Dealing Spiritually with Divorce

I had a conversation the other day with a woman who described her divorce as bizarre because of the fact that she still shared a bond with her ex husband.  She said her friends said it was unhealthy.

This woman had raised two children with him, married him when she was in her early twenties and divorced when she was almost 50.  Obviously they had spent many important quality years together.  They parted amiably, as friends,  and wish each other well.  They occasionally still enjoy each other's company.

I don't know about you, but that all makes perfect sense to me.  Where is it written that people have to hate each other and adopt rude behavior towards each other just because they have spiritually outgrown each other?   Since life IS a spiritual journey, there truly are people that pass through our lives that are not meant to be there forever.  I have been married two and a half times, and cherish the time spent with all three men.  But our dreams grew in different directions until it got to the point that it didn't work out, and we parted.  Decades later, I see why it would have been beneficial to have tried harder, but the lessons I learned, and needed to learn, would never have happened had I stayed.

I remember when I was getting divorced and I was trash talking my husband, and a friend said, "There is nothing wrong with either of you.  You just want different things!"  She was 100% right, and I never forgot it.

In my first divorce, my husband was a therapist.  He insisted that for our daughters well being we should always be civil towards and about each other.  Since he had been my very best friend for almost seven years, it was easy to become civil (once we got past the first two years of severing our marriage).  We became and have remained, quite good friends.

At one point, I started attending a church that really heavily promoted the importance of family strength.
Through this church, I saw families that really relied on each other, respected each other completely, gave equal weight to the importance both parents in raising children and keeping a home functional.  I started to realize something very important.  One day soon afterwards, my ex started yelling at me about something, and I said to him, "Talk to me as if I am still your family. We have a child together, I help you with your mom and dad, you still play golf with my brother.  We ARE still family, we just couldn't live together anymore."  He was quiet a minute,  and then said, "I am really glad you said that." We have gotten along much better since then.

Having been married twenty five of my 56 years, I see the importance of continuing that family relationship, even into divorce.   He was still the father of my child, through alimony and child support, he still helped to provide a home for our daughter.  I was and always will be grateful for the roles both of my husbands played in raising well loved, supported and encouraged daughters. They are now both young women who believe they can do anything.  I am proud of them, I am proud of their fathers, and I am thankful for the ongoing relationships I had with them that never made my daughters feel divided.

My oldest is 30 years old.  There isn't a visit that goes by that she doesn't thank me and her dad for our roles in her life. We used to have parent meetings by telephone when something came up with grades or behavior problems. She was always accountable to both of us.  She tells us of her friends whose parents hate each other, married or not. Its heartbreaking!

 I can plainly see that one of the reasons people stay together is because they share the most precious things in life, children.  How tragic that there are people who penalize and poison their children because they cannot honor their ongoing relationship as family.

I beg of all who read this, be grateful for your relationships, and make the best of them, whether you get divorced or not.  Honoring the parent of your child will alleviate pain, a feeling of failure, anger at the one who let you down, and all the rest. Letting go of all of the negative feelings will also help you forgive yourself.

Always do the best you both can for your child, and if you do get divorced, God will bring the lessons to help you do better next time.  Recognize your family obligations to raising a more perfect future for your children.

Where is the Love?!

By Christine Rose ©2009,2010

Hello Fellow Suburbanites!!

It looks like this blog has opened a small office in the corner of my brain, and I am actually storing things there for future ref these days. Speaking of storing things, I run a small charity called Changing Winds Inc (www.changingwinds.org) and rather then collect tons of money, we collect tons of stuff and send it out to Indian Reservations in South Dakota which are, by the way, the poorest counties in the country.

Lots of people help, and living in a wealthy suburb allows us to collect massive amounts of clothing and furniture in really good shape. The idea is that there is so much stuff that exists in this country, but the weight of is balanced precariously on both edges of the country. If we don't spread it out, who knows, the weight of it all might snap off both the east and west coasts! So we are not only moving all the existing stuff to people who need it, we are possibly keeping the wealthier coasts intact by shipping much of our excess to the center of the country, the Heart Lands. Did you know that if you flew over the Black Hills in South Dakota, you would see that the entire region, which is the center of the country, actually is shaped like a heart? Well, now you know. :-)

Today, I spent the better part of my morning rearranging stuff that had been so generously dropped off by supporters (notably Betsy K Home Choreographers) over at Westy's Storage facilities, which donates garage size rooms to us, enabling to collect tons of stuff before we ship it out. (I apologize for the shameless plugs for our supporters, but hey, they deserve it!)

In plowing through the things that had been dropped off, I came across a book that someone had left. Now, you tell me if you think this was a good thing to drop off for the poorest people in the country. Do you think they really needed a book, featuring a nice middle class blonde housewife on the cover, called, Learning to Live With Less? Ouch! Somehow, it seems the people we are shipping stuff to could write their own version, don't you think? If you ask me, they could probably really teach us a thing or two about living with less. My guess is they have mastered it.

But hey, its hard for me to feel less then gracious when I look at all the incredible things that people did leave. Including their trash. Ooops. Did I say that? Sadly, yes. I did. Because it happens.

Have you ever really thought about the word Charity? What images come to mind when you consider the word? Sally Struthers and the Starving Children of Africa? (No, it is not a new band.) I had a friend, now deceased, who swore that Sally ate those children, hence her weight gain.. He's probably in hell now for that. Anyway, no joke, those starving kids are probably the kind of images that all of us imagine. So here's a question, Why would we send them things that should thrown out?

For several years, we refused to take used goods, preferring to purchase new items with financial donations instead. However, so many people looked shocked and perplexed when we refused to accept used goods that I started to think, well, maybe in light of the economic crisis, and certainly environmentally, it might be a good idea to give it a try.

Our reputation on the reservations has always been good, and one woman who works at ICWA (which is the Indian Child Welfare Act agency) told us that they actually felt the love that was packed in all the boxes we send out. Gee, that was nice to hear. She also said, “You know, Christine, for years people have been sending us their junk. It felt like that was all they thought of us, that we were just worth the junk they sent to us.”

This year, in light of the economy and ecology, we thought, well, maybe there is a middle ground, and we can send out really good used stuff. We put out a call for items that are LIKE NEW with NO SIGNS OF WEAR. And wow! You should have seen the results! One man sent us a coat in which every pocket was ripped, and it smelled of cigarettes and was covered with greasy stains. It looked like someone had worn that coat every day for maybe ten years. To be nice, I thought, Well, maybe he really, really loved that coat, and this was his way of sending the love. Maybe he didn't even see how worn out it was.

Then bags of shoes arrived; smelly shoes, with the heels worn down. Then stained, unwashed baby clothes with some kind of food on it. Today I threw out a strange wicker shelving unit that was for some indecipherable use, and was shredded, with all the wicker sticks detached from the bottom. Old board games missing pieces. Chairs that had sticky stains on them. Broken electronics. A basket of computer wires....that went to nothing. One woman dropped off a beat up bed I would have expected to see for free on the side of the road, and she asked me for a tax deduction of $500.00.

So I am sitting here wondering just what it is people think of when they think of charity. I know how touching all that stuff made me feel. It made me feel gross, and dirty, and almost violated. Is that what charity means? To send our cast off trash to someone who already suffers unimaginable burdens? 

I never realized what an amazing service Goodwill provides in that it gives us all a place to drop off the junk that may have a good degree of love attached to it, so much that we can't bear to throw it out. But when it comes to putting garbage directly into the hands of a person who is already suffering so many burdens, I have to ask, where is the love?