I thought I would share some of my personal journeys with you. There is a lot, and my hope is to share much of it with you, but in stages.
A little backstory. I was married for 14 years when I started to have an affair with a neighbor. I eventually left my wife and four daughters and moved in with her. We eventually divorced. My wife became a Stander and was standing for the restoration of our marriage, but I didn’t know any of that, and it would not have made a difference anyway because I only had one belief, that I was needed, not wanted. That I was needed, not loved.
My daughters understandably wanted nothing to do with me. I know I brought deep shame and hurt upon them, and while my head knew that, and it made sense to me, my heart which was very stubborn, hard, cold, rebellious, and prideful, would not accept their retaliation. I believed they were trying to teach me a lesson, manipulate and control me into coming back, and punish me. Them giving up on me because I gave up on them only furthered my distance because of the place I was in. I was convinced my wife was either behind it, or supporting it, which I later came to find out was true.
She confessed to me that seeing the kids be a consequence of my actions made her feel better because she believed I was getting off scot-free from my decision to leave. She has no idea the accusations that were being screamed at me day and night running through my head, and what I was doing to shut them up might have appeared to be a life of no consequences, but unless she was in my head, she would never have known. I know I did a great job trying to hide the torment I was in, even from the other woman. God was the only one that knew what I was going through, and I had even convinced myself that He didn’t love me anymore either.
I’ve listened to many of Sheila’s teachings and insight into the mind of the lost spouse, and it’s helped me greatly understand some of the things I had been dealing with and why.
I needed help, and because of the condemnation and shame that prevented me from God’s love and mercy, I used self-pity. It was a huge part of my coping and ‘healing’ process. I never saw this until after I came back home and began the long work of uncovering the reasons of why I let the enemy come into my life and convince me that I was a victim. That is another message for another time.
But back to my children and how their shunning made me feel justified in my decisions. I left because I felt unloved, disrespected, unappreciated, and seen as just a paycheck.
I believed I was unimportant as a man, husband, and father and if I lost my job, they would no longer need or want me.
And when I left and took my paychecks with me, and that is what they seemed to care about the most, it only proved me right. They didn’t want me, they just wanted my money. They didn’t love me, they loved what I was able to give them. I see the lies now, but at the time, I will tell you that belief was very strong. Especially when every conversation I had with my wife was about how I could abandon them and leave them struggling. My pride said, “They have a home I paid for, food, and transportation, they are just mad because now they don’t have the extra money to live the way they are used to.”
I was truly stuck in a belief that they didn’t really love me, just what I could give them, and that they didn’t really care that I was gone, and if I just made them secure and comfortable again, that is all they really wanted from me. My hurt was deep, and that hurt felt comfort and justification by not giving them what they wanted. I wanted them to want ME, not my money. I wanted them to love me, not what I could give them. So while they gave me consequences for my choice, I was giving them consequences for theirs. If you only love, need, or want me for my money, then I am not going to give you that. If you only want to contact and talk to me to share how much you are hurting, struggling, and living in fear because I am not providing for you, not contact me to show me that I am important to you, that just my provisions are important than I won’t contact you anymore. Every text that said “I need you to call asap.” always turned out to be some sort of “you are failing us by not paying for something.” So I started ignoring those texts. The more they focused on what they lost by me leaving, and not the loss of ME as a husband, father, person they loved, the more the lie they didn’t really love me because real and the harder it was for me to want to go back.
I don’t know how long I was in this belief. I think the seed started and grew and grew until a raging hurt and anger that was poisoning me. What’s funny was I never really knew I was feeling or thinking this until after I met the other woman and it was exposed. Each time she appreciated me, respected me, pointed out how good I was doing providing for my family, it uncovered a pain from inside that I didn’t even know I had, and that pain manifested in intense anger.
How did I go back?
My youngest daughter, Emily, started to reach out to me. She started to text me. Started to come by my work and have lunch with me. Our conversations were never about what I did to her, what I took from her. At first, I was leary and on guard and waiting for it. “What does she want from me? Is she trying to get me to change? Pay for something? Is this real? Is she after something, and this is all a disguise to get it?”
Over time, when she just kept coming around just to see me, talk to me, and showed general interest in me and how I was doing, I started to let my guard down and my heart started to melt. I started to toy with the idea that maybe, just maybe, she loved me for me?
We did this for over a year, and each time we spent time together, the lie that I meant nothing to them started to not feel so much like the truth. My other daughters still would not speak to me, but I t