It’s amazing the world that opens up to you when you mention you are getting a divorce. Especially when you are in the middle of the worst case scenario for your family you never thought you’d be in. Once you share, everyone has a story…good or bad. Everyone has advice and a story about so-and-so. And I know it’s a way for people to connect with you, to sympathize with you, to show they relate to you somehow. It is part of the human experience and I am more than guilty of doing it. I am also guilty of more than one of these phrases. God help me, never again will I think these are acceptable to say to someone as they trudge through the battleground of divorce. That’s right, I said battleground. Bottom line is, your either battling with your ex, your kids, other people’s opinions, your faith, or you’re battling within yourself against the Christian culture defining divorce in all its ‘evilness.’

Throughout the last two years, I have been confronted by a few comments, questions, common phrases, that plague the Christian mind when the word divorce is mentioned. These responses may be mine alone, targeted to my specific situation, but I think a lot of people, Christians in particular, who have contemplated or gone through with divorce, will be able to relate and stand by at least one of these responses. Please understand, these are not meant to make you feel bad if you have said these…like I said before, I am guilty person numero uno. But if it stops you, and makes you think twice, the person you have thought about saying them to might walk away from a conversation with you not feeling like they’ve just been kicked while they’re down and have been judged from here to Sunday, straight to hell.

So, here’s a few phrases proven to shut me down and shut you out from being someone I consider safe to share with:

But it’s so expensive. My first response is…so I should stay for money? Psssh. But then…fear kicks in: I know, I have no idea how I would even do this and I don’t know what to do, but I feel so trapped and have no way of supporting myself afterwards. I just don’t know how I would be able to leave. Maybe that’s because I shouldn’t be leaving. But then, money shouldn’t be a reason I have to stay. I can’t stay. God please, don’t make me stay.

It should be a last resort. I wish I could explain to you how I didn’t just jump to this conclusion. If you think I’m telling you this and it’s on a whim, you are wrong. If I’m saying this, it’s because I feel like it is my last resort. And if you don’t know me well enough to know that, then maybe you shouldn’t be commenting on my problem at all.

You shouldn’t use the word ‘divorce’ or threaten the word in your marriage. I always said I wouldn’t. I didn’t for a really long time. We didn’t, even during really intense arguments. I would never say it if I didn’t think it might really happen. **I think it should be something couples talk about. Not to threaten, but to open conversation, to understand your person better than you did before. You should never get to a place where you take for granted that your partner is there to stay, no matter what. Because everyone has a limit. I pray to God, you never find what your partner’s limit is.**

Anything can be forgiven or gotten past. I know what the ‘Christian’ answer is to this. But I am not God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. I am just as fallible as the next guy. But repentance looks like change, not the indefinite use of the term ‘I’m sorry.’ I can forgive and get past something and still leave. It doesn’t mean I have to keep subjecting myself to the same toxic relationship.

Just stick it out, it’ll get better. I am already a shell of a person. How much do I have to break before I get to say it’s not getting better and it won’t get better?

Have you tried or thought about counseling? Sure have. I asked years ago, he said no. He asked when things got really bad, I said no. But I did try. We went to separate therapists. We worked on our individual mental health issues. We sat through one online marriage counselling session. You know what I realized? If I had to do counseling with him next to me, I couldn’t be truthful to the counselor. That was how far gone we were. And it makes me sad and angry to know this is where we were. I may have been the one that left, but I didn’t want this, either. **This one is tricky. On the one hand, I 100% agree if someone comes to you and genuinely asks you about counseling. And I had quite a few friends in my circle that did ask and it was a valid, loving question. I also had it presented to me as a threat and that is NOT ok. **

God hates divorce. I know. I do, too. And I’m trying and have tried and am dying in front of my kids, in front of my family, in front of my friends, desperately trying to hold on because I know He hates it. I can’t believe I’m in this situation in the first place, so you saying this to me is only bringing judgment, not bringing me around to second-guess my decision because I’ve already second-guessed myself a thousand times. But there it is…He hates it, but He allows it (He even instigates it) and even if you meant well, I no longer want to speak to you about it. **I did have one person say this to me in such an incredibly loving way and I will be forever grateful to her for the way she handled the news. In general, the ones who said this to me, seemed to be intent on being defensive and using it as a scare tactic, instead of trying to understand.**

It’s going to hurt the kids. **This comment is where I get defensive because the only way it was presented to me was as a manipulation tactic.** Their poor hearts getting hurt has been the sole reason I’ve stayed for as long as I have. If you think, for one second, my children have not been at the forefront of my mind through all of this, then you are sorely mistaken and don’t know me at all. Mama Bear is done talking to you.

It’s a sin unless it is for adultery. Yeah. This one is a doozy. Maybe better left for a different time, a different post.

Can I just offer a bit of humble advice?

I certainly don’t know everything nor every circumstance that might come up during a conversation between friends or loved ones. Especially if a friend of family members divorce is coming as a surprise to you…please think twice about saying these things too soon (or at all). These are thoughts they have probably already beaten themselves up with a thousand times over. These are phrases they have turned over and over in their minds, in their prayers, in their pillow while they cry at night. These are what they think about when a certain song comes on the radio, when they pass a restaurant anniversaries were spent celebrating, when they see the kids, when they see their spouse, when they don’t see their spouse…These are the guilty musings of a tortured soul that is fighting with everything in them to swim against the rushing waves that keeps pulling them under.

I promise you, there are things happening behind closed doors you do not know about. Or, do you feel like you know enough to say that you’ll vouch for the abuser you didn’t know was abusing – that he or she will never abuse their spouse again? Can you promise in 5 years this will just be a distant memory and everyone will be happy and whole – no longer in the sin that led them to this sad, regrettable place? Can you assure s/he whatever they are going through will not get worse? Will you promise s/he will never lie or cheat again? Are you positive you know the whole story? Can you be sure that God is not present in this decision?

Or would it be better to be sitting long enough, in the silence of their pain, they walk away feeling so incredibly loved by you? Not angry they had to prove themselves to you. Not defensive. Not even justified in their decision. Just so incredibly loved.

I will forever be thankful for those people who made me feel loved.