Beauty from Ashes

 Well, I'm coming out with a bang. I'm going to talk about something we are never supposed to talk about, but I know that there are people out there like me and I'm sure this will bringing a little bit of healing and peace to those people...  The group of people I'm talking about are the "adult children of divorce".

This post is dedicated to the man who has had to deal with the consequences and affects that my parents' divorce has had on me.  It's also dedicated to my children who have also dealt with my insecurities over the years.  

First of all, I want to say even though I was only 10 when my parents decided to end their marriage, I knew WHY they were, and I understood.  Even at the time I remember thinking it was probably for the best.  It was a difficult time for everyone involved so I am in NO way shaming anyone.  

Secondly, I want to say that my parents' remarriages brought whole new families into my life that I adore, especially important to me are 5 of my siblings that I do not ever want to think about living without.  Both of my parents found new loves that have been lasting lifelong partners, best friends and amazing stepparents to myself and my brother.  

If there was ever a best-case scenario, I think my brother and I had that.  We love our families (all of them) more than anything.  

With all that being said I have a little story to tell. The details don't matter because one thing I've learned is you can have a best-case scenario and still have consequences that need to be talked about.  

The night before our wedding my future husband and I were walking from the chapel to the rehearsal dinner and of all the things two hopeful young people who were about to get married could be doing.. we were fighting.  I was upset about who knows what and he was dumbfounded.  What in the world could have turned his future bride into this ranting woman beside him?  I remember him stopping me in my tracks and demanding to know what was really going on.  

In that moment I just yelled out "why are we even doing this, it will never last?"

Boy did that catch him off guard.  I could tell by the look on his face this thought had NEVER occurred to him.  I could tell by his words that what I had just said was like some kind of foreign language he couldn't understand.  

What I know now was that he couldn't imagine anything other than us spending the rest of our lives together and that belief was the solid truth that was leading him to that altar.  What I didn't know at the time was because he had grown up in family that had stayed together through the good times and the bad, he didn't' even consider there was an alternative.

What I also didn't know was that was the beginning of me using my insecurities as a weapon against his unconditional love.  

And what he didn't know was that God had selected him specifically to help heal the broken insecure places in my soul.  He didn't know that he was getting a runner who didn't have clue how to solve conflict.  He didn't know that he was getting someone who had to be talked off the ledge on a regular basis.  

He also didn't know that when we hit a rough spot after 19 years of marriage that all of that stuff was going to come up and threaten to destroy everything we had built together.  He didn't understand that and neither did I.

For a season we couldn't figure out how to fix what had gotten broken.  Life had hit us hard a couple times and we were struggling to find our way to each other in the midst of these storms.  We were both feeling broken, alone and confused.  What had happened?  How had we gotten here?  More importantly how do we get back?  

As I said in my "I'm back" post yesterday...  God had been so faithful to me and in this season it's more evident than ever.  As my husband and I started trying to find our way back to wedded bliss our Heavenly Father faithfully dropped a book into our lives that has changed everything.  We started reading the book together and applying the principles we were learning about, and our marriage began to transform.  The love, affection and devotion all came flooding back in.  But one thing we knew for sure is we had to figure why it had derailed in the first and so that it would never happen again.  

Since this post is about me...  that's all I'm going to focus on.. the one big thing that God has revealed to me that is helping me better communicate to my husband what is wrong and what I need.

One night as Bobby was reading the chapter about solving conflicts in a healthy way there was a section that hit me and immediately answered so many of my internal questions.  The author had taken a little detour while talking about conflict with special section about "children of divorce".  He quoted from a book called, "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce" and what it had to say was a HUGE lightbulb moment for me.  

"Because children of divorce don't know how to negotiate conflict well, many reach for the worst possible solutions when trouble strikes. For example, some will sit on their feelings, not mentioning complaints or differences until their suppressed anger blows sky high.  Others burst into tears and are immobilized or retreat into themselves or the next room and close the door.  But the most common tendency is to run away at the first serious disagreement and wrestle with unconscious demons.  This is because from the perspective of a child of divorce ANY argument can be the first step in an inevitable chain of conflict that will destroy the marriage."

That may not be everyone who experienced their parents' divorce, but I know after 20 years of a beautiful stable marriage to the most reliable and stable person I know, that's my reality.  

I have lived with the thought of impending doom forever.  No matter how good my life has been there has always been this thought in the back of my mind that it won't last.  I have held back so much of myself so that I would have enough of me left if he ever decided one day that he had had enough.  I have struggled to feel secure in my husband's love and sometimes even with my children.  I have struggled to suppress thoughts that one day everyone is going to leave, and I will be alone.  

That night while Bobby was still reading, I ordered the book that had been quoted off of Amazon and started reading it as soon as it arrived on my doorstep.  I made it through one page, and I was already bawling... so much of my crazy way of thinking was starting to make perfect sense.  So many of my "unconscious demons" were exposed and I started to see my life and my marriage through a clearer lense.  

And within the first few pages I realized exactly WHY GOD had gifted me with my husband and his specific characteristics and attributes.  God had been using him to show me the unfailing, unconditional love of God.  He was showing me that no matter how far I go he's going to find me and bring back to him.  He's been showing me what forever looks like all this time. He's showing me what "I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU OR FORSAKE YOU" looks like.  

For the first time since that night before our wedding I am completely secure in this forever love.  I'm confident in my husband's love and more importantly in God's love.  

In the beginning of Jimmy Evans book "The Four Laws of Love" he makes the profound statement our spouses are given to us by God to heal of us of things in our past and with all the work that Bobby and I have put into our marriage in the last few months I can say with complete confidence that for us nothing could be truer.  

So, because of God's incredible faithfulness I can joyfully say cheers to the next hundred years.  Let NOTHING but death separate You and Me baby!!!!!

There is so much more to be said about this subject, but I definitely can't say it better than the two books I have mentioned so if this post resonates with you in ANY way you should look into reading them.  

God promises in the book of James to give wisdom liberally to anyone who asks for it...  so if you are struggling with any of the issues that came up in this post pray for wisdom and God is faithful to supply it.  

I also want to leave everyone with the thought that no matter where you find yourself on the spectrum of divorce whether you have been in it or you were the child whose parents divorced, or your marriage is struggling right now...  God brings beauty out of ashes, and He redeems and restores every single thing that we go through for His glory if and when we allow Him to move and work in our situations so take heart in knowing that His mercy is new every morning and His faithful love endures forever.