You Don't Know What You Don't Know at 22

 

When you're in your twenties, you think you know all you need to know. And so you make a decision to get married because you know no better path. 

You have a whimsical idea about marriage. You trust in God, if you're a believer, and since God didn't break you up, you assume it will all work out. 

But what you don't know enough of is psychology. In the 70s, I took a sociology course in high school. That was the first time I'd ever heard about abuse. I knew little about dysfunction. People didn't even talk about stalkers in those days until much later when women were being stalked and raped and we learned about it in the newspaper.

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So I was uneducated. I couldn't possibly know the pathology of the man I was about to marry. I didn't know anyone immoral. I only knew Christians. I only knew what my church and family had taught me and the bits I uncovered in the newspaper or in encyclopedias. We didn't have the internet then.

So I married Randy, and was disappointed right on my honeymoon. 

I had started my career, but it was so boring working with adults compared to being in college with peers. Had I had bigger goals and a network of friends to rely on, life would have been so much different. Had I more guts and gusto and strength to defy my cocoon, perhaps I would have skipped ten years of nonsense and lived my life with more adventure. 

But marrying Randy eventually got me to a job I loved in a new city and helped prepare the way to finding my current husband Mark. But was the pain of what I went through worth it? 

I share my story here.

My Pandemic Writing about an Old Divorce - In the Past But Never Forgotten

  

So here's the scoop. During the pandemic, like many, I became reflective and began to write the story of my separation and divorce as a Christian at a time when it wasn't a popular choice for believers. 

I was triggered to write it due to a conversation I'd had with a Christian friend who knew of my divorce in the '80s but didn't know the details. 

When he left me, I figured I had to fix it. I had to get him back. I would not stand for divorce. But in that push-and-pull time, my energy was zapped. I was full of sadness and depression, I coped at work, but felt I had to keep my separation a secret. I was culled from inside out like a fisher might do to his catch. 

So compounded problems occurred. Poverty, self-doubt, self-hatred, anger, embarrassment, worry, fear, too many traumatic instances to mention. 

I ran or jogged to relieve the stress. 

From March to July, 2020, I wrote about it. Now I need it to be read. Then I will have come full circle. 

https://www.amazon.com/No-More-Games-Christian-Marriage-ebook/dp/B09R1PBYKC