The Relationship Should Not Have Happened

 I'm older now, but memories creep in. When they do, I usually tell them to 'get lost'. There is no value on dwelling on them. I'm happier when I don't. 

But time and again, I do grieve for the younger me. That girl who wasn't strong enough to say 'no.' I should have spared myself years of nonsense. I knew I didn't like him. I sure didn't love him. I was codependent to my faith. My religion set the ground rules. 

I didn't have the confidence to know there were many other choices available to me. I lived in a small city growing up. I had a very sheltered life. So I complied when he stuck like glue to me not letting me escape the relationship that shouldn't have happened. 

No More Games, My Memoir

If you are a Christian facing divorce, if you have Biblical grounds, there is no guilt, no shame, no embarrassment needed. Read my story.

No More Games - My Memoir

 Hi, and welcome to my blog. The topic will be Christian separation and divorce. 

Recently, when put on shutdown due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, I asked God what he would have me spend my time on. I was surprised the day my thoughts drifted to recalling a lunch conversation with a Christian friend. 

Years ago, I was married. It wasn't a real marriage. It didn't measure up to what God has in mind for marriage. He was immature. I suppose I was too. I was naive. I hesitated to marry him, but followed through. 

A few years later, after several moves he initiated, he left me. I lived separated for many years before ultimately divorcing him. Then I met my current husband. I was remarrying and a girlfriend who'd been my maid of honor scolded me for she didn't believe Christians should remarry. Years later, she and I met for lunch, and she brought up something from my past marriage. What she said was so irrelevant since I'd moved on with my life. by then I'd almost been remarried over 25 years! But I hadn't seen her for most of those years and I guess her mind was still in the past--the old person she used to know. 

 

In the shower that day during the pandemic, my mind rehearsed our conversation. I realized there was so much she didn't know. She would have no clue of my efforts to keep my marriage. She didn't know the level of embarrassment, humiliation, pain, grief, conflicted feelings, nor of the dangerous situations I faced--all on my own. I didn't have new friends to walk the rocky road with. 

It was not simply a throwaway marriage. Many Christians don't know the full story of another couple's separation and divorce journey and thus judge them without knowing the facts.

So my friend brought up her embarrassment for what she said to me as I was remarrying. I told her I'd long forgotten that story. I had. But now fresh in my mind, during the pandemic, I became angry over it. It was time to tell my story. But I could not make it public. I would use a pseudonym. I would change the details. I'd borne enough humiliation. 

 

And so, now ready on Amazon in Kindle form, is my memoir. https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Games-Christian-Marriage-ebook/dp/B09R1PBYKC 

Why Women Stay Married to Abusers

Why, when a husband cheats and isn't fulfilling his vows of marriage does a woman not just leave him and file for divorce? 

The reasons are many, it's about codependency. It can also be about a woman feeling she has such strong faith in God that the marriage will be restored that she hangs on until that occurs. To proceed with divorce might mean she doubts God.

It can also be because her Christian faith causes her to believe she will disobey God if she divorces. Ultimately, the codependency wrapped up with inexperience tells her she is still in love with him. 

I felt all the above when Randy cheated on me, left me repeatedly, was never there when I needed him, and when he lied to me and insulted me. 

I eventually realized I wasn't in love with him--not the current him--the him he became. I wasn't even in love with the old him. I didn't feel I was in love with him when I married him. I was in love with the idea of marriage--the idea of being an independent adult--the idea of what could be.

At 26 I remember feeling there might be no more single guys left in the world for me. My heart's desire was to be a mom; to have a family. 

That's inexperience. It was untrue. There were many single young men still available. I met Mark at 30. He'd never been married. We eventually married and had children.

My Pandemic Writing about an Old Divorce - In the Past But Never Forgotten

 

So here's the scoop. During the pandemic, like many, I became reflective and began to write the story of my separation and divorce as a Christian at a time when it wasn't a popular choice for believers. 

I was triggered to write it due to a conversation I'd had with a Christian friend who knew of my divorce in the '80s but didn't know the details. 

When he left me, I figured I had to fix it. I had to get him back. I would not stand for divorce. But in that push-and-pull time, my energy was zapped. I was full of sadness and depression, I coped at work, but felt I had to keep my separation a secret. I was culled from inside out like a fisher might do to his catch. 

So compounded problems occurred. Poverty, self-doubt, self-hatred, anger, embarrassment, worry, fear, too many traumatic instances to mention. 

I ran or jogged to relieve the stress. 

From March to July, 2020, I wrote about it. Now I need it read. Then I will have come full circle. 

https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Games-Christian-Marriage-ebook/dp/B09R1PBYKC 

I Gave up Adventure for Marriage

When you're in your twenties, you think you know all you need to know. And so you make a decision to get married because you know no better path. 

You have a whimsical idea about marriage. You trust in God, if you're a believer, and since God didn't break you up, you assume it will all work out. 

But what you don't know enough of is psychology. In the 70s I took sociology in high school. That was the first time I'd ever heard about abuse. I knew a little about dysfunction, but not much. People didn't even talk about stalkers until much later when women were being stalked and raped and we learned about it in the newspaper

I remember I didn't even know what the word rape meant back then. I thought it was someone ripping off a woman's clothes. 

____________

So I was uneducated. I couldn't possibly know the pathology of the man I was about to marry. I didn't know anyone immoral. I only knew Christians. I only knew what my church and family taught me and the bits I uncovered in the newspaper or in encyclopedias. We didn't have the internet then. 

So I married him, and was disappointed right on my honeymoon. 

I had started my career, but it was so boring working with adults compared to being in university with peers. Had I had bigger goals and a network of friends to rely on, life would have been so much different. Had I more guts and gusto and strength to defy my cocoon, perhaps I would have skipped ten years of nonsense and lived with more adventure. 

But marrying Randy got me to a job I loved in a new city and helped prepare the way to finding my current husband Mark.

read more in my book No More Games, by Amy Wittykit. 

Christian Marriage Gone Wrong

Now in an era of technology, young women have a huge pool of people to interact with and consult for help. They do it under their own name, but often under a handle or pretend name. 

In the 1980s when I married a man I shouldn't have, things were different. I didn't have broad world experience. I only knew what my friends, parents, and church taught me. My world was small but expanding when I met Randy. 

I didn't have a pool of friends by then. It seemed my university friends had all gone their own ways and no one wanted to be a third party to a couple.

Being an introvert, I had a hard time cultivating new friendships. So I fell for it. I fell for Randy's idea that we marry. 

_____

_____

But there was hesitancy. I wanted more and better, but I didn't know how to get it. I didn't know how to let him down and part ways. 

These days, women go online to ask for advice from complete strangers. They hear other points of view. 

I currently see lots of women who married young and got out of a miss-marriage, or who are going through trials now. 

When I was separated in the '80s, Christians didn't talk about divorce. Marriage was supposed to be longterm. Having no confidantes was hard. So were my legalistic viewpoints. So I stayed tethered to Randy though he didn't want to live with me. I needed someone to cut the cord. It took a lot out of me. It took too much than anyone should have to give. 

Read my story in my Amazon Kindle book No More Games. Thanks.

Where Does My Story Fit? It Doesn't Matter. It's Been Written

When I was preparing to write my story of a Christian woman who married a fake Christian who ultimately left her, I was sure it shouldn't be called a memoir. I know memoirs are a tough sell. I could call it creative non-fiction. I could also make it a novel. 

The lines are often blurred when writing such a story. The point was, it was time to tell my story. It was time for me to remove the pain of the past once and for all. It was time to rip off the bandage and uncover the girl that was still in there. It was time for her to heal and come back to life. 

The idea of it being a self-help book also crossed my mind. I normally write self-help. I do want my book to shed light on the subject of what some Christians face when going through separation and divorce. I do want it to help, not just entertain. 

I also read an article where a writing coach said how annoyed she was with reading yet another story of a relationship gone wrong due to dysfunction and abuse. I'm sure many stories written of breakup are from people who suffered physical abuse or dealt with alcoholics or drug users. 

My story is none of that. A slightly narcissistic person, yes. An unhealed person, yes. 

Back when I married him, I never knew the word narcissist. The word stalker was only becoming popular. 

The trouble is, many women, in the name of marriage, do themselves an injustice by thinking they have to stick it out when being flung around like a spider on a long web by a man who was supposed to have her best interests at heart.

I invite you to read my story. https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Games-Christian-Marriage-ebook/dp/B08H1BQNHB

(I've contacted Amazon to correct the look inside feature)

Christian Marriage? Or is it?

 

She goes through with the engagement to Randy.

But she is still in love with another man.

Or at least infatuated with the other man.

She hesitates when two other men suddenly ask her out in the midst of her wedding planning. 

She cries out to God but is in too deep to walk away. 

She can't fathom what lay ahead.

She rationalizes why she should marry Randy: He took her virginity (his doing more than her desire). 

Aren't you supposed to marry the first man you have sex with?

Sick theology.

Stalked without realizing it. 

Talked into marriage, rather than falling in love first. 

The first signs of problems appear on the honeymoon.  

No Christian gets married expecting to become separated soon after. But this is what happens in many cases. Especially in cases where the groom feigns salvation because he knows he must to win his Christian girlfriend over.

The naive young Christian bride trusts enough in God to believe all is well. What doesn't seem well, God will surely fix. But soon enough, she's sorry and entrapped. 

Can Marriage Separation Cause Trauma?

Trauma doesn't always come by way of a fist or seeing a mangled body. Words, attitudes, and actions can inflict wounding. Broken promises and a broken heart can induce trauma in the trusting soul. During trauma, parts of our brain shut down to protect us. We say to ourselves; this isn’t right. My soul feels violated by this.

My way of handling emotional trauma was to deal with it myself. I didn't invest in long-term counseling. I didn't have close friends to talk to. I'm an introvert. Once I married Mark, I didn't talk about back then. I had tucked the memories away. But years later, the trauma shook my core like an about-to-explode bomb demanding to be decommissioned. 

What resulted were physical symptoms. Anxiety. And so I went for therapy as a much older woman, the memories still on the surface to be told. 

And we worked through them. 

Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I decided to write my story. 

It was a way of shedding my old wineskin (renewing my thinking) to prepare myself to move forward in a new wineskin. Find my story here 

Matthew 9:16, 17

The Patches and the Wineskins

"No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." 

Celebrating your Anniversary Alone?

 

In a Christian Facebook group, one poster wrote that it was her wedding anniversary, but she and her husband were separated. 

It's crazy to think I spent a number of wedding anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases on my own too as I stayed separated for so long so many years ago.  My heart wanted to reach out to this younger generation woman, but I wouldn't know what to say. 

If I could have, I might have suggested she read my story written in my recent memoir No More Games, When Christian Faith and Marriage Collide: a Memoir. But the forum would not allow for me to share that. 

When I think back, so many details of my separated years are vivid and in colour. But many others have faded. I don't know how my on-again-off-again spouse dealt with our anniversaries. I don't recall what I did either. 

I went through ups and downs trying to stay married, waiting until he finished his school course. He went back to university three years after we married. It would be a longterm commitment. So I hung on. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't hung on. It was a time filled with many tears.