What Was My Fault? (Part 1)

This post has taken weeks to write. Probably actually months. Good grief, it's really taken years now that I think about it.

It's a sticky issue, isn't it? It's complicated trying to weed through who did what to whom and to figure out as best as you can what the truth is, what was real in the meltdown and what wasn't, what reactions really had nothing to do with you and vice versa, what issues that caused pain were truly not their fault but just picked at injuries from way before you ever met, what was exaggerated, or blame-shifted, or simply not handled with grace. Even with wise counsel, a lot of space and a broadening perspective, it's hard to figure out what stuff is your stuff. 

Because what that person did hurt. It mattered. And what you did to that person hurt, and it mattered. And sometimes those things get very, very tangled.

So, right after saying that I'm not going to focus so much on figuring out all the ways that I negatively contributed to the breakup of my marriage and family and just accept the rejection and heartbreak, I'm going to tell you what I think. Not because it's inconsistent (although, as a woman inconsistency is my prerogative), but because I think it's important, since we're talking about the nitty-gritty, to be authentic and transparent, albeit pseudonymously. Yes, the irony is a wee tad hilarious.

It's called "Part 1" because it is by no means exhaustive because, thankfully, the Lord only gives us bits at a time, enough for us to digest without drowning in shame. I'm sure that He will continue teaching me and revealing the garbage in my heart and behavior as I'm able to receive it and be corrected and not overwhelmed.

Without chasing unrejection as it's purpose, I've been walking out this confession. Not to my husband. Not to my son. To God.

The truth is that this is not just a story only of the weighty grief of the loss of my marriage and relationship (for now) with my older son, but first and foremost it's a story of reconciliation with God when I didn't even know that was needed. That's the surprise. It's a story of Him chasing me until I could run no more.

I look back to that awful, climactic day when things had escalated so out of control with my husband and older son that it became intolerable and dangerous and I was left with no other choice but to ask them to leave until it was safe and wise for all of us to be under the same roof together and I realize that it was the rending of something deeper than imaginable at that time. (** Read this post by Leslie Vernick -- imperative for women in abusive marriages, especially those praying for restoration but determined not to repeat of the same old patterns of abuse! **) The knowledge that repairing the damage was now out of my hands, could not be done by me, and that in protecting the rest of us I would likely lose my husband and son, could no longer delay me drawing the line for safety and sanity's sake. It was as much "time" as it is for a woman in labor. There was no holding that baby back one more minute. That moment was going to be birthed come Hell or high water.

I have wished over and over that I could be one of those bold, take-charge women who would get one look at abusive behavior and say, "No. No way, honey. Uh uh. Forget it. Here's your hat. Don't let the door hit you on the heinie" and shake the dust off and walk away.

But, I am not. I've grieved, and wrung my hands, and paced back and forth, and have written tomes in journals, and talked for hours with wise mentors, and pounded the gates of Heaven.

I've wrestled and been hounded by my part in it. Guilt, guilt, guilt! Tears, tears, tears. What part was I responsible for? How did I contribute negatively? In what ways had I sinned against, hurt, and angered my husband and children? Chasing my tail with obsessive guilt, responsibility, and so much grief over my own wrongdoing.

That began a journey that I didn't expect to lead where it did. 

To my relationship with the Lord.

And, this is important -- The fact that my husband didn't feel like he "should have to" honor me, our marriage, or family by doing the hard heart-work of owning and humbly taking responsibility for his behavior, feeling remorse, confessing the truth, and being held accountable during a long process of reconciliation... no matter how devastating that is... it truly doesn't have anything at all to do with the part that was my fault. 

Let me explain: Although he made the decision not to repent and repair our marriage & family (That's on him.), his sin doesn't mitigate mine.

It doesn't. 

For a while I hung my hat on his behavior, complaining, blaming, and accusing him to God as if his actions somehow deleted my culpability. Isn't that such a stupid way of trying to water down my own mistakes and sin? Comparing it to someone else's? My fault is my fault before God and before others. His is his.

So, here's what I understand so far to be
MY FAULT:

God was not the One I loved most. I fell dead-bang head-over-heels with this amazing, young, brilliant, handsome, young man, and let my relationship with the Lord take the back seat lickety split. The way back seat.

I was too needy. Some women are just naturally much more independent. Not me. I wish I had been. I wouldn't take back how much I loved him, but I wish I would have had the maturity to be as content with him as without him. Looking back, I regret my neediness for affection, attention, companionship, and intimacy.

I didn't appreciate him enough. His hard work and his efforts in our marriage early on didn't get the praise from me that was due. It hurt him.

I didn't focus on his good traits & habits, and ignore the bad.

I came into our marriage with unrealistic expectations about romance, what marriage meant, what partnering was. Very early into our friendship, he and I were talking about my relationship with my former boyfriend (a truly lovely, kind and godly man. Still is.) and I said that it was "good". He challenged me, "Are you willing to settle for 'good'"? I was promised the fairy tale and fully expected one.

I didn't let go of injuries that happened early on. As an example, on the first morning of our honeymoon as we ate breakfast in fluffy, white bathrobes and I had a perfectly happy cheshire cat grin plastered on, he sheepishly said that he wasn't sure he wanted to be married... 

Yeah... 

That was bad. But, instead of understanding that he was a 21 year old young man suddenly being fully aware of the enormity of the responsibility of husbandhood and future fatherhood and all that entailed, I got emotionally and psychologically bulldozed by his confession. Truthfully, it ate at my girl-heart and I let that plant the seed for me chasing and chasing his love, and more and more unrequitedly.

I didn't respect him simply because he was my husband. Not good.


I put him in control of my happiness way, way too often.

I didn't listen to his heart when his words hurt me.

I tried to win his parents galactically unsuccessfully and didn't react to their distaste for me with grace. Being liked and accepted by them was plain ol' not going to happen, and I didn't have the wisdom to just let it be ok. I got hurt when they compared me unkindly to former girlfriends, openly rejected me for not being "the best candidate for marriage", made fun of me about personal things (like my body or my taste in clothing) "just teasing" in front of others, and made our engagement and marriage very painful and filled with constant, intense pressure and conflict, so within a few years I pulled back emotionally and with the investment of time. This frustrated and angered my husband far more than I realized and far, far more than he was willing to tell me because it put him in the position of having to defend me (which he was either unable or unwilling to do).

I became more and more insecure as I realized he wasn't standing by/with me. I think I sometimes set him up to "come through" for me and when he didn't, I got hurt and anxious.

I started having "Come to Jesus" talks outlining what I needed, what had to change or... and then panicked that he wouldn't follow through -- and he wouldn't.

I let fear and upsetness grow just below the surface. Never overtly, but it hounded me daily like waiting for an atomic bomb to drop.


I didn't have fun no matter what was going on in our marriage. I wasn't nearly enough fun no matter what. I let days be spoiled by petty things instead of enjoying what could be enjoyed and forgetting the rest. I hung on to upsetness, chewing on frustrations and worries over and over.

I expected more of him that he was willing to give, or be, or do. I expected (and demanded) more from him as a husband, as a father, and even as a man.

I was frustratingly incapable of loving and wifing him in a way that helped him or that he could receive... Whatever wisdom or skill or grace loving and wifing him required, I lacked,


so at some point I made an internal decision to be the best darn housewife, mama, homeschooler, ministry director, worship team member, adoption activist, and jacqueline-of-all-trades known to man. Since I was bad at wifing my husband, I'd be a smashing success at everything else. This angered and alienated him. It didn't do any favors for my relationships with my kids, either. To tell you the truth, this seriously confused me. I thought attempting to be Suzi Awesome and fabulously amazing, leaping tall buildings while juggling china plates and looking pretty would help. It didn't. It made him feel small.


I looked down on him for his choices that were selfish and/or foolish and for not actively seeking or accepting wisdom from others. I judged him instead of letting him do things his way and letting the result be the result.

I counterbalanced his "good guy" by being the "bad guy" with the kids. I was always "the heavy". Recipe for disaster. And, later on, I usurped his parenting and didn't back his act when I deeply disagreed with him. I embarrassed & emasculated him with correction & criticism. I hurt and offended him.

Then, he did a really bad thing. And, he didn't really care that he had completely destroyed me by doing that really bad thing. In fact, he didn't even consider it a really bad thing and was pretty mad at me that I did. And, because all of that was completely overwhelming, instead of dealing with it, I stuffed it way down deep inside, pretended it never happened, and pasted a smile on my face for the world to see. He was happy about that, but I wasn't. It ate me alive and became a foundational crack in my ability to trust him. I think if I'd have been brave enough to insist that we deal with it back then, it would have been extremely hard, but very possible to work through. That was my fault.


About midway through our marriage, things came to an ugly head with his relatives over a very important issue involving our children. Our addressing the problem head-on (Loving confrontation is not the way they typically handle things. They tend to be under-the-rug sweepers... says the girl who ignored the really bad thing for a decade) and their lack of willingness to listen, understand, and adjust blew the relationship to smithereens. Instead, they asked him to leave me and "come back home". Of course, I thought we were "in this together". In the difficulty together. In the grief together. In commitment together. In all of it together. I did not fully understand, until it was years too late, that even though at the time he said that he was with me, the truth was that he wanted relationship with them more than he was willing to stand behind me and our family. I did not realize that relationship with his relatives was a deal-breaker, that if he had to choose between us and them, actually between me and them, he would choose them. I definitely would have done things differently had I known. And, looking back, I should have known. Truthfully, I think deep down inside I did know that (which is why I worried so much) and so I'm responsible for not handling that entire issue differently.

So very many hurtful things I never should have said or even thought. Bad stuff. Things you can't take back.

I became increasingly scared, uptight and obsessed. I became consumed by our marital strain. It became a broken tooth, the kind that your tongue just can't stay away from. My fear & anxiety about our marriage manifested in all the signs of grief -- anger, control, manipulation, panic, depression, anxiety, exhaustion, bargaining, and on and on. I turned our marriage & family into an idol. It was all I thought about.

I was totally miserable, totally without joy (except for a short month Dec11-Jan12... Tell ya about that later.) for the last few years.

I lacked gentleness. 
I lacked sweetness. 
I was full of pride. 
Impatience. 
Entitlement. 
Ingratitude. 
Blaming. 
Resentment and bitterness. 
Justification, self-righteous excuses. As I've said before, it was me not owning my own stuff. Pointing at him way too much, pointing at myself way too little. 

I let his sins block the view of my own sins.

I didn't share in the financial burden. I didn't find a way to help provide when I saw financial collapse coming. Since I was the one who was able to have a broader perspective, it was up to me to do what I could. I didn't.

I didn't let him quit our marriage when he wanted to. I clung, and begged, and grabbed, and was desperate. Very bad. It just annoyed and angered him.

I basically drove him crazy trying to force him to husband me and father our children the way I needed/wanted, and be the man I thought he could and should be as if what he chose to do and who he chose to be was for me to decide.

All of this stuff is mine. It's hard to look at. It's challenging to own. Some of it has been hard to even feel sorry about until the Lord started working on my hardness of heart because my flesh is full of excuses.

There's so much I wish I would have done differently. So much I regret. So much I'm still weeding through with the Lord. But, I'm thankful for His patience with belligerent me, and grateful for His forgiveness.

Hopefully Part 2 won't take me years to write...

"Who is a God like You, who pardons sin 

and forgives transgressions?

You do not stay angry forever, 

but delight to show mercy. 

You will again have compassion on us; 

You will tread our sins underfoot 

and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea."

Micah 7.18-19

"And forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us."

Matthew 6.12

"If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just

and will forgive us our sins

and purify us from all unrighteousness."

1 John 1.9

Chasing Unrejection

"You're trying to be un-rejected." 

That's what a friend told me.

"Stop looking back. Stop dissecting the why's and wherefore's and asking what your fault in it was. You've done that. You couldn't prevent this from happening. Stop trying to figure out a way to have a lifelong marriage. You have tried to reconcile a thousand times and gotten a thousand solid no's. Stop trying to drag a 200-lb man up Mount We-Can-Make-It who doesn't want to go there with you. Sometimes love means letting go, honey. Stop trying to be un-rejected and just lean into the reality that you've been royally, terribly, cruelly dumped."

Wow. 

That's pathetic.

Her words stung, but they smarted with truth, the painful truth.

Who is this desperate woman within me who bursts with longing for a life that has been decimated? What is that all about? Why does the panic of grief swirl within my chest taking my breath away? Does my inner woman really believe that if I can figure it out, sift through every detail and put each piece in place, get my head wrapped around each tragic part, that it'll be miraculously mended? Like it never happened?

Chasing un-rejection requires an astonishingly low level of self-respect or an incredibly high level of self-cruelty. What purpose does it serve? Maybe there's a smidge of nobility of intention there, but I suspect not. Maybe it started out from the standards of what a Christian wife should be and do. But it sure went ten kinds of haywire from there.

One time at a 12-step group for wives of men like my husband a young mother spoke up. She was absolutely beautiful with long, curly red hair, a smattering of adorable freckles, and big blue eyes. But, when she spoke she just waaaah-waaaah-waaaah-ed over her husband, this man who had behaved terribly destructively, didn't want her, or to be a responsible father, was horribly selfish, and on and on. 

"Whyyyyy, doesn't he love me enough 

to stop this behavior? 

Whyyyyyy-hyy-hyy when I would do 

absolutely anything for him 

and have loved him all my adult life? 

What am I going to dooooo-hoo-hoo?"

I sat there thinking, "Good heavenly days, woman, get a grip! Have a little dignity. Why are you letting yourself be wrecked emotionally, financially, spiritually, mentally, and in every other way by a man who couldn't care less about you? Seriously, how pathet..."



Oh.



Ummm...

Darn.

Stasi Eldredge wrote in her book Captivating 

"To the woman He said, '...Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.' ... Woman is cursed with loneliness (relational heartache), with the urge to control (especially her man), and with the dominance of men (which is not how things were meant to be, and we are not saying it is a good thing - it is the fruit of the fall and a sad fact of history).

Isn't it true? Aren't your deepest worries and heartaches relational - aren't they connected to someone? Even when things are good, is your vast capacity for intimacy ever filled in a lasting way? There is an emptiness in us that we continually try to feed. And can't you see how much you need to have things under your control - whether it's a project or a ministry or a marriage? Are you comfortable trusting your well-being to someone else? And haven't you felt "this is a man's world?" felt your vulnerability as a woman to be a liability? Most women hate their vulnerability. We are not inviting - we are guarded. Most of our energy is spent trying to hide our true selves, and control our worlds to have some sense of security.

When a woman falls from grace, what is most deeply marred is her tender vulnerability, beauty that invites to life. She becomes a dominating, controlling woman - or a desolate, needy, mousy woman. Or some odd combination of both, depending on her circumstances.
(Captivating, 49-50)

Dominating, controlling, desolate, needy. Ok, ok, Stasi, I heard you.


When someone decides not to love you enough to work it out, there's nothing you can do to make them love you and work it out mutually, humbly, and respectfully. You can't control the situation, can't beg enough, can't manipulate and cajole him into changing his heart or choices. You can't do anything about it. Nothing. You can only repent, pray, and forgive, and sometimes it's imperative, especially if there's been abuse, to do so waaay over here, while that person is waaay over there. Just breathe in and out walking with God one foot in front of the other. 

So where do I go from here? What do you do once you give it over to God? That's scary for a control-freak like me. What do you do once you let go, once you fully accept the rejection and abandonment, once you let the heartbreak wash over you and you surprisingly don't die from it? You live. And live knowing you cannot hold onto ashes anymore.

The only answer I can come up with that truly, deeply satisfies is Jesus and how He loves me. 

Will never leave or forsake me - Romans 8.38-39
Is with me - Psalm 34.18
Comforts me - Matthew 5.4
Values me - Luke 12.7
Fights on my behalf - Exodus 14.14
Redeems me - Psalm 103.4
Strengthens me - Isaiah 40.31
Never changes - Malachi 3.6
Calls me His own - Psalm 43.1-3
Sings over me - Zephaniah 3.17

God looks at my heart, at my soul, at my witness, at me and says with fatherly love, "To mature Anna and cut off the dead parts, the selfishness, inflexible, ugly, fleshly nature and refine it into Christlikeness, she needs to experience rejection and an unwillingness to reconcile. She needs to have her heart crushed so she can learn to find joy in Me alone. She needs to develop thankfulness for what the journey teaches her. She needs to learn to find gratefulness within suffering and loss."

He allows it for my good.


I've danced back and forth with thankfulness not just in, but for this season of grief and pain. Sometimes grateful, sometimes really, really not grateful. But, it's funny how when you lay down your idols and the hurts you've hugged to your breast and begin to say "thank You, Father" for not only every good that You provide, but also for the complete upending of life, for the sorrows and fires... thankfulness for all the details of life starts to grow within you. Ann Voskamp's book "One Thousand Gifts" is imperative reading on thankfulness through suffering. Seriously, stop reading right now and buy it. I'll wait right here. It'll rock you.

The more I study the Word and lean into Emmanuel, who though I rejected Him and constantly struggle with ingratitude, am disobedient, strong-willed, mouthy, and full of sin, leans in so close to whisper words of perfect love, and of acceptance, and of forgiveness and redemption, the more I can't escape the thankfulness that wells up within me. Reconciliation with God was born out of His pursuing me, not the other way around. 

I ran. 

I run.

He runs after me.

HE runs after me.

Fear. Not.

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. 

I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. 

The same fluttering in the stomach, 

the same restlessness, the yawning. 

I keep on swallowing. 

At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. 

Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. 

It is so uninteresting. 

Yet I want the others to be about me. 

I dread the moments when the house is empty. 

If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” 

~ C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Maybe that's part of it. Maybe it's the feeling of fear within grief, the frightening aloneness of great loss, trauma, suffering. The more I sift through these last few years, the more I realize how much I have been motivated by and influence by fear, not as a constant companion but as a subterranean haunting. Between the lines. Waiting.

Fear of being a failure
Fear of my marriage never getting better
Fear of my marriage crossing that invisible threshold of irreparability
Fear of my family falling apart
Fear of being unable to do anything about it
Fear of God's disapproval or being without His favor
Fear for my husband
Fear that I was no longer able to influence his choices
Fear that my words or actions being interpreted in ways I never intended
Fear of the example I was setting
Fear for my children, especially my older son
Fear for the future
Fear about finances
Fear about secrets, lies, hidden conversations, affairs
Fear of threats, and violence, and simmering rage
Fear in the midst of intense spiritual warfare
Fear of vulnerability, of weakness, of being unprotected, undefended
Fear of disappointing others
Fear of judgement
Fear that I do not matter, that I'm just not worth it
Fear of being "too much and yet not enough" (Stasi Eldredge)
Fear of loss of friends and family, people I cherished
Fear of abandonment, of being alone, of loneliness
Fear that it was all somehow my fault
Fear that no matter how much I tried, I would fail
Fear of my worst nightmares coming true

Fear that gripped me until my eyes bulged and made sleep impossible. Fear that wildly grew into panic. Out of proportion panic. Into such distress that I found myself unable to make a single decision fearful that it was the wrong one. That somehow I would make a grave mistake and that mistake would forever ruin everything. Enemy fear.

It was a fear that grew from the agony within my heart watching my husband refuse to husband, refuse to partner, refuse to father, refuse his whole role in our family altogether. Refuse me.

Maybe that fear has actually been grief. 

I found myself grasping for him, for security, for hope, for the safe place I expected to be there, for something indicating any kind of sureness or determination to get through this together. Sometimes in anger, sometimes in tears, sometimes in isolation. Gasping for air in the middle of circular arguments, untangleable troubles, and impossible inability to communicate. Trying desperately for a way to control the madness, to contain the trouble, to curb the discord until it would hopefully pass and be better someday, to make it be ok. Scratching at the this-is-supposed-to-work-out-ness willing it with all my mind to be so. And regularly flinging myself onto my bed to wail hot tears at God in frustration, heartbreak... and fear.

Grief.

Grief is a strange beast.

I have felt Lewis' disconnection. I have felt slightly drunk on a dizzying overwhelmedness. My whole brain and all my inside parts in disarray. On our anniversary I couldn't wrap my mind around the surreality. This can't be. No. What a bizarre, alien, inscrutable thing to not have any contact with my husband, this man I've loved so fiercely, on our anniversary. But, that's what happened. (One of my dearest friends babysat me even though she was just out of surgery herself. Such loving care is overwhelming.)

How did Christmas come and go without a word? The day was joyful by choice because it was about Emmanuel and not me and I'm glad for that. Yet by late afternoon I felt a creeping dread until 11:59 became 12:00. Couldn't time just slow down so my heart could catch up to the abject inanity of my family not all being together on Christmas Day? And my gut response was fear. A screeching STOOOOOOP! like the moment before impact. A heart-racing, breathless angst of ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseGod NO!

But, slowly, very slowly the Lord has been reaching down into those frozen, fear-riddled, grieving, panicked places and soothing my soul. Shushing me and stroking my hair. Reminding me that He is bigger than fear, bigger than grief, bigger than any human circumstance. He is the Rescuer. The Champion. The Victor.

I have nothing to fear. 

Truthfully, it doesn't feel like that yet. There is no grand removal of the invisible blanket yet. No cure for the fluttering and yawning. There's no breakthrough to report. It's not healed.

So, I cling to God, thankful that He is with me even when I am shaking with uncertainty, when that subterranean beast breaks through. Sometimes there's nothing to do but to stand and press on trusting the Lord that His promises are true. 

That I do have nothing to fear.
That I am His.
That He does use all things ultimately for the good.
That He is my Protector.
That He sees, and He knows, and He comforts.
That He is here.
Right now.
Right in the middle of the fear. 
Right in the middle of the grief.

Because of Who He is... I will not fear.

"Fear not for I have redeemed you. 

I have summoned you by name; 

you are MINE! 

When you pass through the waters, 

I will be with you; 

and when you pass through the rivers, 

they will not sweep over you. 

When you walk through the fire, 

you will not be burned; 

the flames will not set you ablaze. 

For I am the Lord, your God, 

the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."

Isaiah 43.1-3

"So do not fear, for I am with you; 

do not be dismayed for I am your God. 

I will strengthen you and help you. 

I will uphold you with My righteous right hand."

Isaiah 41.10