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So I head out to the car yesterday to go to town. Well, okay, I’m already in town but I’m country so as long as I’m going more than five blocks away from the part of “town” I’m in, I’m going to town.
I grab my wallet, back right pocket. Root out the car keys, front right pocket.
Snatch a handful of change off the dresser (because you never know, might want a Coke). Front right pocket with the keys.
There was something sticky on the steering wheel yesterday. Ick. Grab a handy-wipe, too. Right hand.
I’m gonna have to write a check at the place, so I juggle the handy-wipe, grab the check book. Back left pocket.
Ooooh! Big Red on the coffee table. Hubby got some gum and left it foolishly laying about. Juggle, snatch, front left pocket. I likes me some Big Red.
Ack, too hot for hair. Juggle, grab a scrunchie, ponytail time.
Oh. Need a pen for the checkbook. No one ever has a pen unless you already have one. Juggle, snatch a pen, back left pocket with the checkbook.
Remember pen. Do not sit on pen. Push pen to side of pocket so butt does not break pen and get ink all over butt.
Dang it. Visine. Need Visine. Will not leave that place with big, red, bloated eyes.
Do not want.
Back to the bathroom, juggle, grab the Visine…
…I’m out of pockets.
Well…I could stuff things here and there a bit…but I’m already kinda feelin’ bulky.
I need another pocket here.
Jacket? Too hot for a jacket.
Leave something in the glove compartment? No, need all that stuff.
Carry something? Well, no that sucks as an option.
I need something else. Something like…you know…something I can carry stuff in. Like a backpack or something. But smaller, more portable.
Oh.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.
Nope. Nuh uh.
Nyet.
Do not want.
I will not say the “p” word. Will not say it. Will not allow myself to think it.
We hates them. They burns us.
They say, “We help you carriez things. We iz handy.”
But they lie. It’s a trick. Before long you have a book you really need to get around to finishing reading. And wouldn’t it be handy to have it at the next doctor’s appointment?
Gotta keep a tube of Chapstick handy. And handy-wipes.
Definitely an ink pen, so you don’t have to worry about sitting on one.
Maybe two ink pens, in case one dries out.
Baby pins, bottle of that perfume that isn’t really perfume, deodorant, Motrin, Bandaids, first aid kit, jewelry you’ll never wear, notepad, assorted writing implements, photographs, pill case, everything in my wallet, some napkins…oh, coupons!…assorted keepsakes and memorabilia…oh! And scrunchies! An assortment!…appointment book/calender, calculator, lip gloss (it’s not lipstick!)…
…and, in fact, eventually…
Make up.
No!!!!!!111!!1!!!
So I get up this morning, brush my teeth, assorted bathroom sundries, toss my hair in a ponytail and head for the kitchen. Routine, nothing new. Make breakfast (because I actually slept last night and I’m up early). Eggs and bacon, toast, orange juice. Traditional breakfast for my traditional guy, I figure. And it’s easy.
I’m sad this morning. Rough night. I slept, sure. Mostly because something hit me last night and I ended up being pet to sleep. Not put to sleep. Pet.
Kinda pathetic, really.
Back into the bedroom, nudge, wake up hon’. Grumble, grumble, complain and he’s off to the bathroom for his assorted sundries. I pick and lay out some clothes for him. Tie, belt, pants, etc. Shoes by the bed. I’m in the mood to do a little extra. He was there for me last night, after all.
Besides, I can do that kind of stuff now and get away with it. I have an excuse to be nice.
Back to the kitchen. Check the bacon, flip it over. Check the eggs, swap ‘em out. Toast is done, butter before it cools. Start making plates.
Clear the table (still cluttered from yesterday). Back to the kitchen for the last of the morning prep.
Crap. Forgot to start coffee. Grab the coffee container, flip the lid. Empty.
Crap again.
Suddenly I’m too disgusted to deal with digging out another brick of coffee, slashing it open, pouring it in the coffee container thingie, all the rote process of brewing coffee.
Screw the coffee. If he wants coffee, he can make it himself.
So I guess I used up my nice for the day.
Here he comes, clean-shaven, mildly after-shaved, well-dressed and looking for breakfast. No coffee, he notices right away. He heads for the coffee container and grabs the brick, not even a fleeting glimpse of irritation.
Good. Let’s not butt heads this morning, yeah?
First words today: “How yah doin’?”
Sigh. “Fine.”
“Ah.”
Ah? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Well, pardon me all over the place for not being Mrs. Chipper this morning. Maybe you should just go to work early this morning, how about that? Better yet, just go ahead and piss off.
“You need a cup of my famous java.”
I need a cup of your shut the hell up.
Grabs the coffee brick, grabs a knife, cuts it open, tears. Starts pouring the coffee into the container.
Swish, swish, swish…he pours.
Transfer the bacon to the bacon plate, prepared with paper towels as if I won’t have to wash the thing anyway later. More bacon in the pan.
Swish, swish, swish…
Eggs to the breakfast plates, bacon’s still frying. Damn. Eggs are going to cool before the bacon’s done.
I’m making too much bacon.
Swish, swish, swish…
Biscuits. I should have made biscuits instead of toast. Because now the toast is cold.
Swish, swish, swish…
Stir the bacon thoughtlessly. It ain’t gonna cook any faster. Screw it. I’ll turn up the heat, knock a minute or two off that. He likes it crisp anyway.
Swish, swish, swish…
And for the love of God, is he still pouring that damned coffee?!
Swish, swish, swish…
Orange juice. I’ll pour the orange juice now. I’m not doing anything but waiting on bacon anyway.
Swish, swish, swish…
What the hell…?
Swish, swish, swish…
Stop for a good look. How long does it friggin’ take to pour a brick of coffee into the container anyway?
Swish, swish, swish…
He’s still pouring it!
Swish, swish, swish…
…there can’t possibly even be that much coffee in one coffee brick.
Swish, swish, swish, swiiish, swiiiissh…
Thank God. I was beginning to worry this was some kinda time paradox or somet…
Swish, swish, swish…
WTF?!
Swish, swish, swish…
“How the hell are you doing that?”
Swish, swish, swish…
“Doing what?”
Swish, swish, swish…
“THAT!”
Swish, swish, swish. Done. Coffee’s in the container.
“What?”
He’s grinning. That bastard.
“What the hell was that?”
He laughs. “Something me and my brother used to do to drive mom crazy. Got if from this old Steve Martin movie.”
“How the hell did you do that?”
“It’s in the way you shake the coffee, makes it seem like a lot more is coming out than there really is.”
“I thought I was losing my mind or something!”
He laughs, grins. “C’mere.”
And I go. Our last brick, cut, tear, swish, swish, swish…into the container.
“You try.”
Swish, swish, swish…swish, swish, swish…hell, this is fun.
In a minute the bacon is going to burn and there isn’t enough room in the container for two bricks, so he heads for the bacon while I fold up the coffee brick for the freezer.
And I’m grinning.
Breakfast is done, coffee brewing. We eat but no coffee for breakfast. Looks like he won’t get any. Good thing I poured the orange juice.
We chat, we chuckle, we eat.
I straighten his tie at the door, a ridiculously house-wifey thing to do, especially since it was perfectly fine to begin with. He kisses me goodbye and smiles. And he loves me.
He’s gone. So I go make myself some coffee and toss my feet up on the coffee table. The coffee is good, just what I need to make a perfect moment.
Swish, swish, swish, I think.
Swish, swish, swish…
So let’s get to it. First I’m going to start with some questions about what you’ve said. Then I’ll follow with some questions about what God says. You can respond in the comments section right here and I’ll follow-up there as well. You are, of course, free to respond as you like and toss back whatever questions you like. And we’ll see what shakes out.
#1) You say, “You need to separate from this man you call your “husband” and hope for reconciliation between the real spouses and if that is impossible, you should both live a chaste life of celibacy.”
What’s this about me remaining celibate? If I understand your argument so far, there’s no reason I should remain celibate. Theoretically, I can remarry can’t I? Your whole argument seems to be that the marriage I now enjoy is no marriage at all. I’m merely fornicating. Worse, I’m fornicating and calling it marriage.
The questions then are these:
a) If I’m not actually married to this man and must step aside so that he and his first wife can be together again, why must I remain celibate?
b) Do you have scriptural support for this idea?
c) If you do not, why did you suggest this to me? Assuming I took everything you said to heart and remained celibate for the rest of my life with no need, would you be guilty of some great injustice to me for offering this as the word of God?
#2) You say, “Please repent of your sins before you bear and infect illegitimate children with your spiritual corruption.”
a) Again, do you have scriptural support for this idea that, if my marriage is everything you say, this will infect my children with some form of spiritual ailment? Can you elaborate on this?
b) And, again, if you have no support for this, why did you offer it here as the word of God?
#3) You offered several more verses to support your position, all of which I agree address marriage and divorce. Absolutely no argument there. Yet in response to Matthew 19:9 you say: “A few have attempted to reinterpret that Matthew 19:9 gives a spouse who has been cheated on grounds to remarry but Jesus never says that. He says that it gives them grounds to divorce not remarry. In a nutshell: God hates divorce, the only reason to get divorced is marital unfaithfulness and it is not okay to get remarried from a divorce in the eyes of God.”
#3a) “A few have attempted to reinterpret that Matthew 19:9 gives a spouse who has been cheated on grounds to remarry …”
A few? Really? This is the accepted interpretation of this verse. In fact, there’s not much to interpret. It’s pretty straight forward. So the question here is:
a) What authorities on scripture can you cite that deny this interpretation?
#3b) “…that Matthew 19:9 gives a spouse who has been cheated on grounds to remarry but Jesus never says that.”
Here’s Matthew 19:9 again:
9And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
It quite clearly says it is adultery to remarry unless the divorce is over the issue of fornication. Which, incidentally, covers a lot more ground that simply adultery and refers to all manner of sexual immorality. So clearly, even read in the most woodenly literal way, the man is free to divorce his wife and remarry on those grounds without becoming an adulterer. So my husband is no adultery for marrying me, according to this verse (She cheated habitually, left him for another man and they divorced, as I’ve clearly stated).
b) Can you explain then how I am an adulterer when he is not?
#3.5) You say: “God says divorce is wrong and remarriage is adultery. I don’t think anyone can get around that, no matter how much they want to or how much they try to reinterpret the verses. There are quite a few of them in the New Testament on the subject (certainly more than your other hot button topic, homosexuality).”
This leads me to a question I’ve just got to ask here. Does God condemn homosexuality? You might think this an unrelated question but I have to wonder, considering the way it just pops up here.
#4) You say: “He wants to bless your life and have you enjoy it. He wants to take your broken soul and mold into something He can use. But He doesn’t want your hatred and anger.”
What is your opinion on the following verses, in this context?
a) Psalm 5:4-6 (New King James Version)
4 For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness, Nor shall evil dwell with You.
5 The boastful shall not stand in Your sight; You hate all workers of iniquity.
6 You shall destroy those who speak falsehood; The LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
b) Psalm 139:19-22 (New King James Version)
19 Oh, that You would slay the wicked, O God! Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.
20 For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your name in vain.
21 Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You? And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
c) Proverbs 1: 20-27
20 Wisdom calls aloud in the street, she raises her voice in the public squares;
21 at the head of the noisy streets she cries out, in the gateways of the city she makes her speech:
22 “How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?
23 If you had responded to my rebuke, I would have poured out my heart to you and made my thoughts known to you.
24 But since you rejected me when I called and no one gave heed when I stretched out my hand,
25 since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke,
26 I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you-
27 when calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you.
#5) “I want you to take a real good look at the harsh words you have used against others on this page and realize your words may have hurt too. That there are matters that are important to other people that you used your tongue (take a look at the book of James chapter one to see the wickedness of the tongue) to burn deep wounds in their hearts as well. Truth should be spoken in love.”
What is your opinion of these verses, in this context?
a) Proverbs 27:5
5 Open rebuke is better than hidden love.
b) Proverbs 28:23
23 He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favour than he that flattereth with the tongue.
#6) “Fruits of the Spirit sum up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life. Galatians 5:22-23, these attributes are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. None of your posts that I have read reflect any of those attributes. You speak of judgement and rebuking, of vindication and retribution – I see none of those things on that list. Where is the joy? The peace? The longsuffering? Where is the love that Paul and Jesus both speak so highly of?”
a) Why did Paul list these things? In what context?
b) What things did he hold them up in contrast to?
c) Does Paul list these things as the blessed results of a life led in opposition to all the wicked things he listed immediately prior to Galatians 5:22…or not?
d) Reading these verses in context, do you say this is a reliable method for judging the appropriateness of a response to a comment on a blog?
Now let’s look at scripture.
#7) While I agree that Christ has fulfilled the law and we are, as Christians, no longer under that yoke of bondage, the Mosaic law nonetheless spells out moral principles that are valuable for us today. In fact, all the verses we take from the New Testament are all likewise ground in Old Testament law and most of what we accept as “Christian” is rooted in it as well. If nothing else, while we would be foolish to follow the Mosaic law as a law for righteousness, it is indisputably the very source of all Christian principle. With that in mind…
Deuteronomy 24:1-4
When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.
a) What is the principle behind forbidding a man to remarry a wife whom he formerly divorced and who has remarried?
b) Does that apply in my husband’s case, who has not only divorced his first wife but who has also remarried and whose first wife has remarried?
c) Were I to leave my husband and his first wife to leave her second husband, would their remarriage then violate this principle?
#8 ) Jesus did not in any way speak to the following matter nor is this principle laid out anywhere else in the bible, yet Paul’s words are clear here:
1 Corinthians 7:10-14
To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife. To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord): If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.
Is Paul speaking without authority? Can we safely take his word on this related matter as Godly or not?
So, “Disappointed” dropped this comment under my “Jean Grey is a Whore” article:
“At first I was impressed by your tenacity in battling homosexuality and adultery, until I read that your current “marriage” is born from a divorce and thus, you are in fact, an adulteress yourself. Everyday you and your “husband” live together in sin, you are committing a perverse abomination in God’s eyes. With each act of fornication you mock the sanctity of a real Christian marriage.
You call yourself a Christian and yet a divorce and remarriage is condemned by Jesus himself in Luke 16:16-18 “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” It doesn’t matter if you or your husband were a Christian or not, a divorce is a slap in the face to the Lord. The only reason to divorce is in the case of adultery – but even then, there is no permission for remarriage. This “marriage” may make you “feel good” or be “happy”, but this adulteress lifestyle is wicked and immoral. It is perhaps even more perverse than the gays.
You need to separate from this man you call your “husband” and hope for reconciliation between the real spouses and if that is impossible, you should both live a chaste life of celibacy. Please repent of your sins before you bear and infect illegitimate children with your spiritual corruption. Its sad, because it seems like you have deluded yourself into thinking that your evil ways are somehow righteous. I pray for your restoration.”
To which I responded:
“Disappointed:
At first I was convicted at your correction and then I realized you’re an idiot who hasn’t the first clue what you’re talking about. Okay, honestly, no. I wasn’t convicted at all. Your idiocy was obvious before the end of the first sentence. I doubt you’re even a Christian. If you are, you’re not very good at it. If you aren’t…you’re still not very good at it.
The biblical perspective on marriage, adultery and remarriage is spelled out fairly well. It’s not nearly as complicated as you seem to assume.
Matthew 19:9 (King James Version)
9 And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.
If I had to bet, I’d bet you’re someone angry at the things I’ve said on other issues but smart enough to realize you have no argument. So you concoct this because you believe Christians are all obviously stupid and irrational, so of course I’ll accept what you say if you present yourself in this caricature of Christianity.
Which makes you a real tool.
Of course, there is a slim chance that you actually are a Christian. In which case I would call you an utter fool and tell you that you should ever, ever, ever judge someone so harshly from such total ignorance.
I have no problem with a fellow Christian telling me when I’m wrong but I expect them not to be completely ignorant when they do. Don’t you dare speak to anyone on such an important matter when you haven’t even bothered to look into the matter first.
Either way, don’t post here again until you either cease being a complete tool or you know what you’re talking about. Or both.
Kthxbye.”
Essentially we have a Christian (supposedly) who’s taken it upon themselves to judge me. Which is great, actually. That’s generally a good thing. Proverbs 27:17.
Except when the sharpening is in the form of advice. Poor advice, foolishly given. Which is how I viewed this and so responded.
But Disappointed answered back:
“You probably will delete this, which is fine – I just hope you’ll first read it with a prayer and perhaps open hands. I’m sorry I was so rude. I’m sorry I was a tool. I was trying to get your attention and it may have been overboard. Hopefully you will see that I’ve both ceased being a complete tool and do know what I’m talking about.
I read through these posts and saw that you only seemed able to hear pain, bitterness, and brokenness and respond in kind. You covered your ears to every other whispered word of reproof and love. So, I went for the extreme. I yelled condemnation. Was it sensational? Sure. But to a woman who is “the red-headed Irish tree-killing, meat-eating barbarian with the bible in one hand and a knobby club in the other standing at the gate and calling you out to fight” it seemed par for the course.
You speak of longing for correction, but it seems you never hear it. I hoped perhaps I could get your attention by shouting my way in, but looking back it was not done in love or peace – I’m sorry.
But please, please, please continue reading and use your knobby club to lean on instead of braining me while I speak to you for real now, prayerfully, and hopefully, with your full attention.
Biblically speaking, yes, divorce and remarriage are considered adultery.
Biblical verses on divorce:
“… I hate divorce, says the LORD, the God of Israel …” – Malachi 2:16
“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” – Luke 16:16-18
“A wife must not separate from her husband. But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband.” – 1 Cor. 7:10-11
These are pretty straightforward and not difficult texts to unpack. They aren’t complicated at all. A few have attempted to reinterpret that Matthew 19:19 gives a spouse who has been cheated on grounds to remarry but Jesus never says that. He says that it gives them grounds to divorce not remarry. In a nutshell: God hates divorce, the only reason to get divorced is marital unfaithfulness and it is not okay to get remarried from a divorce in the eyes of God.
Does what I’ve said sound outrageous? Perhaps in today’s day and age. 60 years ago, it would have been a different story. People cherished marriage in a different manner.
And I have looked into this matter. Obviously, I do know what I’m talking about (despite your counter that I didn’t), but I was being a jerk in the manner I approached it – purposefully as a shock tactic, but a total jerk none-the-less. I am truly sorry, if my harsh words on something that is so important to you and close to your heart hurt you.
God says divorce is wrong and remarriage is adultery. I don’t think anyone can get around that, no matter how much they want to or how much they try to reinterpret the verses. There are quite a few of them in the New Testament on the subject (certainly more than your other hot button topic, homosexuality). That being said, God is also gracious and wants His children to live in the freedom of his grace.
Now, let me completely amend everything I said in my previous post: there is freedom from the slavery of the law and that is in the grace of Jesus Christ. Regardless of whether you sinned in marrying your husband, God loves you and wants you to be in relationship with Him. He wants to bless your life and have you enjoy it. He wants to take your broken soul and mold into something He can use. But He doesn’t want your hatred and anger.
I want you to take a real good look at the harsh words you have used against others on this page and realize your words may have hurt too. That there are matters that are important to other people that you used your tongue (take a look at the book of James chapter one to see the wickedness of the tongue) to burn deep wounds in their hearts as well. Truth should be spoken in love.
You say you long for correction and for growth, but when wisdom is given, you shun it. You call it foolish. And sometimes you completely ignore it and attack people personally. That is not the way of the wise. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. But instead of fearing the Lord, you’re trying to be the *one* people fear.
Your rough past does not give you the permission to hate. And your sins of divorce/remarriage (and ultimately adultery in God’s eyes) is just as ugly as the sins of others. More importantly you don’t even accept your sins as sin. Those are things you have to accept. Stop throwing the first stone Mary, Jesus wants to protect you from the stones too, but can’t when you’re lobbing them at his children. What you do to the least of these, you do to Jesus.
Fruits of the Spirit sum up the nine visible attributes of a true Christian life. Galatians 5:22-23, these attributes are: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance. None of your posts that I have read reflect any of those attributes. You speak of judgement and rebuking, of vindication and retribution – I see none of those things on that list. Where is the joy? The peace? The longsuffering? Where is the love that Paul and Jesus both speak so highly of?
I hope you’ve carefully and thoughtfully read all the way through. I hope you don’t just knobby club my post to death, eat it up and spit out the bones. I pray that you truly and wisely read through this. I hope, that regardless of the inappropriate way I began this (and I hope you’ll forgive me), I’ve planted a small seed in your heart and you have a few fruits of the spirit grow there.”
So I’m going to respond to this piecemeal on the following post so that Disappointed and I can hash this out right there in it’s own comments section. Let’s see how it turns out.
So I went over to my friend Joana’s house the other day, one of the rare occurrences of the mythical Mary emerging from her lair to stalk about the countryside. Yes, I realize this has never been documented, never been caught on film but you can trust me, it does happen on occasion. Sometimes even twice in one week.
And what do I find when I arrive? She had company. Some straight girl and her lesbo friend I know from town. [As a side note, it's a funny thing how city folk in otherwise rural areas still say "in town" or "from town". Growing up in the country really does stick with you. Even when you're referring to an area within the same city, just a few blocks away, that's "in town". Go figure.] They’re in the living room chatting it up so I nodded through the introductions, made a couple of polite remarks and headed for the kitchen to grab a beer.
From over the bar I gave Joana my smirking “What up wit dat?” eyebrow and she tossed back her “Shaddap” nose twitch. Non-verbal communication is dah bomb.
So I settle into the conversation, more really assuming they’d been at it a while and would get bored and leave soon so I could tell Joana the super awesome story I had to share with her. In about two seconds the topic of conversation became obvious and I found myself witnessing these two using feigned curiousity to express disdain for Joana’s celibacy. [Those of you unfamiliar with Joana: she's a lesbian and a Christian, having chosen to remain celibate rather than bother with her dealing with her sexuality. I can totally dig it and it's the same route I chose initially.]
I actually got a little mad at that and even more so when I realized that Joana had chosen to suffer through it for the sake of company. I had to stifle my impulse to come to her defense and make a scene, though. If it had been me, it would have been “go time”. But Joana’s nice. She doesn’t mind suffering a bit and shrugging off insult.
Me? I prefer smacking people. Not the healthiest or wisest choice perhaps. Which is why I didn’t really mind stifling the impulse and letting her handle things as she would.
All of which occupied me long enough to fail to realize I’d more or less just offered up myself as a target once I sat down and entered the conversation. And sure enough, I ended up fielding questions in less than a minute. And of course, because we were dealing with a lesbo and a lesbo sympathizer, the questions didn’t seem to have an boundaries and little familiarity with the concept of “appropriate”.
I was grumpy pretty quick. But I like Joana, she’s a very good friend. So I tamped down the grumpy and answered honestly. I did manage to put the turnabout on ‘em and force them to suffer a bit for the sake of company. Justice for what they were doing to Joana when I arrived, I figured.
I did find it not at all odd that the straight girl was the one asking all the questions and being snarky. The lesbo largely just shut up and sipped her beer.
HETERO GIRL: “So you don’t ever miss it? You know, everything you gave up to marry this guy?”
MARY: “About as much as any other married woman misses dating.”
LESBO: “So you’re bi-, right?”
MARY: “No. I’m not attracted to men at all.”
HETERO GIRL: “But don’t you guys…”do it”? I mean, right?”
MARY: “Oh, hell yeah. We’ve been married nine months. We “do it” all the time.”
HETERO GIRL: “But you’re not attracted to him?”
MARY: “I’m attracted to him. Of course. We probably don’t have the passion any other couple has at nine months…probably more like a couple that’s been married for, like, five years. But then our situation is kinda flip-flopped because we didn’t marry for passion, so we didn’t really start with that. We get to see our passion grow rather than recede.”
HETERO GIRL: “So do you…what…fantasize about other people or something?”
MARY: “Well, I could say “no” but that wouldn’t really be honest, would it? I can say that I don’t fantasize about other people when I’m with him any more than any other woman who’s been married for nine months to someone they’re madly in love with. Probably a lot less so because it would be even more of an insult to him. In fact, only one such incident springs to mind and remember it so clearly precisely because I felt so guilty about the insult. And that doesn’t even address that it’s a perversion to me now, so it rather fumbles as a turn on these days anyway. It didn’t even work.”
LESBO: “Okay, so you really see loving another woman as a perversion?”
MARY: “I love Joana. I have friends who are women that I love very much. That’s not at all perverted. Having sex with them would be. Even the desire to would be perverse. I don’t claim not to have that desire, just that it’s perverse and so I reject it.”
HETERO GIRL: “So that’s the point, right? How are you going to go through life suppressing the natural desire for intimacy with another woman and it never cause you any frustration? Aren’t you afraid that one day it’s going to be too much and you’ll fall for the first woman that shows an interest, destroy your marriage? That happens all the time.”
MARY: “And it doesn’t bother you that you sound like a child molester? Look, no offense but that is what you sound like when you say that. You talk about homosexual desire like it’s some beast that will turn on you and consume you if you don’t feed it regularly. Heterosexuals don’t talk about their desire that way, unless they’re sex addicts. So is that what homosexuality is? A dysfunction? So treat it like you do any other dysfunction. That’s what I do. And I’m very satisfied with the results.”
LESBO: “Yeah but you’re sex life isn’t nearly as satisfying with this guy as it was before. And say what you want but people divorce over that all the time.”
MARY: “Okay, look. Let me make two points here before this goes any further, so there’s no confusion. First, my sex life has never been better. Granted, I’ve had lovers in the past that were amazing. But even with them I never had this kind of relationship. It just doesn’t get any better than this. This is what sex was designed for, so despite all the strikes against us, because we recognize the nature of the thing, our sex life kicks ass. Just doesn’t get any better. Second, even if we both knew from the start that sex was not going to be an option for us, even if this were some kind of celibate marriage or something, we would have married anyway. Actually, come to think of it, maybe not. But we could have. It wouldn’t have been a crazy decision for us. And I’d still be happy with it if that was the case. So sex, while important, isn’t the focal point of our marriage. It isn’t the goal here, it’s just one of the tools we use to reach that goal. So, while I consider myself very lucky to have a great sex life with this guy, it’s not a critical point.”
LESBO: “How can you say it’s not crucial to your marriage? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
MARY: “How often do you and [her girlfriend] have sex? Don’t even answer because it doesn’t matter. The fact is that the answer is going to be something less than constantly. Which by itself shows there’s more to your relationship than that. All that stuff in between the scattered moments you two actually have sex, that’s the relationship, right? So what’s sex got to do with it? For you, sex is what you build your relationship around. Everything you do in your relationship is there to support the sex. For me it’s the other way around. Sex is something that supports and strengthens the relationship. It’s not even the only thing, any more than any single thing in your relationship that you use to enhance the sex.”
LESBO: “Well, I think you don’t know anything about my relationship.”
MARY: “I think I know what every homosexual relationship I’ve ever been in was like. And I see you sitting here having trouble understanding the role sex plays in my marriage, which you wouldn’t be having trouble with if I’m wrong.”
LESBO: “Well, I can’t imagine sleeping with a guy. I couldn’t ever do that.”
MARY: “You’ve never been with man?”
LESBO: “No, never. No way.”
MARY: “Not ever, never? Not even once?”
LESBO: “Well…once. A long time ago. I hated it.”
MARY: “Really.”
LESBO: “Yes.”
MARY: “So tell me about it. What happened?”
LESBO: “He was just a friend. We got drunk and one thing just led to another. You know. I regretted it ever since.”
MARY: “So you regretted it. I can get that. But you didn’t like it at all? Nothing enjoyable about it at the moment?”
LESBO: “Well, yeah. He was good friend and we really did care about each other. But it was just horrible afterward.”
MARY: “So there you go. The only difference is that it isn’t horrible for me afterward. We’re good friends, we love each other very much and we’re married. There’s no horrible afterward.”
HETERO GIRL: “You’ve got a weird way of looking at things.”
MARY: “I’ve got a Christian way of looking at things. Comes with being a Christian.”
HETERO GIRL: “Hold on. You said you aren’t attracted to men. But you’re attracted to the man you’re married to?”
MARY: “Right.”
HETERO GIRL: “But how? Why is this the only guy in the world you’re attracted to?”
MARY: “I’m not attracted to him as a man. If I met him for the first time ever in a bar somewhere, I wouldn’t immediately be attracted to him. If we struck up a conversation, I’d find him interesting but I wouldn’t immediately be attracted to him. If we became friends, I wouldn’t be attracted to him. If we became lifelong friends who understood each other intimately and love one another very deeply, then I’d be attracted to him. And only in the sense that sex would be an option. Even then I’d prefer the woman I met in the bar five minutes ago.”
HETERO GIRL: “You’re not attracted to him, then. You don’t see him as a man but as the person that he is. He’s not some sexy guy to you. So that’s not even a heterosexual attraction.”
MARY: “Just like a woman who’s been married for twenty years. How often does she see her husband as the hunk in the bar? He’s the guy she’s married to. Same thing. And he is pretty damned sexy to me sometimes. Probably not as often as someone who married a guy she had passion for but those marriages tend to burn out quickly, don’t they? I don’t often just walk into a room, see him and think, “Damn, he’s hot.” But he turns me on all the time.”
HETERO GIRL: “And that doesn’t make any sense to me. You’re attracted to him, you’re not attracted to him. He’s sexy, he’s not sexy. He turns you on, he doesn’t turn you on. None of that makes any sense.”
MARY: Okay, I think I see what you’re having trouble with here. And the funny thing to me is that your friend here probably already gets it. But give me a minute to think how I’m going to explain this to you.”
So I went to the kitchen with Joana to make coffee. Where we snickered a bit, I admit. Even Joana understood the difference between love and sex and how the two interacted. And she’s a celibate lesbian. Yet the college educated blond was mystified.
Nutty.
Then I came back, we served coffee and I told the two girls a story…
I had a project I was working on a while back. I built a gazebo in the back yard. Not a huge project and one I really sorta dabbled in now and again. Which was just terrible really because it meant I had this big pile of unidentifiable carpentry with a fluttering plastic tarp tossed over it for like two months. But it gave me something to do when I was in the mood to twist and mangle something.
And besides, I really wanted a gazebo in my back yard.
So when I decided it was time to wrap up the project and get it done so it would stop uglifying my back yard I grabbed the guy and we went out there to finish it once and for all. Now during the process of doing this in the middle of a hot Louisiana summer day, he shucked his shirt pretty quick and I stripped down to a sport top. It was hot. We were sweaty. Muscles bulged all around.
There was some grunting here and there.
All of which soon attracted the attention of our neighbor, who found herself distracted at the sight of my guy working on the gazebo; shirtless and glistening in the summer sun. At which I tossed a good-natured eyebrow when I realized she’d got lost in the spectacle. She was embarrassed but she grinned an apology and disappeared. Honestly, I can’t really blame her and I kinda felt a little proud. I’d convinced him to start working out with me way back and it had paid off. He’s in good shape.
He never noticed, of course. Too busy cursing the gazebo for challenging his woodworking skills. Guys get weirdly aggressive with they work on something. It’s bizarre and a little frightening, I think. But this did draw my attention to the fact that he was indeed working hard in the summer sun, glistening and shirtless. And while I could admire the beauty of it…it really didn’t do anything for me. In point of fact, he smelled a bit.
Which honestly was more attractive than the sight. I actually love his smell up until the point where it officially becomes a stink. Then not so much. It hadn’t quite reached that point yet, though.
Now, of course, he didn’t notice the neighbor gawking but he spotted me checking him out. And utilizing his awesome psychic powers he knew exactly what I was thinking. So he stopped and gave me a parody of a pose and waggled an eyebrows at me, knowing full well it wasn’t doing much for me but willing to laugh with me about that. And we did laugh for a second, then went back to work grinning.
Eventually the gazebo was finished. We still had to sand and water seal and all that stuff. But the actual construction was done. So we sat on the porch, drank some cold Cokes and chatted while we sweat it off. He made me promise to slow dance with him inside the thing once it was officially open for business, no music, just us. I made him promise he’d keep his stampeding herd of beer buddies away from it.
We reminisced about this and that, spending maybe five full minutes just sipping Coke and chatting. In the process we ended up talking about things we don’t talk about with anyone else. And he told me a story about his brother. How once upon a time they were playing a cigarette lighter in the living room, trying to find something to distract themselves with while their father and mother fought in the bedroom. He may even have been abusing her in there, he said, but he couldn’t recall. Just that they were desperate for a distraction.
So his brother grabbed a cigarette lighter and started burning the fringes hanging off some kind of some kind of decorative cloth on the wall. Some kind of embroidered blanket or something, he couldn’t remember. It was red, he remembered that. And his brother would set fire to one of the fringes and let it burn up away, then put it out quickly before the whole thing caught fire. Which Matthew found completely fascinating.
So he either convinced his brother to let him try it or grabbed the lighter once his brother put it down. Somehow or other he ended up giving it a shot.
And so set fire to the whole thing. Causing his father to come out and investigate all the noise of the two boys trying to put it out.
His father grabbed the thing off the wall and simple tossed it outside, thankfully preventing the whole trailer from going up. Then beat Matthew for a few minutes. Because his brother claimed he didn’t even know what was going on and Matthew had set fire to it while he wasn’t looking.
So once his father had beat him to his satisfaction he yelled at him for a while then tossed him out of the trailer, telling him he wasn’t allowed to sleep inside tonight. He’d almost burned down the whole house, so that was his punishment (never mind the beating, I suppose). Apparently he needed to develop some appreciation for having a roof over his head.
Matthew remembers that he was bleeding from somewhere on his head, probably his nose or ear but he couldn’t say for sure. One of his hands was burned as well from trying to put out the fire. So he sat in the dirt at the trailer hitch, not wanting to be near the front door, and cried a little while trying to figure out where he would sleep that night.
He eventually decided on the car, figuring that was the best choice. He also figured he’d go on ahead and go to sleep, hoping that he’d wake up before his father got ready for work in the morning and could hide until he was gone, then go back inside.
His brother came outside a little later before he could hop in the car and go to sleep. Apparently feeling guilty for everything, the brother sat with him for a while and consoled him. And he took a stick off the ground and showed him how to draw a five-pointed star in the dirt. Which Matthew thought was completely amazing.
Which is how Matthew figures he must have been five or six at the time, that drawing a star in the dirt with a stick, all in one continually unbroken line, was amazing. His brother let him do it and walked him through the process until he perfected it, then praised him for being so clever.
And Matthew said he had never since loved anyone the way he loved his brother at that moment. Never mind that he’d played a large part in his getting beaten and tossed outside for the night. He’d taken the time to show him something amazing and teach him how to do it. He could draw a five-pointed star, all in one unbroken line, to this day because his brother had risked leaving the house and showing him how.
Then his brother made sure he was okay, went inside to shove a pillow and blanket out the window for him and Matthew made a bed in the back seat of the car for the night.
During the process of telling me this story, we ended up holding hands and leaning closer. Despite being sweaty, hot and a little tired we were very close at that moment.
Then I kissed him, intending simply to convey, “I love you.”
But the kiss got hot real quick and I ended up dragging him to bed right from the back porch.
Because, you see, I had built a gazebo with this guy. I’d run off a neighbor who was gawking at his shirtless torso. We shared a Coke and sat really close while he opened up his heart and told me a story he’d probably never told anyone else.
That was pretty friggin’ sexy.
The college-educated blond didn’t get the point, though. Instead, she insisted this was proof I was bi-sexual. I advised her never to marry.
The lesbo didn’t say anything. She already got it. I gave her a good look in the eye before I left, which she shied away from.
One can only hope.
I think this is like the fourth time I’ve gotten teary eyed at something this year. This girly crap has got to stop.
So. I slide over to the bed a while ago for a quick snog with sleepy-head over there, right?
And I notice he’s got gray in his scratchy little goatee.
I didn’t say anything, just kissed and cuddled and let him get back to sleep.
That’s just not fair, though. 
He’s going to be forty next year. Forty.
40.
So going by the stats I’ve got about thirty years here.
Also according to the stats, I’ve got about another fifteen to twenty years or so after that left to go. Without him.
Even when you factor in all the particulars from self-abuse and health issues (math which I haven’t the heart to do more than estimate) I’m still looking at five or ten years alone once he’s gone. And most of those factors are things like suicide and drug abuse. Things which I have no intention of allowing to apply in my case anyway.
Factor in the heart disease that runs in his family on top of that and how many years does that knock off?
Not fair. Just not fair.
I’ve wasted too much of the time I had with him already.
Went to visit a friend of ours in the hospital the other day. He had his appendix removed, if you can believe that. What the heck is the deal with the appendix anyway? I’ve had a couple of deep, theological discussions recently on the nature of the appendix in the last few days.
We haven’t come up with much on that.
Okay, I’m going to try something new and actually try to get to the point early this time. Let’s see how that works out. I suspect I won’t be satisfied with the results but every new approach to art yields it’s own refrigerator magnet-worthiness, I suppose.
“Isn’t it lovely? My little girl’s quite the artist.”
“Is that a banana?”
“No, no. That’s the moon, you see.”
“Ah. Okay.”
A refridgerator door display is a must for every budding new artist.
No, really.
So. We arrived, my guy and I. We exited the vehicle, made sure we had all our supplies handy (I hate going all the way back to the parking lot for that handkerchief or that ink pen), approached the formidable bastion and bravely pierced the veil. Within we found that antiseptic world of The Hospital. A realm upon which I dread to tread.
Up, up and up to the hallowed fourth floor, wherein the mysterious denizens, wise and learned beyond all kin, had secreted him away that they may practice their white magic without the distraction of the unwashed peasantry smelling up the place.
Humbling, that they would deign to allow our visit and a glimpse, even in passing, of their secret arts. I was, of course, google-eyed and curious. Never to let this show. Oh no, not this unwashed peasant.
Eventually, quietly and meekly, we came to The Door. Beyond which we would find our beloved friend and see first hand what had become of him in the strange place.
And I dithered.
I love the word “dither”. “Dither” is a word I just love. It so very accurately captures that mental image of stopping suddenly in indecision, twitching a bit and waggling your arms slightly back and forth with your head ducked low, muttering, “nuh nuh nuh nuh…”. That reaction you have when the situation you’re presented with is suddenly something your mind finds itself completely and totally unable to handle and decides instead to send random, contradictory instructions to all parts of your body, with the overriding command to ignore everything it just said and do something else instead. All in the attempt to keep everyone busy and buy some time until, hopefully, something changes and the situation becomes one it can actually deal with.
My guy, of course, was kind enough to stand beside, detecting on some instinctive level that Mary’s brain had just tripped a breaker and would require a moment to feel about in the dark until it could find the breaker box and correct matters. One of the contradictory messages my brain sending at the moment apparently being to keep an eye on him, I noticed him take up position next to me, casually, and look carefully around at our surroundings.
Because of course that’s what we were doing. We were casing the joint. No telling what kind of trouble we might be walking into. No, Mary’s not acting weird at all. This is a tactical assessment. Move along there, buddy. Nothing to see.
I got my head facing in a firm frontal direction again, rather than spinning about comically, in record time. I’m getting better at that, actually. Once my fluttery thoughts settled down enough, I was able to communicate with Matthew that I’d need a minute. I’m very glad it doesn’t take much more than a look to convey such things between us. Much more so that we developed this sympatico long years before dealing with such moments became a regular thing for us.
He even found something to amuse himself with just far enough away as not to intrude but close enough to come a’runnin’, managing to fit coffee in there somewhere, which he produced a minute later before retreating to the periphery again.
Damn, I love that guy.
And here’s the thing, you see. The memory that set that whole thing off. Not much of a flashback, this one, but every bit as soul-draining and nerve-wracking. The implications being such that I’d rather have not remembered this just now. But I’ve said before that the universe doesn’t care what you think. Likewise, your psyche hasn’t any concern for your preferences when it comes to dealing with such things. If it’s ready, it doesn’t really matter much if you are or not. Who’s asking you, Mary?
So I remember going to the hospital to see mother. I remember not really wanting to go and certainly not wanting to see her lying there looking so terrible. I’ll spare you the details. Anyone who’s ever visited anyone dying of cancer in the hospital knows what I mean.
And daddy grabs my arm out of the blue, digging his fingers and fingernails into my flesh painfully both to underscore how important it is that I pay attention and make clear the threat of violence should my mind wander while he relayed something I won’t mention here. Essentially, behave. With a strongly implied “or else.”
Maybe the most hurtful part of that was the assumption that I would do something bad in my mother’s hospital room. But, no. That wasn’t it. I didn’t even want to go see her. I would have much rather stayed home. I had already intended to be polite and quiet, wait impatiently until it was time to leave. Hopefully, find some reason to leave the room so I didn’t have to see her lying there looking as if she were already dead yet still somehow not.
And the tubes and needles. I was physically ill just remembering those now, more so then.
All of that wasn’t so dreadfully terrible to me right now. It’s not as if I didn’t recall my mother being in the hospital. I had some vague recollection of that and it had already made hospital visits something I grit my teeth, steel my face and suffer through on occasion. It was the fact that father was so cold and hurtful. That I feared him so much. I remember that I nearly wet myself a little when he dug his fingers into my arm, before he even bent over me and spoke.
The thing was…this was before my mother died. And he was supposed to have been wonderful back then. I remember clearly how wonderful he was. He would never do anything like that in those days.
I was already telling myself that maybe it wasn’t that odd. His wife was dying after all. Bound to make anyone a little irritable. But this was the man I remembered from much later years, not from those days or those that followed after. This wasn’t the good daddy, it was the bad one.
None of that really mattered right then, though. I didn’t have time for this crap. I had a friend to visit and I really didn’t want to deal with this stuff at the moment, so I put it away. Already I was determined not to deal with it. It never happened, I remembered it wrong, whatever. I had things to do. No time for this.
Except now I couldn’t go into that room. I couldn’t approach, open and cross the threshold of The Door. I certainly couldn’t see my friend lying there like that. It was time to leave and go home. Hide in a safe place. Close my eyes until it was over and pretend it hadn’t happened.
F***. Ain’t this grand?
But I knew what to do. Remembered to breath. Stomp my feet a little to remind me they were still there. Put my hand on the cool glass and felt the room I was standing in. Talked to her.
I did cheat a little, though. An acceptable cheat. I looked over my shoulder and gave my guy The Look. He came a’runnin’. He even traded coffees with me, so there’d be an excuse for him to come over. His was still hot, you see. Yeah, that’s it.
“Bad times?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you need?”
“Just…backup.”
“You got it.”
“…”
“I’m here.”
“I don’t think…I don’t know if I can.”
“It’s up to you, no one else. What are you gonna do?”
“…he’s a friend.”
“Right. Exactly.”
“Okay. Gimme a minute.”
So I waited. I sat and sipped my coffee and waited for it to pass enough to think clearly. Matthew watched some inane something or other on television. Time passed.
Then we went in there and spent a few minutes with a friend who’d laid up in bed for three days, so bored that even our company must have been hugely exciting. I gave him a card from both of us and held his hand for a minute. Matthew insisting on joking and making him laugh, despite the damage laughing probably did the poor guy and the pain it caused.
I told him I was having a hard time being there and that we’d have to leave soon. He told me not to apologize for that. I told him I wasn’t apologizing, just expressing that I care enough about him that I wished it was easier for me to stay. And he got it. And it was okay.
Then we left and went home.
It was a good day.
Not particularly enjoyable but that’s not a prerequisite for a good day.
It suddenly occurred to me…my blog theme is depressing! It was even called “ChaoticSoul”. Now, can you believe that? What was I thinking?
I mean, seriously. All that black. I guess really it made sense at the time, considering what I use this blog for. Namely, ranting. A lot of black and a “ChaoticSoul” theme fits, I suppose. But since discovering, amazingly, that I don’t seem to rant nearly as much as I used to, maybe a new look is in order.
I’ll try to keep the intro, though. I suppose I should give some kind of warning to folks wandering by here. Don’t want to shock anyone unnecessarily. The way I figure it the “Christian fanatic/meat-eating barbarian” thing does that nicely.
So anyway, be patient. We’ll be in flux around here for a little while.
Just don’t do it.
It can be good and it can definately be good for the survivor in question. But don’t do it. You’ll be happier with someone that isn’t broken.
Now there are some people who need a partner who’s broken. The same rule applies to them as well, for different reasons. Because they’re sickos. They really shouldn’t be with anybody in my opinion but more so with someone who is, in fact, broken. Because then healing and becoming less broken is discouraged. Actively discouraged. Getting broken a little more might even be seen as an improvement.
This is rather self-defeating stance for me to take, you probably think. Rather cutting my own throat here. Or you can argue that I can be comfortable saying this because I have someone, so I can be a hypocrite now and tell everyone else it’s a bad idea.
And it’s a fact that I’m not about to give this guy up so long as he’s willing to stick around. Hell, I married him to be sure he had no choice but to stick around. We’re never going to divorce. He’s stuck with me.
And that means he gets to sit on the porch every now and then, watching the woman he loves sit in the mud, in the rain, bleeding and broken, unable to do anything at all but sit and watch and ache for me. He can’t leave because that would be to abandon me. He can’t approach because that hurts.
He just has to sit there and watch over me while I hurt.
And sometimes he has to accept coming under attack for things he’s not guilty of. He’s often punished for crimes he never committed.
Some might say (in the depths of their hearts, most likely never out loud) that I’ve done a bad thing, in a way, marrying this man. I’ve rather doomed him to a marriage that simply won’t ever be as healthy and joyful as one he could have had with just about any other woman.
It’s oh so very easy for me to hate myself for this. It’s not as if this thought never occurs to me. Some days I’m in full agreement with it.
Bad Mary, shame on you.
But in my own defense I’m a little disappointed (admittedly) to look around at the other marriages that surround me and find that ours is actually better, stronger and more loving than average. There’s a part of me that wishes it weren’t so wonderful. But that’s just the sick part of me that wants my whole life to be hell and is disappointed whenever it’s not.
Yet if this is true, why would I say what I’ve said? “Don’t marry an incest survivor”? Well, the fact is that our marriage is as wonderful as it is precisely because we are the people that we are and we have the perspective that we have. We have, I think, a better understanding than most of what marriage is and how one should approach it. Moreover and more importantly, we stay focused on God and stay pretty close to Him. This makes all the difference in the world.
Honestly, you would not believe. Those who understand this, understand it. Those who don’t, won’t.
My husband is who he is and if he were married to anyone else that woman, being presumably less crazy than me, would be able to love him in return in a way I just can’t. He’d never have to suffer the things he suffers with me. He’d suffer other things most likely but it’s doubtful it’d be anything approaching what he does with me.
So am I a hypocrite? I think…no. Because I understand what marriage is. It’s a blessing but not in the way the vast majority of people assume it to be. It’s not a blessing like the flavor of ice cream is (and isn’t that a blessing?) It’s more a blessing in the manner of the feeling you get training with heavy weights.
You have to overcome to aversion to hard work, you sweat, you strain, you pour effort into it. It hurts, even. There’s pain. But all the while you know it’s making you stronger. And in the end, when you’re done for the day and take the weights off the bar, put them away, you get the really great sense of relief and accomplishment. Those endorphins course through your veins and it’s a pretty awesome feeling. You feel grand for a while and you just know, right to the core, that God designed you for this. It’s made you stronger and healthier. He approves.
Ice cream just tastes good for a moment, then makes your thighs fat. It’s fine in moderation, a blessing even as I’ve said, but if you go to ice cream for your daily joy you will be fat, miserable, morbidly unhealthy and eventually very dead.
My husband is a weight trainer, spiritually speaking. He understands full well what he’s in for with me. He understood when the subject first came up between us. He’s the one that taught me this, in fact. He knows full well he would be happier with any other woman. But he’s with me anyway. To him some other woman as a wife would be great and all. I honestly think he’d be happy with anyone who, like me, understands marriage and was truly committed to it.
Seriously. Anyone could be happy with anyone, if they both understood marriage and fully committed to it. That’s rather the “secret” of marriage no one seems to get.
And let’s bear in mind that we’re not just talking about a messed up incest survivor. We’re talking about someone who killed her own father. Who’s mother died young. Who lived as a lesbian for most of her life. Who cut and mutilated herself so badly over the years that she can’t open a jar of mayonnaise without special tools. Who trips over furniture when you rearrange the living room because her brain has been scrambled and doesn’t pay attention to the whole left side of the universe. Who has tattoos and scars on every part of her body.
And yet this idiot broke it off with a perfectly healthy, very wise, attractive, Christian, loving young woman who adored him. To marry me. And live with this crap. For the rest of his life.
There are lots of reason why. I could point out that we’ve been best friends for most of our lives. He already loved me more deeply and had a longer, more firmly established, relationship with me than with her. But in the end the reason why, the main reason, is because he was firmly convinced that I would be fully committed to our marriage. I’d never cheat, never leave and never stop working to make our marriage work. I’d never be lazy (intentionally), I’d get up every morning and see my marriage as the work I have to do today. Not cleaning the kitchen or making sure the light bill is paid. And I’d look forward to it, just as I look forward to working out every day. And for the same reasons.
I can’t say that other woman (whom I’ll allow myself the luxury of hating unjustly, if you don’t mind) wouldn’t do the same. Maybe she would. But Matthew and I are actually stronger at the end of every single day precisely because we have to work harder.
Matthew married me because he wanted to grow and be stronger. He didn’t marry me to be happy any more than I work out for the endorphin rush. Granted both come and both are great. It’d seriously suck without it. But it’s the strength we seek. The healing and the health that comes with hard work.
Marriage is spiritual weight lifting and he’s benching about 250 with me.
Which, in a way, kinda sucks for me if you look at it like that. Being married to him is like…aerobics. Way too easy for somebody like me. I’d probably actually get weak and lazy if it weren’t for those days when aerobics is all I can handle. In the end I guess I have to admit he’s perfect for me.
Your average man…well, I’d probably smother him with a pillow in his sleep before long. No way I could put up with most men in a marriage for more than a month. Just couldn’t do it.
As much as I, in my sickness and self-loathing, hate to admit it…I’m perfect for him. He is, really, far happier with me than he would be with any other woman. I can already see, in even less than a year, how much stronger he is spiritually because he’s married to me. And he is happy and content. Try as I may, I cannot for the life of me find a thing in his life that has truly suffered because of me.
And I do try. My broken need for self-loathing is often wrathfully frustrated at this. Often it has to content itself with lies. Lies obvious enough that they’re laughable. Most days I just have to give up and fall back on obsessing about scars and such. In a sick way, I really wish I could find something wrong with being married to this man so I could hate myself for it. I’m usually too honest to accept anything I find, though.
And I…oh, I…I am fulfilled. I am stronger, healthier and want for nothing. Having lived most of my life in hell, this is often frightening and frantic. But I’m getting better at accepting it. Some days I’m actually comfortable being content, loved and safe.
So in the end I say don’t marry an incest survivor. You’re not up for it. Most likely they aren’t either. You’ll be happier with someone else.
But that of course assumes being pleased is your goal and you’re in it for yourself. That you’re looking to feel good and find someone else to make you happy. That you’re looking for your Little Princess or your Prince Charming. I can promise you, it’s a bad idea.
The funny thing is, if that’s you’re thinking you won’t really be happy with anyone. Everyone is broken. We all are. Some to a greater degree than others but less so than you probably think.
But that we’re all broken…well, that’s kinda the whole point.
So I kinda feel a little bad about this, like I’m betraying a trust. I certainly hope that’s not the case. Someone sent me a private message over on TOL recently and said this:
“So… I’ve been think about.. stuff.. a lot recently and I’ve been wanting to ask you something.
This is probably a completely inappropriate and overly personal question to ask but I am just so wanting to know – how do you manage it? How do you manage to pull your socks back up and just move on? You’ve said a few times whether here or on your blog (sorry… I lurk) that you get inappropriate fight or flight responses. It resonates. How do you manage to not let those bother you?
Sorry. I’m really terrible at preamble.
Feel free to tell me to mind my own business. I really do admire you though.”
I hope that by not identifying who that I have haven’t betrayed their trust in asking me this privately by repeating it here. If I have I invite them to let me know and I’ll remove it. I really don’t want to discourage them in any way. But I felt compelled to share my answer here.
So here’s my response:
“Lol, don’t admire me. And it absolutely does bother me.
I actually wrote a bit about what my life used to be like but I realize that I couldn’t really explain it to anyone else and it didn’t matter anyway, so deleted all that.
I really don’t know how to answer this without saying just that I now know that storms pass. They always do. That’s pretty much what storms are all about. They come, do their thing and then move on. So when things get crazy and black I just huddle up and wait it out. I’m going through a particularly bad time right now, in fact. It usually doesn’t get this bad or for this long but sometimes it just does. There really isn’t much I can do but wait it out.
I go to therapy and I pray, these things help to heal but there’s just too much damage done. I’ll never be well. It sucks that such a large part of my life is taken up with suffering the things I do and that limits what I’m able to do with this life. But in the end it’s really no different than someone who’s handicapped physically. If I were paralyzed from the neck down my life would be pretty limited by that as well and things that would normally not take up so much of my life to accomplish would be huge obstacles, requiring significant effort and great deal of time. It’s really the same thing in the end.
So. You accept that this is just the way it is, you work on the things you can and make the improvements you’re able to. You do with your life what you can and that’s that.
“God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.”
And that’s that. That’s the trick. It really is that simple. And I’ll add the thing I know you probably really won’t get but it’s a pretty important point. I’ve given my life to Christ, such as it is. I’m not a very good Christian and I likely don’t afford Him great opportunities to do great things through me but if He accomplishes anything at all through me then my life has hardly been wasted on me. Even with all the damage I’ve done with it.
And even besides all that, and getting right down to the core of the matter, God literally lives in my heart now. That’s not really a figure of speech. He really is here with me and I know that. He really does give me strength and I really can lean on Him for support. You can imagine what a huge difference that makes. This isn’t just some kind person offering sympathy, support and advice. This is the King of Kings, the Creator of universe and the Living God.
Right here. With me. And He loves me.
So while a part of me is crushed with despair, filled with loathing and disgust for myself, homicidally angry at the whole world and everything in it and wanting nothing more than the simply explode, end it all and take a few people with me…it’s a weirdly dissociated part of me. Something distant and almost unconnected. It used to be something I reveled in. I rejoiced a little when it came over me. I was comfortable with it and it was really the only thing I could trust.
Now it’s an irritant. It’s a little monster cavorting about the place that I have to put up with from time to time. I really hate that thing but I won’t have to put up with it for any longer than the rest of my life. 
The real me is over here, sitting with God, my friend (and think about what a profound statement that is) patiently waiting for it to pass. And when it passes I’ll get back on my feet and get back to work, doing what I can to deal with the things that caused all that in the first place so that eventually it will become even more manageable. And it gives me time to talk to God about some things, so it’s hardly wasted time.
I could say that I couldn’t do this without God and be partly correct. The fact is, really, that I could. I just wouldn’t want to and so I wouldn’t. Without Him there’d be no reason to. With Him I not only have all the resources I need to survive this and even have a pretty darned good life despite it but I have the motivation to, the desire to. I even have a completely different perspective on this and, in fact, everything else. With Him I can see all the horror and pain and suffering for what they are. Irrelevant.
It comes, I shuffle through it, it passes and I move on. It’s unfortunate but wounds need to heal. There’s no getting around that. But you do have a choice whether you sit and wail about how unfair it is that you got hurt or you can chuff, bandage the wounds and do what can with it until it heals.
It’s all about perspective. God gave me a knew one and it makes all the difference.”
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