Category Archives: Support & Counsel

Support for the divorced fathers, where to get help, and how to remain strong and not be overly affected by divorce.

Abraham

A number of months ago I was reminiscing about the time since I’d been divorced. “Reminisce” is the wrong word. That makes it sound like I was dreaming about the good ol’ days. “Day dreaming?” Ha! I don’t think so. “Having a nightmare?” No. ☺ But I was wondering what I’d learned and where I was compared to where I began at the time of separation from my wife.

I wonder if this will be hard to hear or believe: I confessed to myself that I’d actually progressed. I’m not saying separation and divorce was good, nor right, nor that I thought it should have happened and that my wife was right in seeking divorce. But just like the stone in the riverbed, rolling and rubbing against other stones and sand over dozens of years, it becomes smooth and beautiful. I know that if I will let them, hard times make me a better man. (I don’t want women who might be reading this to think divorce is OK because it makes men better, especially considering the negative effects on innocent children caught in the middle!) But aside from the evils of divorce in most cases, or whatever the hardship, these times can make us better men … if we will let them.

Something during that time of “reminiscing” over a week-or-so period led me to consider and ponder Abraham. The comparison is not perfect, because Abraham’s test was given to him by the Lord, carefully crafted to see if he would remain faithful to the word of God that came to him, to sacrifice his son. But it’s terribly close. And regardless of the source of the test, from God or brought upon us by the choice of others, how we respond to the test proves our mettle.

Personally I was far from perfect during that time. And I still am. I am a failure. And I failed continually. I have at many times been angry, lost, inconsolable, and a dozen other unmentionable adjectives, each of which my Father in Heaven was not pleased with. But I tried. As Maria in The Sound of Music said, “Perhaps I had a wicked childhood, perhaps I had a miserable youth, but somewhere in my wicked, miserable past, …I must have done something good.” Something in my past, in my upbringing by “goodly parents,” told me that I would be happier in the long run if I remained faithful to the truths of the gospel that I’d been taught.

I cannot describe the difficulties and awkwardness of that time. I had made a commitment to my Father in Heaven to remain active in the church, regardless of the embarrassment or what I thought others might think. Ours is a family religion, and although it’s quite acceptable to be a single woman, that’s from from so for single men. This time was I dare say the hardest thing I’ve done in my life. Being a somewhat quiet person anyway, I decided to go to every function that I’d have gone to as a married man: Sunday church, all my meetings, church parties, wedding receptions (that’s one of the toughest!!), church cleaning, welfare assignments, home teaching, whatever came up. I got numerous awkward interactions and odd looks, blank stares, and conversations that were worse than a first blind date. But I kept in the back of my head that I was doing all of this solely for me and my relationship with my Father in Heaven. (All of those that had awkwardness being around me had their own issues to deal with, and as long as I was cordial and saintly, well, at least as best I could be, perhaps I’d be a catalyst to help them learn to overcome their issues with single men, to help them repent so to speak, although that’s only a thought I have now in hindsight, not something I could consider then.)

And beyond the awkwardness, the pain of being removed from my children, well, you all know what that’s like. Words can’t describe being separated from those you love and for whom God planted in your heart a natural instinct and desire to protect and provide for. My wife and I lost a child at birth, and the two years following until our next child was born were some of the darkest and hardest. But to be teased and taunted week after week with short visits and then long separations from my children, I’ve thought more than once that either I’d rather give up and not see my children anymore, or kidnap them. But I knew in my heart that neither would be good for the children, just a selfish desire on my part.

OK, so back to Abraham. I believe that for those of us in this life that profess to love God, we will have an Abrahamic experience. And the difficulty of that experience will be commensurate to our faith and trust in God. The more trust and faith in God we have, the more difficult the experience we will be presented. And, we will have repeated experiences, some small, some larger, to test our commitment along our mortal path. Sometimes I wish I were a swearin’ man. Must life be this difficult! Yes, it’s part of the “test” of this life, a probationary period. Ha! Now there’s a nice analogy. I’ve often compared divorce to prison in regards to our separation from our children and wife. Are we all on probation in this life? That might be fun to try writing about sometime.

I find the similarity with Abraham’s and our experiences surprisingly similar in many respects. Both have to do with what we care for most, our families. And similarly, Abraham and we have sons removed from us, although not permanently. Ours is a painful week-after-week manner as we see them once or twice a week (whereas we used to seem them every night and tuck them into bed). Hmmm. At least Abraham got his son back. When do I get my sons (and daughters) back?

My heart goes out to Abraham. My heart goes out to you, my brothers.

Carl

80% of Men go Inactive from Church by Three Months after Their Divorce

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I received an email from one of the woman single-adult leaders a couple weeks ago. In it she shared that in a meeting with church leaders she was told 80% of men become inactive by the time three months have passed after a divorce. Here’s an email I sent as followup.

Hi [Friend],

Since your email I’ve not gotten thoughts out of my mind from what you shared. I’m heartbroken at what’s happening to single men in the church (women, too, but my focus is on the men).

You listed what some of the men you know shared as to why they go inactive. The day after I got your email I made my own list. Here I flesh out some of those thoughts. I wonder if other men would agree. Perhaps these are just me, as I’ve never shared them with another person from whom I’ve gotten feedback.

Why men go inactive after divorce:

  1. Men usually lose their support group after divorce. Most women stay with their ward, their support group, for at least a number of months. Even if the ward members distance themselves from the divorced woman, which I suspect is not the usual case, the familiarity of faces and leadership helps immensely. The RS president, home teachers who know her and the family, and hopefully a loving bishop, all help keep the woman active. The man loses these connections when he moves to a new ward and stake–there’s a deep sense of loss and strangeness, aloneness, and uncertainty. Even the most loving ward has a hard time filling in the gap of the family ward.
  2. It’s hard enough for a family to assimilate into a new ward. A single person has a tough time. The man, particularly. Because of societal portrayal of men, the Church and other organizations must treat men as “suspect,” guilty until proven innocent–men in the church cannot be alone with a child or woman with an escort or backup, for example. Divorced men cannot go on standard full-time missions without a wife, but a woman can. These give the man a feeling of guilt, of second-class citizenship.
  3. Women having usually the children with her more often than the fathers, have a consistency of life and its activities and lifestyle.
  4. Upon divorce, men lose their couple friends. Even though it wouldn’t be appropriate for either the single man or woman to be with a married couple in a double-date type of situation, the woman will at least tend to keep in touch with the wife of a couple more than a man would keep in touch with the husband. This is one more loss for the husband. Notice how even in church meetings when couples sit together, it’s almost always the women that will set next to each other. When the woman is taken out of the mix, the man loses out.
  5. Society promotes women with children as abandoned and in need of support, and wards and the Church and U.S. family law support this. (There are books on this topic alone.) Upon divorce our ward assisted my wife in many ways: helped her move, and helped her paint her new home 20 minutes away, for example.
    The husband is seen as tough and self-reliant. When I moved back into the ward when my wife and children moved out, so I could clean and prepare our home for sale, although I could have asked, there were no offers for assistance. The work of yard sale, five truck loads to the dump and another five loads to DI, and endless hours of cleaning and repairing were done alone.
  6. Society paints the divorced father as the “deadbeat dad,” even though statistics show most are current on alimony and child support. Movies portray men as bumbling and inept. (Another book can be written here, and some have, such as “Fatherless America.”)
  7. Family law treats the father as guilty until proven innocent. Another book could be written, and indeed several have (“Taken Into Custody: The War Against Fathers, Marriage, and the Family”), that described the unconstitutionality of family law. As soon as our divorce degree was signed, processes were in place to garnish my wages, and adjust these garnishments automatically for insurance coverage. Too much to say here, but I found that Utah’s Office of Recovery Services, for example, knows about my finances and changes in financial standing before I even have a chance to call them and make changes myself–when my employment ended last year, they contacted my ex before she even knew I was out of work, requiring her to get insurance for the children before I called them to give them my new insurance, costing a couple hundred dollars more per month.
  8. The woman will often keep the home, or moves to another less-expensive home, whereas the man usually goes to an apartment. Indeed, for the first two years after my divorce until I took my ex to mediation and had a small adjustment made to my alimony, I couldn’t afford a place that cost more than $250 per month. I am forever grateful the Arthur’s that allowed me to rent a room in their home and allow my children to camp out in sleeping bags on their basement floor when the came to visit. Even though just as much space is needed to host the children by the father, the woman’s place is seen as the children’s home, and the man’s just a place to visit. There’s not the same sense of stability or permanence for the man and his children. His is just a place to visit, not live.
  9. Men are given the feeling of being imprisoned. Sounds like an exaggeration? The divorce decree specifies visiting rights, when children can come visit their father. It’s a continual struggle for the man to see his children as much as he wants. When the woman’s holiday falls on the father’s weekend, for example, there no stipulation for making up the father’s lost time. (Labor day this year was Michelle’s weekend, which happened to fall on my weekend, meaning that a full four weeks will pass before I get to have my children for the weekend again. In that four-week period I will see them four Thursday evenings for three hours, 12 hours out of 672 hours. It’s hard for a father to feel like a father.)
  10. Men have a natural tendency and desire to be the protector of the family, but divorce prevents a father from doing this protecting, causing frustration, hurt, and even anger. I hear often of how mean and even cruel husbands can be, and wonder sometimes if this comes “naturally” (not that it’s right), when the wife files for divorce and the man’s ability to protect his family is threatened and finally taken away. I’ve only confessed this to one person, and I don’t consider myself an angry person, but after our separation I’m embarrassed to describe the fits of anger and even rage I went through after taking my children “home” after their visit with me, knowing I wouldn’t see them for another week. Let’s just say that I’m glad my car windows were up, and that I’m still alive. 🙂 The father loses his ability to protect his children, to know their lives and their friends, to be involved with them. I still have to calm myself when I remember what little part I play in my children’s lives since I’ve been removed from the home.
  11. Now I understand why some fathers sever ties with their children. To continually be saying goodbye to them, to then not see them for days or a week is painful. As much as I love my children, there have been times I wanted to quit the game and the pain. I push forward because I love my children and I know they need a father.
  12. Two thirds of divorces are filed by the wife, and family no-fault divorce law prevents the husband from having nearly any control in what transpires. He cannot prevent the divorce, becomes a pawn in the hands of his wife in the divorce process, and law favors the woman (although I hear it’s slowly getting better) and often grants the mother full physical custody.
  13. The father gets the feeling that he’s paying child support and alimony for the right to see his children. If a father falls in arrears, it’s not uncommon for the father to lose his visiting rights. As a side note, many years ago I was out of work for nine months. Our family buckled down and lived frugally and survived together. I was out of work for three months last fall, but that sense of “let’s work through this together” is entirely gone. I called the ORS to let them know I was out of work. I felt like the Gestapo was on my tail. “How are you going to pay? How are you going to get caught up?” My ex texted me and asked where payment was. It was a steamroller on my tail, threatening to run me over if I couldn’t make my payments. Instead of the feeling of “working together through a tough time and battening the hatches and sharing the pain,” everyone was against me. Indeed, I’ve heard of fathers out of work being put in jail for non-payment of child support and alimony. Now that’s a nice way to solve the problem, preventing the father from finding a job!
  14. Feminism plays an immense part in societal support of the woman over the man. (The book “Manning Up: How the Rise of Woman has turned Men into Boys” discusses this.) It’s not that women shouldn’t be equal in many regards to the man, but feminism diminishes the godly role of women in favor of taking over the role of the man, and likewise diminishes the godly role of the father.

In other words, Satan is winning many battles.

Forgive the long email. And I sense that may have come across as quite emotional. It was a chance for me to do a brain dump of thoughts from the past six years and help clarify what has been floating in my mind. It is to imagine what’s behind the 80% statistic you shared. It certainly came across rough and diminishing the pain of the woman in the divorce, but the intent was to help paint a picture of a man’s view. I wonder how close my experiences match those of others. I’m sure we’re all different.

And with all that said, as negative as it may have sounded, please know that I’m founded in my Savior and grateful for his Atonement. The heavy loads mentioned above have been lifted from my shoulders or at least been made incredibly lighter. I joy in the growth I’ve had over the past almost six years. I have profound gratitude for the lessons I’ve learned. Although nothing like what Abraham went through, recent years have been an Abrahamic test for me. Each of us will be given an opportunity to show our willingness to remain true to what we know and to show our commitment to our Father in Heaven. This life is short, with tests galore. You know of them yourself, with the loss of your good husband and your health issues. I have failed in many ways, but I have learned much, and at least I have learned better to not care what others think, and do my best to remain true. My blessings are innumerable. My heart burns with the knowledge of the importance of our covenants and foundation in Christ. I struggle daily to continue to seek to forgive fully. I’m just a proud and haughty man. It’s easy to blame others for my hard times, to play the victim. You mentioned forgiveness and asked about my journey with it. I’ve come so far, but it’s the highest hurdle I’ve been faced with. Not long after your shared your response to my email, below, to my mind came the story of Corrie Ten-Boom. I believe it was she that years later after the concentration camp came face to face with the man that had brought into her life so much horror. And she was to shake his hand and forgive him.

Through it all, I want my brothers in the gospel to have the same redeeming experiences I’ve had over recent years, and to not lose hope.

And children are so deeply affected by fathers leaving the Church. How can we bring these men back?

I’m curious how you heard that the Church leaders are concerned about single men. What have you read or heard? I hear and see little support in the Church for men of divorce. The occasional talk and Ensign article, but even those are as often about men whose wives passed away, not men of divorce. How do we reach those men that are leaving, the 80%? They need to be caught at the time of divorce, not afterwards. The nature of what I’ve said above means they’re out of reach of the Church and its leaders too quickly. Three months before my divorce I was already out of the home and the ward. I can hardly describe the difficulty I had in going to a new ward as a newly separated man. It was monumental. I had to put all perceived embarrassment and awkwardness aside and go only for me. Those seven months before I moved back into the ward to sell our home were the most awkward of my life. Then those three months back in my home ward as a single man, awkwardness all over again, with people who just moved out my ex and children, and who didn’t know how to relate with me. I was an island. Then to move into our ward here, Parkway 4th, was yet starting over again. I try to imagine what would have given me support. Who could have reached out to me, and when? My new bishops tried, but they didn’t know me and weren’t familiar with divorced men and their issues.

I wish there were something I could do. (There are some things I’m doing on the side, and I’m curious of they will someday play some part.) I know a few men who have or are going through divorce, and unfortunately, in some regards, they are among the 20% that will stay active in the Church. What about the 80%? I wish there was a support group that immediately upon separation fell into place to give the man guidance and strength. To leave the responsibility upon new home teachers in a new ward, who don’t understand divorce, and who wouldn’t likely be assigned until the man is past the three-month mark and “lost,” isn’t working. Support must not be at the ward, nor even the stake level, because the men move out of their home stakes, and the new ward doesn’t know of them soon enough.

So many unanswered questions. So much work to do.

Carl

Letter to a friend in the throes of a failing marriage

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Sent: Thursday, November 5, 2015 10:37 PM

Hi Tim,

I hope you’re doing OK. What an emotional time. And I’m sure it’s not ending soon. I pray there’s some way to save your marriage.

My sister, a wonderful but high-maintenance girl, is going through the same thing, preparing to divorce my dear brother-in-law, a wonderful man and saint. The battles are raging.

This evening is my weeknight with the kids. We had a wonderful time, and since they don’t have school tomorrow, I was lazy and enjoying them and got them to their mother’s 20 minutes late. I got a text message at 9:21 asking where they were. After 27 years of marriage and five years of divorce, I still feel like a puppy on a leash, with my dear wife controlling my time, my pocketbook, my thoughts, and everything I do. The nearest analogy I have for it is prison, where I am allowed visiting during certain hours and days. Even though my life is filled with much joy and spiritual experiences, the feelings I described undergird it all. I’m used to it, but it brings sadness at the loss of what was once a wonderful and loving family. I share this to give you the impetus to continue fighting. I sincerely hope there’s a ray of light for your marriage to stay intact.

Hang in there, dear brother. My prayers are with you.

[Bon Vivant]

And a followup a few days later when I got no response:

Hi, Tim.

You continue to be in my thoughts and prayers. Every day I’ve wondered how you’re doing.

I’ve been reading a book, one that I alluded to when we chatted at the church, called “Wild at heart : discovering the secret of a man’s soul.” It was recommended to me by a young father whose marriage was on the rocks a couple years ago. I’ve enjoyed it.

We can only change ourselves. I think you even mentioned this when we talked a year or so ago. Looking back into my marriage, I see things I gave up on trying, and she gave up on our marriage. I wish I could go back and try again. I thought I was humble. Certainly I was in the depths of despair, but that doesn’t means humble. Perhaps I could have saved our marriage. As we change ourselves in certain ways, our wives choose to change in relation to our changed actions … and hopefully not divorce us. It would have taken an immense amount of humbling on my part.

The book is not the best book I’ve read, but I’ve learned some important things from it, and as I read it over a several-week period, it was uncanny (meaning that the Spirit led me) how I read certain parts when I was experiencing something to relate it to in my personal life. Darren was impressed to share this with me at this time.

Women love to be fought for. That’s one of the concepts of the book. It sounds fairy tale-ish, but there is truth to it. I remember telling my wife during the throws and downward spiral toward separation that I didn’t think I could fight for her anymore. That was not good to say. After the previous grueling months of counseling and throwing our feelings at each other, I’m sure she heard that to mean that I didn’t love her anymore. That’s not what I meant. I was immature. Perhaps I was trying to be macho in my own way (since the Hollywood “macho” is not my style). As men we think it’s unmanly to fight for our woman. We think they should be begging us to take them, that they should be hanging on our arms as a trophy, instead of us having to pursue them. Perhaps if I had openly tried to win my wife’s heart in a real and loving sense, I could have done some real damage to the divorce process and stayed married.

Have you see the movie “Fireproof“? I want to watch it again. I watched it several times during our troubled time, and it touched me deeply. I wish I could have truly practiced what I felt it was teaching. I’m glad to lend it to you if you’d like.

I’m simply trying to say that there is no pancake so thin that it doesn’t have two sides. All you and I can do is work on our side, like I said at the start. But it’s attached to the other so what we do on our side can affect the other. Looking back, I was being affected as much by Satan and his luring minions as Michelle was. Anther book I read at the time, that affected me deeply, is “Crucial Conversations.” It’s premise is that we do wonderfully at 95% of our conversations. But those remaining 5%? Those that are crucial, high-stakes, highly emotional conversations? We easily fail at those. But as we learn to bring safety to those conversations, we can succeed. I recommend that book, too.

Would love to hear how you’re doing.

Carl