Wisdom from a failed marriage

Have I personally gained any wisdom through a failed marriage that can be passed on to my children, or other people who tend to ask me for advice? Yes, I think so.

First, for a marriage to work long-term, each partner has to make the other person more than he or she could be alone.

Second, marriage is for grown-ups who know who they are and what their commitments entail so that neither partner can get away with defining the other person's preferences, desires, or decisions absent an invitation from that person.

It is demeaning when the person who has vowed to love and protect you fiercely protests against what you have expressed as when one says, "you do not want/feel/believe/think such and so" after you have stated that you do want/feel/believe/think it passionately, in fact.

I attended a wedding yesterday. The couple wrote their own vows. They each stated something like: "You can never command me because I am a free person but I commit to serve you in every way possible...." This kind of mutual respect and preference was not even an inkling in the imagination of either Pastor Ed nor his soon to be ex-wife, Terry, even though, as I mention repeatedly, they are both fictional constructs. 


I don't think any abuser makes or tolerates free space for his or her victim. It does not matter what form the abuse takes, either. Respect, freedom, love, and honor don't really feature in these marriages no matter how loudly they may be touted or demanded.


You can read Pastor's Ex-Wife by Lesley Barker on the Kindle. If you don't own a kindle, you can download the kindle ap for free to your computer desktop or smart phone and then you can buy the book in the Amazon Kindle Store here.   

All because I washed a few dishes.....

So I wrote and rewrote for a few hours that turned into a few days and a tightly composed short story but it wasn't a story....that was clear

It was the first and last chapter of a novel. In the first chapter Terry returns to her pastor ex-husband's church in the disguise of an African American woman posing as a first time visitor but in fact observing as a journalist incognito to write her weekly syndicated church critique. The last chapter is the text of the article about that visit.

In between is the story of how Terry gained the courage to face being in that church service at all three years after she exited the marriage.

The first and last chapter function as bookends for the story which follows a more sequential time-line of emotionally packed events, flash-backs to things that happened when she was the pastor's wife, anecdotes about the children and colleagues at an inner city elementary school, and the saga of living in the home of her bachelor child-hood best friend, William, who was retiring from his position as an inner city elementary school principal while making a run to be elected as a school board member for the same district.

All this because I washed a few dishes and kept a flippant promise to my friend....