While doing my year-long residency as a chaplain at a Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, I gained education on a relatively new area of research for professional chaplains and psychologists. Most people today are familiar with the acronym PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), but I would be surprised if many are aware of this accompanying concept–i.e. moral injury. Please … Continue reading “Divorce as Morally Injurous Event”
Category: Grief
Yesterday would have been our 17th anniversary.
Seventeen years ago, yesterday, I married my cheater. I feel like I am a completely different person than that young man back then. It is odd viewing oneself with such a long time having passed. I do not feel so much grief as I used to on this date. It is mostly just another day … Continue reading “Yesterday would have been our 17th anniversary.”
Blaming Behavior of “Friends”
Hide me from the plots of this evil mob, from this gang of wrongdoers. They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their bitter words like arrows. They shoot from ambush at the innocent, attacking suddenly and fearlessly. -Psalm 64:2-4, NLT “She never did anything to you that you weren’t already doing in the marriage. … Continue reading “Blaming Behavior of “Friends””
Real friends
A friend is always loyal, and a brother is born to help in time of need. -Proverbs 17:17, NLT One of the hardest parts of infidelity discovery is how that impacts your relationships. You lose some people out of the whole disaster. The tricky thing is discerning which relationships are over and which to keep … Continue reading “Real friends”
Calculating power dynamics
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. -I Corinthians 13:4-5, NIV “You would just hold this over my head for the rest of our marriage if I stayed,” … Continue reading “Calculating power dynamics”
Wanting the pain to end
My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” -Psalm 42:3, NIV Back around the time of my divorce, I remember distinctly traveling a section of a major US highway and thinking to myself how I just wanted things back to “normal.” I had … Continue reading “Wanting the pain to end”
Regarding Envy of Cheater Prosperity
There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. -Ecclesiastes 8:14, NIV The observation of the wicked prospering while the righteous are punished is not a new one. That is what this … Continue reading “Regarding Envy of Cheater Prosperity”
You will lose some “friends.”
You know that everyone in the province of Asia has deserted me, including Phygelus and Hermogenes. -2 Timothy 1:15, NIV Not all your “friends” before the infidelity discovery will remain your friends afterwards. This is a hard truth to accept. Yet it is a reality best accepted to avoid further heartache. I think this is one of … Continue reading “You will lose some “friends.””
Silly trigger
Grief is a funny thing. We can be fine for days, weeks, months, and even years. Then in a moment a song or smell transports us back to a memory of what was lost. This is what happened to me recently. I was going through music for worship services. A particular hymn came up, and … Continue reading “Silly trigger”
Memories bring grief
Grief comes in waves. It ambushes you sometimes from nowhere. I was collecting pictures for an old friend who knew me in my previously married state. In fact, he was the best man at that wedding–i.e. the wedding where I married my cheater. So, it is not surprising the review of those photos brought back … Continue reading “Memories bring grief”