Will Children Be OK if we Handle DivorceLike Grown Ups?
Divorce — The Worst Child Abuse
Depriving children of the faithful love between their parents is as abusive as depriving them of food, clothing, water, and air. Too many times adults try to comfort themselves with the notion that the children will be OK, but that does nothing at all for the children and only helps sooth the consciences of their unfaithful and unloving parents.
What if somebody threw scalding hot water into the face of a child an said, “Children are resilient and heal quickly?”
Yet we throw scalding hot divorces into the face of our children and say, “Children are resilient and will be OK if we handle this divorce like adults.”
Nothing shows more cowardice or contempt for our children’s well-being than when we shelter ourselves from their suffering so we can divorce comfortably.
Divorce is one of the worst forms of child abuse known. Some families are destroyed by violence or abuse in the home, and often families are broken up by adultery.
No family is broken because one spouse fails to meet the needs of the other spouse or fails to make the other spouse happy. That’s a lie from the pit of hell. A family is broken when one spouse is willing to hurt others to get what they want. A man is willing to wreck his family to sleep with a sexy woman. A woman is willing to abuse her children and spouse with public insults and disrespect and threaten divorce to get what she wants. Abuse, manipulation, cruelty, unfaithfulness. The stuff that hell is made of.
When people say children are resilient and all will be well if the parents handle the divorce like adults, the first lie is that the unfaithful parent really cares how the divorce affects the children. Truth is, the unfaithful parent cares more about the appearance of caring and cares more about the fear of losing everything than about how this divorce affects the children. It’s a facade. Posing. Posturing. Play acting. Parents who really care about their children are sensitive to their children’s needs for their parents to stay together in a loving and mutually supportive relationship.
The second lie is that the children will be OK. This is not said to comfort or bless the children. This is said to numb their own feelings of guilt. Truth is divorce hurts children and this lie denies children their right to have their suffering known and seen for what it is.
The third lie is that faithful spouses have no right to oppose divorce or speak unfavorably about it to the children. Not only does every person have a right to do so, but everyone has a duty to do so.
And mark my words, the judge who claims otherwise is a liar and a coward, and an abuser of the faithful and their children. He has violated the religious and free speech rights promised in the Constitution that he vowed to protect. His court is not a court of justice, but a court of injustice and harlotry. He is not a judge, but a pimp. A highly paid pimp. Paid for by our taxes, and then paid for by the extortion extracted from poor and faithful spouses throwing their life savings at the legal community in hopes of protecting their families and their children.
And people wonder how a loving God could send anyone to hell.
This needs to change!!!
If this doesn’t change, then we have no business judging people like Darren Mack for going crazy and shooting a judge.
Divorces are too easy to get these days. Not too easy for the abused spouses, but too easy for the unfaithful ones. The unfaithful spouses know it. The abusive spouses know it. And they use it to their advantage because our laws let them do so.
The reason so many people suffer abuse and adultery is because we enable them. We take away the consequences of their actions and foist them upon their spouses and their children and everybody else.
And, since we live in this nation, we need to decide what we will do about it? Will we be found going with the flow and letting things stay the way they are? Or will we oppose it and stand up for the faithful and their children?
I don’t want to be judgmental or unkind to the person who has been forced through the most horrible agony by a cruel spouse who cannot bring himself or herself to feel much of anything regarding the pain he or she brings others. I don’t even want to start off with a “however” or “but” after saying that because no spouse has the right to abuse family members, and it is a very incompetent fool who abuses those who should be loved ones. It may be because they want something that they abuse, or it may be because they, themselves are in pain and have never matured to the point where they can take any personal pain without bringing intense pain to others.
Even so, the spirit of adultery, divorce, and abuse travel together. The person who cannot forgive even the smallest and most unintentional pain may have unresolved hurts from the past. And it is often these people who become very infantile and selfish in their thinking.
When someone is getting to safety, running to a shelter, and taking the children with them to the shelter, or seeks help from the police from a truly dangerous situation, that is often the right thing to do.
However, there are people who lie to get the upper hand. Not everyone who cries “violence” or “abuse” is telling the truth. Some are. Some are not. Those who are need to be protected. Those who are lying are themselves abusing. And, nobody should be abused.
The problem is that serious wrongdoers in a relationship are often too cowardly to address their wrongs honestly if there is a way to shelter themselves from the pain of the truth. If a man or a woman is being a liar and a whore and ripping to shreds the marriage unjustly, it is often so convenient for them to complain they were not getting their needs met. Or they will try to incite the other spouse to commit some wrong just so they can grab the first opportunity to blame the other spouse for causing the problem.
What so often happens when one spouse is deeply committed as I was to my first marriage is that the committed spouse ends up being a slave to the unfaithful one. The unfaithful spouse can hold onto two partners and use jealousy to play one partner against the other saying, “If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll run to the other partner”.
What happens so often is the faithful spouse will have been carrying the marriage all along. He or she will read books, study videos and recordings on marriage and attend seminars and study families who have been successful in marriage making every effort to be the very best spouse and parent they can be while the unfaithful partner criticizes and abuses emotionally, verbally, and/or physically.
But, then there are spouses with problems such as drinking or gambling or drug abuse or sex addictions that bring danger or harm to the family.
Bottom line, the vows that make up a marriage vow faithfulness for better or worse, in sickness and health, for richer or poorer. For a person to end a marriage for good reason, that reason has to be very serious, and the Bible keeps the list very short. That is why it is important to think and pray before making the commitment knowing that even if we forget our promises, God will not tell a lie when we arrive before the throne and God has to speak the truth regarding whether we were faithful or not. We need to be ready to hang in there faithfully and prayerfully through hard times. I know God is loving and forgiving, but He is also truthful, and if our hearts are not pure, He will have no choice but to say so.
Many people imagine they can just choose sin and say, “Sorry God” and all will be fine. Truth is if they would do it again under the same circumstances, then their repentance is fake. To repent requires coming to the place where the sin is no longer something one would commit, excuse, justify, or fake repentance about.
I know that’s hard, but God has to be truthful not because He is unloving, but because He is honest and faithful and holy and just. He really does not have a choice because He cannot give up His holiness or righteousness or honesty just to save us from the demands that justice places on us when we live in sin. We have to give up the sin and take hold of the grace of God through faith and receive Him as our Lord and Savior. He is Lord — it isn’t as though He were going to say, “Oh, goody, I get to be Lord of the universe now because someone accepted Me”. But, we have to take Him into our hearts as our Lord and King — the one we trust and as a result of that trust our lives are changed and we become obedient to His will. The grace of God makes us love serving God and makes us want to go the distance and be faithful to Him. We will probably stumble and need to ask forgiveness again. But, overall, throughout our lives, our lives will be dramatically changed to the point where we can be said to be new creations where the old man in us is dead and we become alive in Christ.
In this condition, it is not possible for a person to be unfaithful or break a marriage. One can experience a situation as I did where my first wife was unfaithful and broke our marriage. Yet I tried and prayed for help to save the marriage. It took years for me to be willing to give up, and then a few more years to heal and become ready for God to put me into a new marriage.
And, this marriage is more healthy and happy than my first marriage ever was. Eileen has never lied to me or done anything purposely to harm or abuse me. She has never insulted me or cussed at me or put me down whether before others or while we were alone. I never have to worry about whether she will push me to sin or whether she is telling the truth. I don’t have to worry she might go with another man. She is faithful to the core of her being and it nearly defines who she is.
But, in my first marriage, I was continually abused verbally and emotionally and sometimes physically. It was very painful for that marriage to end, and I went through such a deep depression I found it almost a miracle I survived it at all. But, God is a God of restoration and what the devil has intended for harm, God can use for a greater good.
That’s a good reason to hang in there in the marriage.
Another thing that made me glad I stayed with the first marriage is that I never have to wonder whether the marriage could have been saved if I had done something different. I don’t have to wonder whether I prayed enough or waited or was willing enough to forgive. And, Eileen never has to worry whether I will honor my vows to her, either.
So, faithfulness through the hard times and loving through the hard times is more precious than most people know. It is hard, but well worth it.
Isn’t too impractical to live with a spouse if you are abused.Even if you are christian. What if you are already affected to much of the situations. Yes, i do believe the changes of man’s behaviour if he/she is willing to change, what if he/she is doing the same thing? I knew very well the effects of separation.