Shame Equals More Pain

WOW!!! How could he just agree to a divorce so quickly? You don’t even want to fight for “us?” Why don’t you love me? Would a baby pull us back together again? What do I need to do to make us work? Am I fat? Am I ugly? Who is going to want me now?

If any of you have ever experienced a divorce, you may have asked yourself these questions and many, MANY more. The problem is we tend to think we are the cause when someone wrongs us. We try to think of everything we can do for our relationship and before you know it, you look in the mirror and you don’t recognize the person looking back at you! I had lost myself! I not only lost my husband, I had lost my dignity, my pride, my self-confidence; I had lost ME. I couldn’t think straight! I mean, wanting to stay and work things out with a man that volunteered an 18 woman body count (this was during the marriage, not to include his encounters before the marriage); God, I must have been stupid!

Well, I wasn’t stupid! I was married and I actually loved my husband and still do. When I got married, I vowed “for better or worse;” infidelity just happened to be our “worse.” And I was willing to stay and walk it out. I remembered my reason for wanting to be married, which was two-fold. First, for selfish reasons, I wanted to be completely open and vulnerable with someone that would do the same with me. I wanted to know who I was sleeping with at night; I was never promiscuous. I wanted to be able to perform sexual acts and have fun with my partner. I mean, somethings I just was not going to do with a “boyfriend!” Nope, that is a wife privilege! Uh um, we ain’t doing that, you ain’t my husband! So yes, personally, I wanted the freedom to be a freak, share secrets, grow old with and share life with this special person. 😁 But even though I wanted to be a bad girl (in marriage) and I told God that, I seriously expressed to God that I wanted my marriage to be one that displayed HIS love. I wanted people to see God in my marriage! I prayed that our marriage would cause those that were once hurt to remember how they felt when they were in love and give it another shot. I wanted God’s love to be displayed in the way we looked at each other, treated each other and spoke to one another. I wanted a Godly marriage and I asked God to never let me get married, if it would end in divorce. These are the things I wanted. I prayed for these things. But what did he want? What was he praying for? Hell, did he have time to pray? As much dick as he was slanging, he had to be praying while screwing. 🤭

It appears that he had other things in mind and that is fine. However, a very key component of a marriage is communication and we got more and more distant. I would try to spark conversation and he would be too busy or he just didn’t want to talk and when he wanted to talk, I was frustrated and had an attitude. It just seemed that we weren’t on the same page. He act like he wanted me to come overseas with him so he help me find a position over there but when I took him up on that offer and left my job with the government to go over, he seemed to treat me even worse while I was there, not even coming home some nights. There were so many other sacrifices that I had made for our marriage but it seemed that nothing was working. So when he agreed to the divorce, I went and paid a lawyer the very next day.

Now, let me explain… I had not sought any legal counsel but I had a really tight friend that had recently gone through a divorce and I called to ask her the process and who she used. Even though I had paid the lawyer, I never expected for my husband to allow us to get to divorce. I mean, I had gone to counseling, quit my job and moved to another country. I had tried everything but it would never work because I was doing it all alone. Everything that I expressed to Pastor Robinson during counseling, he tried to counterpunch, finding some scripture or example to get me to hold on and fight. But when I expressed to Pastor Robinson how my “husband” had sent me to jail, he didn’t have anymore grace. He asked me, “why do you want this marriage?” I remembered saying with tears streaming down my face, “because I love my husband.” Pastor Robinson suggested that I love myself because if I loved myself, I would not allow anyone to treat me that way. Well, I guess there was some truth to that because I felt defeated! I felt ashamed! I couldn’t talk to anyone because I didn’t think people understood. No, that wasn’t it. I had always been so strong and resilient and I didn’t want anyone to see this weak, vulnerable, sad, shell of a person, because God knows I was empty. 😭

Chile, things got real bad after I filed for divorce. I tried to see if he cared and took a large sum of money out of our joint bank account (the court made me give it back). I had no plans of spending it anyways. If so, I would have gotten it in cash, which is untraceable but I got double signature cashier checks. Anyways, I didn’t have a job after coming back from overseas and he told me that he didn’t want me to work. Wrong move! Now, I’ve lost my independence! After returning the money, he closed all bank accounts. Yep, you guessed it, I had no money; no cash. I mean, I wasn’t stashing money back because I had never planned to go through a divorce. Even though a divorce is what he wanted and I had filed, I still didn’t think that would be our reality. So with no money, I turned to the credit cards. I totally maxed out one of our joint cards to be able to pay the bills and have money because at this point, I had 2 job offers rescinded because I had a pending legal case on my background. Then, because I used the credit card, he filed bank fraud against me (the judge told him to cancel it because I had the right to use the credit cards). I had allowed my cousin to use my truck, which was nothing unusual. My cousin had driven the truck more than me, since I purchased it. Anyway, my husband went to my cousin’s place, took the truck and since that day, I have never seen the truck again (insurance paid out on it). He locked me out of the house for more than 2 weeks and every time I came to my house, he call the police. Yes, Hunny, he changed the locks and the alarm code. Mind you, I had this house, truck and another car before I even met him. So he not only destroyed our marriage, defiled our bed, reneged on our vows but he crushed my heart and I don’t even have the things I had before I met and married him.

What’s even crazier is, we never fought. We discussed our issues, came up with a plan and moved forward. We didn’t push each other’s buttons or any of that during our dating phase so when I thought about it all, I had never seen him mad. I mean sure, in 10 years, I had seen him upset, disappointed or even angry but never mad. He got really mad when I touched “his” money and he fought really dirty! I was kind of confused; aren’t you the one that wanted the divorce? 🤷🏽‍♀️ Sure he wanted the divorce but he didn’t want to pay for anything. He wanted the divorce but when it came to “his” money, that was “HIS” money and I had no right to it. So he was willing to ruin my life (criminal case, 12 hours in jail and bank fraud) behind that money. 🤦🏽‍♀️ He didn’t fight for our marriage but he found for that money! And like usual, after causing all this ruckus, he would sky up and head back overseas. Talking about abandonment on 3000, Chile!

Through all of this, only a few people knew because at this point, I was so weak, I didn’t think I was going to make it. I had to tell somebody! I went days without eating, without getting out of bed, I would be driving and zone out and when I would “awaken,” I wouldn’t remember where I was or where I was going. I felt like I was losing my mind. But I couldn’t tell anyone because I was ashamed; “I couldn’t even keep my own man”, is what the negative self talk kept telling me. At this point, I was ashamed because I wanted to die and I couldn’t tell anyone because this once Superwoman was now not even a Mighty Mouse. I just couldn’t tell anybody that this man had broke me like this.

Lord help!….😭

I believe when we allow fear and shame to control our lives, we cause ourselves more pain. How much better prepared could I have been if I would have listened to what he really wanted 3 years earlier, when he suggested divorce? How much better prepared could I have been if I had talked to someone about it early on, when I found out he cheated? What would have happened if I could have sought counseling or legal advice 3 years before? I don’t know if the outcome would have been any different. But I believe things could have been better for me because fear and shame equals more pain. Proverbs 11:14 tells us, “in the multitude of counselors there is safety.” So yes, we don’t want everyone in our business but we can’t be ashamed to seek help!

My temperature is back to normal…🤒 but I still need more meds. This pain….