Posts Tagged Plant City

It all happened so quickly this morning that it seemed practically anticlimactic—perhaps because after more than two years of sleeping in bed alone, it was. I’m fairly sure I spent more time making my way through the security checkpoint with my mobile office in tow than I did in the hearing room. In any event, at 9:35 this morning I was leaving the Polk County Courthouse carrying a copy of a final judgment for dissolution of marriage and a receipt for $10.70, the amount paid to have my quitclaim deed on the house recorded with the County.

And with that, it was over. Divorced. A statistic. Just another one of those 70.4 percent of marriages in Polk County, Florida, that end that way (according to the mediator who taught the co-parenting class I was required to attend last month). I came into the marriage with practically nothing, and leave it the same way. I now try to start to rebuild in a part of the country where I have always felt like a fish out of water, with no way to get back into the water (I checked the price on my first apartment in Southern California; it’s now more than double the rent that it was when I lived in it ten years ago: $560 then, $1,106 now for a 450-square-foot studio).

It’s not that I can truly complain about the new living arrangements God has been gracious in getting me into. This is a small apartment, but I really don’t need a whole lot of room. It has the essential things I need, like a dishwasher, clothes washer and dryer, refrigerator, things that I otherwise would have had to go into extreme debt to acquire on my own, for a remarkably low monthly rent. The utilities are just slightly more than half of what I was paying just a couple of months ago in a house. There are no lawns to nearly kill myself in the summer heat and humidity trying to mow, no more ant piles to forget to treat, no bushes to keep trimmed away from the windows so I could see outside (instead of bushes I have a picture postcard view of trees and scrub out of a screened-in balcony). I have had to charge replacements for items I had to leave behind, like a television, a DVD recorder, two tables for workspace, two bookshelves and plastic bins for storage, and a mattress to sleep on. Stores, medical facilities, historic downtown Plant City are all within walking distance. In those terms, I am content.

There are things that I will miss (besides sex). Having the warmth of a woman in the same bed with an arm draped over me or spooned against me at night. Laughing at the four-year-old superhero who’s trying to shoo the dog away from licking his face telling her “Don’t kiss me; I’m the good guy.” Hiding under the covers in the master bedroom with my boy and whistling for the dog while snickering and giggling and waiting for her to jump on the bed and go after our feet.

Nine and half years ago I was absolutely convinced after prayer and fasting that God had put this woman and me together as husband and wife, for life. Was I wrong then? Did it take nine and a half years just to figure that out? Or was I just too naïve/foolish/stupid (pick your term) to pay attention to anything else and blindly rushed into something that was never God’s design to begin with and was doomed to failure from the start? All indications seem to point to that.

Of course, nine and a half years ago I didn’t know that I could be a high-functioning autistic, unable to make personal emotional connections or sustain truly meaningful human relationships, living in the effects of arrested emotional development by the bullying and abandonment I felt as a schoolchild. Then, I was a pornography addict who was still in denial and thinking that marriage would take away all those temptations and thoughts (by the way, Men’s Health magazine is a fantasy, guys; get real) and I could keep my addictions and my marriage in separate mental compartments until the pornography crept its way into emotional lenses through which I saw the world.

In the end, as I wrap up this chapter of life and prepare to move on, I have to simply come out of the denial and admit that beyond “strictly professional,” I suck at interpersonal human relationships, especially ones that have any semblance of romance. That this one lasted as long as it did was a divine miracle that I had nothing to do with, and for that, at the least, I am grateful. I have met very quality and sometimes humorous people and been personally challenged in ways that I would otherwise would not have been because of the relationship, and for that, I am grateful. Most importantly, I have learned a great deal more about myself than I would have without that relationship, and for that I am ultimately grateful and take many lessons learned into the next chapter of my life.

I guess it begs the one question that seems to be on everyone’s mind as this process ends: Would I marry again?

“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 5:31–32)

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”

Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” (Matthew 19:3–11)

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

“What did Moses command you?” he replied.

They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.”

“It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”

When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.” (Mark 10:2–12)

“Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” (Luke 16:18)

I know that the overwhelming majority of Christian culture nowadays seems to reject these scriptures, and it’s not my position to evaluate another person’s spirituality upon whether they are in their first or fourth marriage. After all, that’s what God’s grace is for, and I believe that God holds each of us accountable according to our individual knowledge and ability. But speaking solely for myself and for my own spiritual journey and the direction that I feel God wants to take me in, I don’t feel like I can pick and choose which parts of scripture I should apply to my life—even if I don’t always agree with it—and that my spirituality involves living in accordance with the Word of God rather than trying to make the Word of God somehow fit into the way I think I should be able to live my life. It’s not to say that I am or every will be “perfect,” but that I should at least be trying to “walk the talk,” and be transparent and reliant on God’s grace when I don’t or can’t.