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 

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.

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.