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.