The decision to divorce was not an easy one, but still, it was almost made for me. Unlike many couples, the genesis of this divorce was very public. Before explaining this, there are some family "confessions" that should shed light on the problem of the decision.
My parents are divorced. They divorced when I was a child, and for reasons I never really knew, although I can guess at parts of it. I heard my mother's side of the story, but never my father's. Also, my paternal Grandparents were divorced, but not due to a fundamental character flaw in either Grandparent. My Grandfather actually enlisted in the Army in 1939, thinking that he would be discharged in two years and could resume his normal life. Fate was not kind. This poor man was obligated to serve "for the duration" of the war. This changed him forever, and not in a good way. My Grandfather suffered from PTSD at a time when such a thing was not known or recognized. My Grandmother related to me that after the war, she was afraid to sleep with him in the same bed. This is because he would wake up in the middle of the night, not knowing who she was. On multiple occasions, she woke up with him choking her, believing that she was the "enemy." They were divorced at Grandpa's request in an attempt to protect my Grandmother from the unseen demons. That decision was probably justified by the fact that they had a son (my father) who was young, and who my Grandfather did not want to hurt.
This split made life very difficult for my Grandmother. She did her best to make life as pleasant as possible for her and my Dad. In doing so, she was very indulgent, and unbeknownst to her, set him up to indulge his impulses for the rest of his life. Not surprisingly, my father responded very positively to a woman who gave him attention that my Grandmother could not provide. This part I know, the rest of it is a mystery. They were married, and that explains why I exist. I was a surprise, and that figures into the story later.
My parents divorced when I was about 9 years old. The proximal cause of this cannot be traced to World War II, but instead to the primal impulses my father had extreme difficulty managing. Another divorce in the family tree. Further comment on this is not of interest here.
Having seen all of this, the prospect of my own divorce was not a pleasant one. However, unlike the conditions of my Grandparents and my Parents, the circumstances of my divorce were public. Had it been private, there may have been a fundamentally different story to tell.
At the time, I was a member of a conservative evangelical Christian church (don't worry, I'm not a Baptist anymore!). This particular church held prominent theologians and ministerial luminaries in its congregation. The minister was not only the pastor, but also a noted author and seminary professor, such that Baptists in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, Texas, and probably a few others at least knew of him. This fact caused serious problems for me and my daughters.
He turned out to be addicted to sex with parishioners, or anyone female over whom he had any degree of authority. He was married with four children, but used his position as a means to cultivate sexual relationships. One of those was my former wife.
By now, I'm sure that you have caught on to the story line. My wife was exceedingly pretty, young, and in his sights as a target. She was a young mother of two, very attractive, and having marital problems, which is why she went to see him in the first place. Claiming expertise in "counselling," he used this as a means to set up meetings with her.
The woman I married had some challenges that I didn't understand at the time. She was a victim of sexual abuse starting in middle school, which influenced her propensity to respond to male attention. Her parents were generally unaware of this - she had a very healthy relationship with her parents, but she regarded men in general with suspicion. At the same time , she was craving male attention. Her parents remain "heroes" in my mind because of the class they had, and because they thought about things before saying or doing anything.
Months later, parishioners were generally aware of the affair. It came to common knowledge because my wife was not the only target. Several women came forward to complain of the pastor's abuses. His indiscretions became known to everyone who attended this church, and also to those who read his books and studied under him in college and seminary classes.
It was too much. All of this was piled on top of the fact that my wife had a similar difficulty with an employer within the first year of marriage. At least two affairs, public knowledge of the second . . . no sane man would stay in that marriage. It was hard, but there really wasn't any other answer. Had I stayed married, the parishioners at that church would have had a field day. After the affair was made public, a well-meaning but ill-informed individual preached a sermon about "family." His perspective was essentially that the inner workings of all families are actually the province of the church. In other words, there is nothing private. A week or two after that sermon, I was stopped in a parking lot, holding my 2 year old daughter, and accosted with pointed questions about my relationship with my wife. No one saw anything wrong with that.
The problem here is not that people were concerned about me or my family. Instead, what concern existed was directed by the management of the church. Instead of valuing me, my daughters, and my former wife as people, the value sprang from an arbitrary interpretation of the bible. In the bargain, there was a super-juicy story that the vagaries of "family" allowed everyone to sample.
Imagine everyone you know having knowledge of everything that goes on in your home. That's the reality that I lived. It was not good for anyone - not for me, not for my former wife, and especially not for my daughters.
This left no alternative but to end these relationships permanently. So I did. That required a divorce, unfortunately.
No comments:
Post a Comment