I'm in Shock! He left me!

Chris,

At first everyone was fine.

My husband left me for another woman. That is pretty cut and dry. The bible is against adultery and divorce so I initially I felt supported.

In hindsight what I realized had actually happened is that the crowd pretty much split down the middle. One group sided with me……

“It is NEVER the fault of the victim if a spouse has an affair!”
"You didn't do anything different than every other wife out there! You were just a normal wife!"

Another group sided with him.

“You need to forgive! "

"We should not pass judgment on him! He was married to a horrible person and true, it wasn’t perfect the way he dealt with it, but aren’t we supposed to love people?”

Never mind that  this group had not even met me. It did shock me that given what he was doing......... why on earth would anyone even listen to him? They just assumed what he said was somewhat accurate. I suppose.This crowd looked at me with suspicion and an aloof contempt. No one wanted to verify his stories or “get involved” so they remained distant and cool towards me keeping their opinion quiet which included any kind words as well. I didn't really pay to much attention to it at the time because I did feel I had people who were pulling for me.

The problem with his story of a HORRIBLE wife is that it was a complete panic stricken fabrication created just to get out of the "dog house". When faced with judgment over what he was doing, he just spued the worst trash about me he could think of as an excuse and a distraction from his pornography, adultery, smoking cigarettes and bar hopping. The reason for the conflict in our marriage was because he had checked out. The conflict was the response to his behavior not the cause. His entire life had become a lie to get him to this point, spitting out a few more was business as usual. Wanting to be a good Christian the people listening would eventually “forgive” him or as he saw it “take his side”.

Eventually the soldiers lined up: The women on one side, the men on the other. The only guys who sided with me were in HIS family and mine: His father and one of his brothers and our Pastor at the time, Pastor Bo. One brother sided with him. This brother was also involved in an adulterous relationship as well, as the future would someday expose.

However our Pastor added one little caveat to his support: He said “Well I have decided to support you because you are still attending church here and tithe, whereas he does not”. Pastor Bo did not support me based on scripture but instead he followed the money. He then said “The way I handle these things is I ask you what you want me to do?”

This is not what expected to hear. My Pastor growing up "Tom" had a very clear cut discipline policy that I had assumed was a denomination standard.

“This is how you handle..... X.” This is what we do with situation...........Y"

I actually don’t know if it was a bylaw or if it was just Tom’s procedure. The policy was: "Follow Matthew 18". Work with the person as long as you can but in the end put them out of the church if they do not repent. This man was known for his grace and compassion and as a result many felt he cut people way to much slack.

A person who was acting out in some way would get "grace grace grace" and it seemed like FOREVER before the Pastor ever dropped the ax on them, so to speak. This would annoy people. After going through this whole nightmare of my own I now understand why he chose to kept his reserve.

I had assumed someone in a professional capacity would reach out to my husband and walk through this process with him. "What are you thinking Sir? Do you really want to do this to your life?"

I wanted to get a run down on how my current Pastor sees scripture in light of this and the specifics of how he carries this out.  Instead he put the ball completely in my court. From my vantage point it looked as if he chose the wisdom of psychology over the wisdom of God. Instead of using the studies in psychology to help map out how to walk out scripture....What works, what does not work. IT seemed as if he just defaulted to a "higher wisdom": psychology.

It is true that it is my life and I do want control over that but I also needed some structure that I can hang on to in the storm. At the time I just couldn't articulate the things going thru my mind and heart. All I wanted to say was:

“Be a leader! "

Make some sense out of this craziness! "

"Be the stable strong spiritual brick wall I need right now! "

Instead I simply stuttered. I think I might have mentioned Matthew 18 and I Corinthians 5 but my Pastor's response was that he didn't really believe in Church discipline.  I mumbled that I was terrified of running into them. I could not handle that. He did do as I requested.

Later he relayed to me the conversation they had. The reason he gave was not church discipline but instead "Your estranged wife needs a safe place to attend. So as long as she is going to this church I ask you to respect her space and attend elsewhere."

I was confused. I was glad that he supported my need for a safe place but why don't you want to do what the bible says? This is just weird to me. 

Tom's policy was based purely on the bible mixed with his own personality and background. He had been a Christian his entire life. He was raised in a healthy loving home.

My new Pastor was not raised as a Christian. He was a recovering alcoholic without even a drip of Christian cultural influence. He lived a wild and crazy flesh centered life until it almost killed him. Dangling upside down from his seat belt he finally gave up. He asked God to "get him out of here" which God did get a hold of his life. He had gone on a drunken joy ride with his jeep in the sand dunes and flew off of a cliff flipping the vehicle. This moment was his bottom and he surrendered his life to his higher power.

His nature is large risky and blunt in a constant state of trying to figure out this "Christian love" thing. He is like an elephant trying not to damage the tulips. Thus he overcompensates by not getting involved at all. He tends to over control or walk off. He did not manage his own difficult situations. He acted out. Nor does he have any idea how to walk someone else thru a storm. This guy had such a strong and forceful personality that when he was working out of his own craziness, people were ruthless with him. Since this is all he had ever seen of "church discipline" he abdicated from it completely. "I will not do that to him."  He refused to deal with any difficult issues but instead just let them all play out. This tended to create chaos.

None of this of course was in the front of my mind. What I saw was a man who gave off this aura of strength and endless "tough talk". My naive assumption was that he would surely deal with my ex-husband and knock some sense into his head. I was not in the least prepared for the lesson that was coming......The guy with the reputation of being soft and easily walked on has a stronger backbone then the guy who rages and spouts.

 However the Pastor of my X’s mistress had called my Pastor and was trying to coordinate a “response” to this situation. She was also married. Both adulterers were kicked out of their respective churches.

My hope was that this other Pastor would be the one to lead these two people towards repentance. As hard as it was for people to comprehend I was concerned about his salvation. I had serious doubts about his salvation because there was nothing Christian about any of his logic or decision making during our separation or the months preceding it. The question that started to nag at me was this "Isn't his salvation more important then our marriage? At what point do people switch gears and drop the "reconciliation to your wife" topic and zero in on "reconciliation with God"? The "reconciliation to his wife" topic will take care of itself IF he is truly reconciled with God. Don't you think?

I decided to “check out” of his life at this point and let “the experts”handle them.
I was truly on overload.

Now to work on my own survival. If anything good happened on his side I am sure I would hear about it. I was just relieved that I wasn’t going to accidentally run into him at church with her now that he was asked to "give me space".

I attended a class at church based on a book called "Changes that Heal" with a friend. I figured that would be a good place to start. Eventually I found a good Christian counselor and went to him for a season. My Dad talked me into taking St John's wort to help with depression. It did take the edge off. I assumed it would take away the despair but I found another side benefit, I was much more tolerant of irritating people. In fact nothing really bothered me anymore. I reached out to the singles in the church and tried to establish a new circle of friends in addition to the ones I already had. I pursued a better paying position at work so I could afford the house payment on my own. In the meantime I pursued getting roommates to make up for the income loss.

A break up is never easy but at least I was moving towards healing. It is what happened after this what started to screw with my head.........................

In Christ always,
T