Dear Single Fathers,

My first blog post. I’ve decided to date it today. What do I mean? Some posts I may back-date to the appropriate day, since some posts will come directly from my journal. Or maybe I won’t—we’ll see. Writing is healing. My journal has been my therapist. It paints the picture of my thoughts and emotions so I can stand back and look at the picture more unemotionally, as if not me.

The past years since my divorce have been the most difficult of my life … weak words for an experience beyond words. (If I were a swearin’ man, I’d find a hat full of colorful words to use. But then swearin’ don’t do nobody no good anyways.) I could not have imagined the emotional and spiritual pain. Making it worse, I couldn’t find anyone else to share it with. I was sure only I was taking this divorce stuff so hard. A wimp!

A few years earlier I’d had a friend tell me he was divorcing. He might as well have told me it was raining outside. I didn’t even say I was sorry. I had no comprehension what divorce meant in an emotional sense. It was just two people going their separate ways. Kinda like high school when you had a date, had a nice evening, but didn’t think you’d go out again. My friend and I went on with our conversation and other topics.

Now a few years later on the other side of marriage, I thought I was the only one that felt the pain like I did. My wife told me to go. I complied. It was August. Day after day I’d come “home” to the small empty condo that a dear friend allowed me to use until it sold. It had one large room, the living room and kitchen combined, with a small bedroom on the left and a separate hallway for the washer and dryer that ended at the door to the small bath. I’d left my home of 17 years, with 3900 square feet and the noise and bustle of many children. Now I came “home” to the condo and could hardly close the door behind me fast enough. I dropped my things on the couch and fell on my face on the carpeted floor, no longer able to physically stand. Overcome with grief I sobbed uncontrollably. I didn’t know it was possible to shed so many tears. After a while I’d crawl to the couch and kneel in prayer, continue to cry, pleading with my Father in Heaven. I couldn’t stand the pain and the loneliness of being away from my family. I’d never known homesickness, not even when I left home for two years after high school and never saw my family. Is that what I was feeling? Homesickness? Perhaps. But certainly more. It was the loss of my dreams, my home, my children, all the physical comforts and the familiar things and the life I knew, my neighborhood and friends. I missed the noise and laughter, sitting around the dinner table. I’d head off to work knowing I’d return. Life’s road had its potholes, but at least it was going somewhere. Now nothing made sense. I was a puppy tossed out into the middle of an ocean, drowning, with nobody and nothing to help me. I was unnoticed and unseen, paddling, turning ’round and ’round, nothing in sight but more water, and the great waves lifting me up, then dropping me and nearly burying me. The emotions were overwhelming and frightening.

What could save me from emotional, spiritual, or physical death? Why weren’t there others in my shoes? How could I make sense of what was happening to me?

I couldn’t make sense of it all. But although I couldn’t see it then, it was my faith in God that carried me. My pleas to my Father were being heard, even though I was blind to it.

Ever since I left home I’ve been watching for others, other single divorced fathers. I don’t see them often. Where are they? Are there none?

I’ve come to understand that many divorced fathers check out. They check out of life, they check out of their family, and they check out of whatever religion they might have had. They hide. To remain “men” they hide. They make themselves look like other tough men. Some of them separate themselves from their families entirely, usually out of pain, to put their entire life behind them and close the door. Some move to other cities or states. Not only are they divorced from their wife, but they choose to divorce themselves from their children. Many remarry … too quickly, and then divorce and remarry in a maddening cycle (and I understand why). Many stop going to church, even if they were active before. It’s awkward to attend church as a single man. And sadly, many men fall into vices that carry them down further, a life of personal destruction.

The burdens placed on the single father are overwhelming. We must find a new place to live. Alimony and child support are servitude and bondage. The legal system is against us. Society and people decry the plight of the single mother, but there’s nary a sparrow’s peep about the children’s father. The mothers are put on pedestals, and government, state, city, and church programs, therapists, and neighbors scramble to their aid. Single mothers are reverenced for their tenacity and the tough life they endure. The mother is seen as the obvious choice for custody. Fathers are expendable and optional. Fathers are the cause and the blame.

I’m not saying that single mothers are not in need of help. I’m painting the view of the single father. We’re becoming a fatherless society. With family law we’re treating symptoms, not the cause. I’m not saying we men are not without fault. But family law, as typical government involvement, makes a bigger mess than it tries to solve.

My dear fellow single fathers, there is hope. We must hang on. We must not despair. Patience. There is actually joy that can come from this experience, even indescribable and shout-from-the-rooftops joy. The Lord doesn’t balance his books when we necessarily think they should be.

Brother Carl