

“If you don’t allow this in yourself” he concluded, “your devastated feelings will come out when you don’t want them to.” But if you give yourself the time you need, and recognize how bad it was for you, you’ll feel more acceptance.

The irony being, I must allow myself to be “that person” who won’t let go for a while. But with purpose. With intent. Not complaining to everyone. But telling myself what really happened and believing it. To stop explaining it away, taking responsibility, and trying to understand from the head why things like this happen. But just to sit with my pain and allow it. With compassion.