Not every story ends in staying together…

I wrote about Chad and DeAnn who took the road that Mark and I didn’t take. 

Mark and I went to Chad’s wedding last weekend. It was a celebration in moving forward.  He married a woman he has worked with for the past 10 years.  They became close in the wake of his divorce–something she’d experienced.  When shared pain is transformed into something wonderful, it is cause for celebration.  (Note that DeAnn married her affair partner over the summer and has no ties to her friends from her previous life. She not only left her husband and kids. She left us too.) I can’t even write about the toll of all this on the kids.  It is too painful. 

In the middle of all of this–before the happy ending part–I had the opportunity to talk with Chad.  Chad said it helped, so I share it here…

1) The way your spouse’s choices make you see yourself is not true. I repeat. The way your spouse’s choices make you see yourself is not true.

2) The “annulment” language isn’t true. In all the marriages we’ve watched dissolve–and in some ways in our own situation, the spouse who wants to go uses phrases like… “married too young” “never really was in love” “wanted different things out of life”. It is easier to leave if you can somehow void all that has gone before. In fact, then it becomes sort of noble because the leaving spouse sees themselves as righting the wrong and now finding the right path. This can poison your early memories. Don’t let it. It is not the truth.

3) In many ways, the story itself isn’t true. True love will die for the object of its affection. You laid your life down for your family. Your spouse didn’t. You are the one who loved, and that remains beautiful and worthy–even if it didn’t turn out as it was designed to.

4) Your story isn’t over. And your biggest challenge is going to be to remain open. You can get up every morning and put on your bulletproof vest and do reasonably well, but your heart (and the hearts of your children for that matter) will starve to death. Do whatever you have to do to take off the vest and deal with the scar tissue. (BTW, this part really, really sucks.) If it didn’t hurt, then it wasn’t true love, and I’m pretty certain it was. (See #3.)

5) In many ways, your life really is a story. Donald Miller says that heroes and villains are very close. They both have strengths, struggles and catastrophic flaws, but in the climactic moment the villain will chose what is best for himself and the hero will choose what is best for others. The best stories are the ones where people die if the hero doesn’t get what he wants. Miller tells the story of his friend who’s life is dedicated to building wells for villages that don’t have clean water supplies in South America. If her story stops, people die. Look at what “your character” wants, and make sure it is something compelling. It will help with #1.

6) Forgiving your spouse–not holding them accountable for all they’ve done against you and your children–is essential. Letting it go, doesn’t make it okay, but it keeps it from poisoning you. This a process.

7) You are going to have a lot of work to do not to carry this baggage into your new life.

8 ) Your children are battling because they are also being told a story that is not true. (Internally, that it is their fault. Or externally through the betrayer’s story that they found “true love” morphing your children’s ideas of what love actually looks like.) You’re the hero in the story. You can capture their hearts by inviting them to live a story with you that wants something better. You can help how they see themselves. (Note that bashing your spouse won’t accomplish this.  But telling a new story for yourself will.)

9 ) The hardest part is letting go the way you think things should be and simply allow them to be the beautiful things that are. (You will have to work on the mental discipline to find the beautiful and ignore the ugly.)

10) You are now living a new story–whether you chose it or not.  Make it a good one. And give yourself time to heal so you can fully enjoy it.