I’m Divorced

I’m divorced. There I said it.

I married young, stayed for biblical reasons, and divorced after five years of “education.”

A few questions and statements have been thrown my way these past years that have hit heavy and imprinted my thoughts. How will you tell your children about your previous marriage? “God will never honor your second marriage.”

It really hits home with my children, and I have no idea how I’ll tell them. Maybe I won’t. Perhaps I’ll die in my late 90’s, and as the kids and grandkids are rummaging through my life, they’ll find my divorce decree or a piece of paper with my old last name, or dare I say, some old photos of my ex and I at church camp on my Google Photos.

Maybe, I should tell them right now while they’re three and four. Ha! Never going to happen. Although, they’d also never remember, so that’s an idea.

I imagine, one day, while having a real-life conversation with the kids in the car, I’ll be able to use my past as an excellent learning opportunity. Maybe they’ll take it as a “what not to do” lesson or possibly a “how to recover from a what not to do.” Either way, honesty is always the best policy, right?

Second, I literally had an ex (an after the marriage ex who despises the word “literally”) tell me that I could never get remarried because God wouldn’t “honor” my second marriage. The only word that comes to mind is ‘laughable.’ If that’s what causes God not to be honored, let’s never mention the laundry list of sins I’ve got under the belt.

However, during an extremely fragile time in my life, those words hurt. It was already difficult enough to end a union with God, but adding this on was just salt in the wound. I was the one who did everything right. I waited for marriage and married a virgin, even if I was the only virgin I believed existed on planet earth.

I made mistakes, but I learned from them.

As I look back now on my “other” life, I’m so grateful for the road that it led me to.
I’m reminded of Robert Frost when he states, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both.”

Robert ends his poem by telling the reader he took the road less traveled by, which made all the difference. I feel as though I did take both. I would love to change the poem to read, “And sorry I HAD to travel both.” I had to marry young to divorce young to marry right.

I learned how to love and be loved in that first marriage and not because those things were practiced, but because once they existed, I could recognize it and care for it.

What once was the worst time in my life, my biggest failure, my lowest point, my thoughts of death have now been wiped away as I cherish my reality. I’d divorce a million times again to gain the love and happiness that I am blessed to experience today.

It’s incredibly cliche to say times heals all, but I believe it’s a universal truth that we need not forget as I grow and age.

So how will I tell my children about my previous life? Let’s be real; my mom will probably tell them before I ever get the chance 😉

Tell me your divorce lessons in the comments below.