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.

Letter to a Friend. Marriage Woes.

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A dear friend and I chatted a couple months ago. She shared that she was considering divorce. I was saddened. I sent this email a week or so later (genericized to take out personal details):

As you may suspect, I’ve not gotten you out of my mind. I think of you often, and pray you are well.

Hi [Friend],

Marriage is such a testing ground for us . (Our families, too.) No other relationship tests our patience, love, commitment, understanding, and so much else. I’ve spent five years now, and time before that when [my Ex] and I were struggling, learning about me and marriage. I’ve prayed incessantly that I might know my Father’s will. I’ve learned much from the Spirit and what it has led me to and confirmed in my heart.

When you and I parted after lunch, my thoughts were turned to a divorced sister in our ward. Her name is [the same as yours]. Perhaps that’s no accident. She has [several children]. (Ha, I just realized that connection as I typed it. Never got that one. [Both have the same number of boys and girls.]) I don’t know her ex-husband, but ward members do. He was not the best husband, apparently. But she has said several times that if she’d known how difficult divorce is, she would have worked harder to save her marriage. I feel for her. She struggles in so many ways, being single. There are a dozen or so singles in my ward, surprising to me since it’s such an affluent ward. All of us struggle.

I wrote the above Saturday evening, and now Sunday evening I’m reviewing what I wrote getting ready to send it. “By chance,” [this sister] came to visit with [my bishop] this afternoon. As we waited together [I’m executive secretary and greet members as they come to their appointments], we shared. I told her of [you] and a few general thoughts about your struggles. “Have her give me a call!” she said. She again expressed how she’d wished she’d fought harder to stay in her marriage. Divorce is not what you think it is.

I know in my heart that a husband and wife, as long as they are doing their best to follow our Father, can work out a marriage. It may not be ideal, the most loving, nor what we imagined years ago before marriage, or as starry-eyed newlyweds. There will always be trials. That’s part of life. But when we stand face to face after this life, as John Pontius describes [in his book “Visions of Glory”], we will know a person’s heart and mind in an instant, with no words shared. We will know why we acted, why we thought, and why we were who we were. I sense that will allow us to let down our wall, take off our blinders, and love our spouses more fully. And as I’m told Brigham Young said (but I can’t find the quote), we would kneel down and worship our spouses for the glorious beings they are, that we can’t see now.

I have thought and prayed often about [my Ex’s] and my relationship and all we did and didn’t do. I think about it daily. For most of the past four plus years I’ve taken the blame for everything. I hurt [her] deeply. Her tender heart was broken. I weep at my wickedness. But about a year ago the thought came to my mind that divorce can be a sin, too. I won’t go into detail here, and have never told anyone this because I don’t want to make light of my part of our issues. But I wonder in our case how the sin of divorce compared with my sins. I don’t want [her] to hear that, because I’ve caused her enough grief, but I don’t believe divorce is the answer to most marriage ills. Post-divorce, I am crippled to make amends for my own weaknesses in marriage, because I am not with [her] to learn to do it right. I understand better now how now is the time to repent, before we die. After death, repenting without a body will be like repenting now of marriage problems without a spouse.

I have also read and prayed much about the children of divorce. Little of divorce in our day takes into account its effects on children. This is the great sadness of divorce, and little spoken of. “No fault divorce” takes no account of the innocent victims. It most profoundly affects the young ones. It turns their lives upside down, and affects them deeply for the rest of their lives. But it affects all of the children, of all ages. The foundation of their world is torn asunder. They have lost the one object of stability they grew up with. No longer do promises and working-it-out and sticking-to-it have the same meaning. Above all else, over the past years I have cried for my children. My heart aches continually for all of them, top to bottom. I have countless concerns for them, and for each one of my children my concerns are different. But they now have the permission to call it quits when times get tough.

[The sister] in my ward is a school counselor. She said she can’t even talk to children of divorce who come in for counseling, and there are many, because it saddens her so deeply. I wish she could. She could bless their lives in ways married counselors could never. I’ll chat with her about that.

Divorce is not the divorce as you imagine before divorce. You are inextricably tied once you have children. The relationship just becomes awkward. Family reunions, every gathering, everything you do has memories tied to what used to be. People look at and treat you differently. You lose contact with most of your married friends because not only do you physically leave them behind when you move and divorce, but without a spouse the relationships are different and don’t work.

I sense in my heart you and [your husband] can work out a long and loving relationship. It would be, like any marriage, a constant and continual effort. But like working a weak muscle, it grows stronger when you focus on building it, repeatedly and daily, don’t give up. And an earthly marriage can and should be a wonderful blessing.

I love you, [my friend]. My heart aches for you. I know the difficulties of marriage. Too well. But I also know the difficulties of divorce. I know why men, and many women, go inactive after divorce, why fathers separate themselves and give up on trying to keep a relationship with their children, why there is for so many so much sin and despair among the divorced. Satan does all he can to break up the family. He is incredibly successful.

This email was raw. Not much sugar coating. I didn’t give much thought to how I wrote what I wrote. But it had my heart.

I hope we can chat again. You mean much to me. Family is everything. Our eternal ties will last … eternally.

Carl

Where do I begin? Let’s start with pain.

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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