Bread Of Life Encouragement Blog

If you are considering a relationship with a divorced person it might be useful to find out which role your potential new partner was playing.

You either had your marriage blow-up in your face while you never saw it coming (mostly men) or you carefully planned your exit strategy waiting for the right trigger to make your move (mostly women).

To use the insurance lingo you can either be a no-fault divorcee (the one who had the divorce forced upon against your will) or the one who filed for divorce (let me get out of here fast).

Before God you can be both wrong but you can't be both right. I won't deal here with cases of physical abuse, drunkenness or other highly dysfunctional house situations. Financial stress remains a major cause of divorce. If the man is no longer the provider he is expected to be and if love has gone cold there is a strong inducement to take the bait of over-zealous government welfare agencies. If you can prove you lived at two separate addresses for 3 years divorce is just a formality. Just take the children as hostages and seek emergency housing. He has paid taxes all his working life - you might as well get something for it. If he can't keep up the mortgage repayments he will be forced to sell and you can get your share of the equity. Plus you get maintenance payments for the kids for the next 5, 10 or 15 years! What a great plan! How come you never thought of it before?

Of course the marriage vows say: "for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part..." The supposedly lifelong commitment is wearing thin in our suburbs. But how can you take somebody at their word and how do you know they will not reoffend?

Apart from marital unfaithfulness you cannot seek a divorce and marrying a divorced person is tantamount to adultery. So here is the conundrum: if my wife leaves me while I am faithful to her and she marries another man she commits adultery. But if after waiting in vain for reconciliation I also remarry a widow then that's OK.

What about if I remarry a divorcee instead? Then I have to be inquisitive of her ex-husband and the circumstances of the fallout - not a bright subject on the dating scene... I'd rather prefer a widow to a divorcee. No danger of someone paying you a visit in the wee hours of the night with an axe... But even widows can have some emotional baggage. Think about being haunted by those endless hours in the hospital or the few minutes before that tragic accident...

The devil is running amuck destroying the institutions of family and marriage. Forgiving is not enough. Loving your enemies is not enough. You foremost have to rebuild your self-esteem and fill your gaping wound with God's love so that you have enough to sustain yourself and plenty to shed abroad. Discovering who God is in the midst of your crisis will empower you to take on the enemy. I am still working on it.

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