Preconceived Ideas

Chris,
I was not the only person who was hurt by his choice to have an affair. If we love people, and they love us, what we do with our life affects them not just us.
He hurt alot of people. They believed in him and what he said so when they watched him fall it tore a piece of their heart out as well.

Quite often we hear people say "It is MY LIFE! I will do what I want! Leave me alone!"
The reality is our choices have impact on others and when those choices are destructive to those around us………..
"People start trying to control you." That is just the way it is.

If no one responsible is willing to take leadership then the lynch mop tends to take over.

There is this ongoing battle here on earth between chaos and control
 (life or growth & death or deterioration).
If life seems too chaotic people will start to enforce their will on others trying to regain control and re-establish some sanity. If we gain too much control it starts to suffocate and results in the opposite of its intention, it recreates chaos.
Here's how:

When we have stacked too many expectations on others they will learn they must fly under the radar in order to function in life. Slowly flying under the radar becomes the norm.
"This is the way it is done."
This eventually discredits the spoken instructions. No one takes what is said publicly seriously since no one follows it anyway. Nature starts to take its course which is of course: chaos. Be careful not to create an expectation without a corresponding back-up plan to walk it out or people will stop taking you seriously. I have learned this.

On the way to work they are doing road construction. There is some "structure" amidst the chaos. During the day they have flaggers directing traffic but at night chaos reigns, as it does in life.

My traffic light is set wrong.
So when I sit at the light waiting to turn left my side won't turn green. I hit the trigger……
The main street turns yellow…then red…… and then green again.
My light never turns green allowing me to go. It will only turn green if the car opposing me hits their trigger.
I will lose my job if I sit there waiting patiently until someone shows up to hit that trigger!!
 It is before 4am.
I lost my respect for the authority of that traffic light. I took matters into my own hands. I looked both ways and made my left turn. I ran that red light intentionally. I took the lesser of two evils the way I see it.

In life if people only tells us what is wrong without giving us a practical "green light" we will learn to just tell them what they want to hear and do what we think needs to be done when they are not looking or simply blow them off altogether. Matthew 23:1-5.

This was the outlook on life my ex-husband seemed to have. Growing up as a latch key child of a single mom with 4 kids, chaos reigned when mom was at work. Control was appeased when she walked thru the door. He grew up learning how to chameleon the rules and the rule makers. Be completely compliant in her presence. Be patient…… she will be gone again in a few hours.

As an adult he played the church just like he played his mom. I do not believe he was even aware of what he was doing. To him this is just normal. You are expected to act one way around one crowd, another around the other crowd. He simply lived up to all of their expectations. He was not bothered by the fact that these various worlds had apposing expectations. He was a good boy. He did as he was told………always.

I was also raised by a single mom who had 2 kids. I was also left unattended for long stretches of time without any supervision. This was the norm at the time. However that is where the similarities ended.
Our mom's had very different parenting styles.
His mom was command and control. She worked all day. When she got home she picked her battles, then stood her ground on those few issues with all her might. Reining in 3 energetic boys and one wildly independent adolescent girl was overwhelming to do alone. She had to be strong.

My mom had worked towards a degree in sociology when she was in College. She valued truth more than control.
She pursued being my confidant and enticed me into confession more than gaining the upper hand. She wanted to know what was really going on and talk me through those choices. I had a different sense of chaos growing up than my ex-husband did.
My mother was in the middle of all the chaos.
His mom was shielded from it.

We both had absent fathers.
 His Dad lived in another state, Las Vegas to be precise.
My Dad lived in other countries. My Dad worked for the state dept as an economist. He was sent abroad to among other things assist developing countries on how to set up a market economy. I would joke "My dad teaches baby Democracy school!"

Developing the voice of "the little guy" was at his very foundation.
It was his life's work to weave "listen to the people" in and out of what he did with corrupt bully governments. He would try and teach them how to respond to the requests of the poor and the average with diligent and effective leadership. His life's mission was to train the Heads of state how to govern using a servant leadership model…..or at least try. Narcissists who are on top are not easily influenced. However power will listen to more power……….. but of course for all the wrong reasons.

He treated his kids the same way. He was emotionally distant but functionally responsive to our requests, always allowing us to speak our mind. In other words we always had the right to lobby for our position. We didn't always get it, but we could always build, present and argue our case…..respectfully.
If done correctly we did have a chance of winning.
If my parent saw a flaw in our logic we were required to accept and learn from their counter arguments. I won or lost fair and square. Even if my dad was losing the argument in flames he would always compliment my effective strategies. He did not take it personal other than
"Ooh I have a smart kid!"
For him it was win/win.

My Father-in-law was a manager and had a much more practical down to earth style. He was in the trenches with day to day employee squabbles. My dad preferred all these very highfalutin concepts. His Dad had practical solutions that worked. My Dad was more concerned about the big picture. His Dad managed workplace drama.

They both had their strengths and values.
They both had their blind spots.
They were both humans who have their sinful imperfections. I loved the insights I received from both of these men.
I loved trying to weave their life wisdom together inside my head. They had very different leadership styles yet both effective. I found both men fascinating but was left with insecurities due to their human weaknesses.
Eventually I learned the only perfect Father is my heavenly Father.
I can rest in that, allowing my earthly fathers and mentors to sort out their humanness.

His parents were Christians.
My parents were not.

As an adult my ex-husband did not feel he had a voice in life.
Expressing himself was something that was only done in secret. "You don't talk about that….."

In his world;
when you are with people you conform to their expectations. He would constantly ask permission to do the simplest things in life.
 I would respond with  "I don't care....what do you want to do?"
Instead of grasping that this truly did not matter to me he would hound me and hound me to say specifically,
"yes or no".

Every aspect of life had its own set of rules to live by:
The school was one set while the playground had another, 
His mom had a set of rules for home but his big brother enforced a set of his own.
The church had their set of rules but the kids in Youth group lived by a different code.

He loved to obey..............and he loved to find the loopholes.
Right and wrong was determined by who is in control........
if no specific authority was giving specific instructions then "mayhem" must ok!

Consequently when I would try to have a conversation with him it sounded like he was picking pat answers out of a mental file box and tossing them at me.
It was plastic cliché after plastic cliché.
He didn't know how to answer a question with the actual answer.
"I don't know what you want me to say!"
"The truth! Why can't you just tell me the truth!?!" 

He would respond with what he thought might be the socially accepted expected response
Never mind that these polite answers are never the truth.
They aren't his actual opinions.
They aren't what actually happened.
They aren't what he feels, what he thinks about, what he wants.

They are the answers he was trained to regurgitate in each of life's arenas.
In a superficial setting it is fine to talk like this but in a marriage,
I want to know you.......

We were both extremely frustrated in our conversations to say the least.

I saw him as being completely walled off from every serious thing that happened in his life. I was determined to crack his shell…..

Then his shell cracked.

In Christ always,
T