Rebuilding the Ruins

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To an outsider, I was part of a solid, happy marriage rooted in a mutual Christian faith. Married when I was 19, we had agreed upfront that divorce would not be an option – that if it came to that we would ‘work things out’. He was 24, winsome, friendly, sympathetic, a Minister’s son. I was quiet, reserved and trusting - he became my husband, my only lover and my best friend.

Over the years, I knew there were some areas where there were difficulties, but told myself that every marriage has them and thought they were not of fundamental importance to or in the overall relationship. I was wrong, and, with the hindsight that is perfect vision, see that there was a growing dangerously deep one that, though mostly successfully hidden, surfaced every once in a while. There was a nagging doubt which I never fully addressed, despite my efforts, to the degree of seriousness and truth that was needed. I chose to believe half-truths, and subjective honesty (both cases where the small part that is true is twisted and manipulated by the rest to suit the purposes of the manipulator) and the manipulated either cannot or will not see the whole truth.

But God knew and He does not let these things go unattended, neither will He allow deception to continue indefinitely.

We did not have a good sexual relationship – increasingly over the years I thought that the fault was mine. I felt, in an unexplained way, that the whole of me was not desired, only certain parts. I know now that the feeling was encouraged – it suited my husband’s purposes and he could, to a degree, justify his actions (to himself and to a lesser degree to me when needed) when every now and then I found pornography hidden around the house. These were always explained as a temporary lapse of judgement under stress, or something given by someone else and to be disposed of. He said he was faithful and would not have sex with anyone else. I suppressed my fears and allowed myself, my sons (and others) to be both manipulated and deceived successfully for far too many years.

In 1999, I found history on the internet of many visits to pornography sites, he confessed that it was him (in other words not either of our two teenage sons – who had thought it was each other) and we went through counselling. There was, he assured me, nothing more than that and a few visits to massage parlours (as part of a group of men away on business) at times, but he could never be a participant – our marriage and faithfulness to me was too important to him. Partial truth once again. I started to rebuild my heart-sore trust. Our sons knew what had happened and understood in as much as they were able.

About 2 years later, the truth came out, with devastating consequences. Our elder son then in his early twenties and working at home for his father (who said he was going out to see the bank manager) answered a phone call from the angry owner of a Sado-Masochism parlour about a missed appointment that had been booked from our home telephone number. He telephoned and asked his father (the only male who could have booked it) about it - he denied all knowledge and involvement. It was only 10 days later, when, still unknown to me, his father admitted he had made the appointment, and was on the way there, but had got lost. He also then proceeded to confess a total double life of sexuality to his very shocked son. At some point before the confession but during that time, my husband telephoned me at work to say that he thought he should just tell me that ‘some joker’ at the local rugby club where he was a team manager had booked an appointment at a massage parlour using his name and he felt he needed to let me know – just in case it ever came up. Once again – partial truth.

Noticing my son was concerned and worried, I asked him what was wrong, to which he replied that there was tensions between him and his girlfriend. He later said that to keep the discovery from me during that time and tell me lies to protect me troubled him and cost him dearly.

This could no longer be hidden, and together with a Christian male friend, they arranged a meeting with a Christian counsellor, who phoned me and asked me to come and see him – there was a serious issue to be discussed. What followed was the revelation of years of a long downward spiral of increasingly serious sexual events. To say my world and our family were shattered would be to put it mildly. The fall out was to affect family life, the wider family, church and friends. A divorce was expected by my sons and the counsellor, but somehow, I still loved my husband, and, in line with our long-standing agreement, wanted to work through it. The counsellor could not give me much hope from his experience of this type of situation, but was willing to try and find a way. My husband hoped that our marriage could be saved. He moved out of the house. I went to our family doctor for HIV / AIDS tests, not an experience I want to repeat. Thankfully they were negative.

I did not know what was genuine of our life together and what had been twisted or deliberately used to achieve the outward appearance of a God-fearing, utterly faithful and caring husband, a moral and supportive father and a respected leader in the church and Christian community.

The effect on me and our boys was huge, we each swung between anger, devastation, questioning, wanting to help and support each other, not wanting the family to be split, being prepared to forgive and try to find a way through this maze of brokenness. I sat on two occasions, helpless while each son individually cried for hours until they were utterly exhausted, finally falling asleep curled up next to me. Their relationships with their girlfriends suffered. Although they did try hard, neither girl could deal with the double life of this man they had both trusted and admired as such a good husband and father, or with the effect on their boyfriends, and eventually both relationships broke up, with accompanying loss and heartache for the boys.

I turned to God in a deeper way – He sustained and comforted me with scripture and supportive friends and an organisation called Truth Transforms (tt) which over this period and beyond, helped me to find the truth I so desperately needed and showed me how to deal with the effects of my choices in all aspects of life, my image of myself and how to build and maintain correct relationships. I was part of the group for 2 years, and remained a helper for some time afterwards.

The struggle to cope was moment by moment, It was a daily long hard uphill road, trying to find the ability to not go back over what had happened, attempting to find ‘hooks’ on which to hang what little trust I could find. Moods came and went, waves of doubt and panic washed over me – I longed for comfort from the very one who had betrayed me seemingly so easily and for so long. I asked about all the little things that I could remember, not really wanting to know the answers but checking against other facts I thought I knew about, and often being sorry I had asked. I was desperately trying to find truth, but realised that I would not be able to trust anything said. I realise now that I will never know all that went on, despite assurances that the full and complete truth was told at the time.

There was much to work through to save the marriage – in the cold light of his infidelity, my husband went through utter brokenness and contriteness, being exposed, humbled and removed from positions of respect. And we watched the rebuilding process from the sidelines, as it were, while he was ‘growing up’ again before us. Our sons watched their father act like a spoilt teenager – demanding rights and respect he was no longer entitled to, they walked away when he (still) spoke to them on values, ethics and morality as he had done before seemingly without realising that he had forfeited that aspect of being a father by his own deceit. They worked hard to find ways to facilitate this unusual aspect and to relate to him in a positive manner. They were, on the whole and in the circumstances, caring, supportive and open with me, speaking of their concerns, hurt, outrage and anger. Our elder son went through serious depression as a result, which continued for some years. He felt he was to blame for revealing the truth, and became at times generally hostile and difficult. He accused me of not digging deep enough over the years to find out what was going on and of not protecting him. He had cleared the internet sites from the computer history – the memory of which caused him great difficulty for a long time. I was so heart-sore at their pain and felt that I had failed as a mother.

After 9 months apart and much painful work, the counsellor felt we were ready to begin again, although the leaders in tt felt it was too early for me to make such an important decision. During a period of 18 months together, we found new ways of relating, but trust was still difficult for me. My husband would let me know where he would be at all times, and I could always check if I wanted. He had 7 very caring and supportive Christian male friends who each had a specific day to support him should he need help to avoid temptation and to whom he was to be fully accountable. They met with the counsellor and I once a week initially then monthly. Almost all family members on both sides were loving, understanding and supportive – often at an emotional cost.

Despite the hard emotional and spiritual work required by tt to confront my own sin and complicity in the problem, and then realising the depths of my self-deception over the years, and its impact on myself and the family, I was starting to experience the benefits of the program of tt discipleship. Among these were a knowledge of where and how to find truth as well as the costs of living in it, a new and deep-seated inner peace and freedom based firmly in Jesus, the ability to build solid, healthy and working relationships based on Biblical foundations. I experienced what it was like to really be alive – to have a separate and complete life of my own. My whole outlook had changed and I was no longer either being manipulated or manipulating. At first this was difficult to identify, but God provided the insight needed to recognise both sides and I learnt how to evaluate and judge my own actions and decisions and gained courage to make correct but hard choices and live with the consequences.

All computers in the house and office had full protection against pornography sites and I had the passwords. I would have to check them regularly– a task I dreaded. Following the purchase of a new laptop for his office and my difficulty in getting the protection package to work correctly, I found visited sites again – accessed at dates and times that meant it could only have been my husband – who had found a way to work around the passwords (causing the protection problems mentioned). When I confronted him directly, he lied outright, implicating our younger son.

My younger son was totally disgusted with being used as a scape-goat, the older angry and disgusted. The impact on their lives of the long extended fight to stay as a family unit, based on my decision to stay in the marriage, has taken its toll on them in ways that sadden me. Looking back, it might have been better to end the marriage at the time of the revealed truth, and start to re-build our lives then. But then I can say now that I should also have had the courage to confront my suspicions many years before, and to take the appropriate action to discover the real situation.

I realised that I could not go through this again, neither should the children, and that I had no reserves at all to build the relationship on. I found that the love that had been so strong was gone, the fragile trust I had tried to patch and mend was completely shattered and irreparable. It was after this that I started divorce proceedings. He indicated that he thought the counsellor and I were wrong to insist on total openness and no more, as he called them ‘slips’ into his other world. I realised I would never be able to trust him. Dealing with the effects of the sexual sin had been hard, but just manageable, it was the deceit together with deception and ease with which he could use it that I could no longer live with. By the grace of God, I was a different person to the wife I had been nearly 2 years before and was able to choose truth and was free.

My choice to obtain a divorce after nearly 30 years of marriage was questioned by some Christians but I knew that Jesus had acknowledged that although God hates divorce, He has allowed it in cases of adultery. Sexual unfaithfulness introduces so much brokenness and darkness into a marriage – the effects of it drain the essence of life from you in complex and devious ways. I rested in the knowledge that God saw my heart and my motivation, and I was accountable only to Him – and that He understood why I was breaking the wedding vows made so seriously before Him, and being released from other vows I had made to myself, and not kept.

Once the decision had been made, I sensed a deep freedom and was surprised by being joyful in that peace and freedom. I feel the hardest times were before the decision to end the marriage. A wise friend said that when a death happens, the death certificate is issued later as a confirmation. I realised that the marriage – as I believed it – had, in fact, ended a considerable time before, and the divorce was in effect the certificate to formalise that end.

Forgiveness is a choice, and after much reading, prayer and discussion, I think that the benefit is for the one making that choice – it brings freedom. With the help of the Holy Spirit, I have forgiven much that happened, and experienced the lack of bitterness that results from the action. That is not to say I do not still feel somewhat angry and bitter at times – but that when I do, I take those emotions back to Jesus and He carries me through them.

Neither son has restored their trust in (or respect for) their father. The older has managed, with wise counselling, to work through the major areas resulting from his experiences, and feels robbed of the years when he should have been carefree. He sees little of his father, and then only when he chooses and remains guarded and distant. The younger has a better relationship, although sometimes I suspect this is to his own advantage and convenience. They were both angry at their father’s choice to start dating before the divorce was finalised (and despite his last minute pleas to us all to try again) and at his second marriage after a year. I have left them to form their own relationships with their father, only saying that they were to remember that it is always they who are in control of it. I seldom ask questions in that area, and when I do, it is only to find out how they are in the circumstances. If they need or want to talk about him – I listen, only commenting after much thought and prayer.

They have remained very supportive and concerned for me. Both have expressed views on their formative years that revealed much more insight than I realised, and which have brought positive and negative feelings on my part. I am grateful for the positive, and take the negative to Jesus, asking Him to help me come to terms with that hurt. I wish now that I could have spared them the pain they suffered on my behalf, but I was unable to see the real issues at the time, and was too private to discuss them with anyone.

I have chosen to have extremely limited contact with my ex-husband. He would like us to be friends, and still attempts some contact which I ignore. Distance makes that easier. In view of having to attend specific family events, I recently arranged a meeting with his new wife – who had no part in the break-up - in order to make such occasions easier for the children and family who feel a strong need on their part to protect me from him. She agreed and knows that friendship is not being offered. I thank God for the strength to do that – He has brought me a long way.

I have found that being divorced is both hard – the ‘aloneness’ is not what I would have chosen, and easy - it brings aspects of life and possibilities I had never thought of. I went through a period of being extremely cynical, and that remains with me, but to a much lesser degree. I am no longer responsible (or ashamed and embarrassed) for the choices and actions of some-else, in which I have no part, and with whom I am considered closely associated.

In the 6 years I have been alone, I have not had a relationship with another man. I know that is to some degree because I am afraid to be vulnerable. Trust and respect are fragile and are the cornerstones in any meaningful relationship. I tend to take a long time to trust anyone, carefully monitoring them before being open. The underlying reality that I live with is that I was able to be deceived through not acknowledging what was happening and dealing with it earlier. I am not closed to another relationship, and at times long for a partner and companion to share experiences with, but am prepared to wait for God to bring ( and clearly show me !) the correct person – if that is in His will for me, or to be content to share my life with only Him if that is His divine plan.

I have been able to re-think my future and make major life changes which have given me opportunities I only dreamed of being able to fulfil. I have been able to walk away from material possessions and make a new life. I try to hold life and people lightly and with an open hand. I can live a life of integrity and honesty.

My sons have re-built their lives, and their personal relationships are based on a more solid foundation.

I am now, by God’s love, grace and mercy, able to be truly alive, and to live with and in the only truth which results in freedom – with Jesus.

(Name not mentioned on request)

October 2008