Divorce Counseling

 When I was going through my divorce, I decided to attend Divorce Care at Watermark church in Dallas. It seemed like a really great program, and before the shit went down, I actually got some good things out of it. It was every Tuesday night, and at the beginning of the meetings, everyone- men and women- gathered in a large room to preview a short video about the week's topic. The leaders of the Divorce Care ministry were a husband and wife who had both been previously married. They shared their testimony, how they had now been married 25+ years, and were a beautiful blended family. They were supposed to be our guides and inspiration, I guess. After the video we would go into small groups, where men met with men, and women met with women.

Overall, I think the curriculum for the Divorce Care ministry was really great. I enjoyed the reading material and the devotionals I was provided. However, I felt a lot of judgement in the actual small group setting. I was 27 at the time, and was the youngest person in the group by at least ten years. The other women would make comments to me about my age, how lucky I was that I would get a "second chance at life", and in general wouldn't make room for my grief because they felt like I didn't have a reason not to be optimistic.  They would say, "Your marriage was only a year? Well mine ended at 25 years, imagine how I feel." or "You're so lucky you didn't have children with him." or "You're so young, dating should be easy."

I felt like all of this was really unfair. I was going through a divorce at an age where none of my friends had experienced it. A short marriage is humiliating. Being left when you're only 27 is absolutely devastating. Why wasn't I allowed to be sad about that?

Then, one Tuesday I showed up, and the leader was not the couple I was used to seeing. It was just a lone man up front at the microphone. He got on and said, "It kills me to tell you all this, but our men's leader Joe, has been let go. We found out that he was having an extramarital affair with someone in the women's group. He and his wife will be working with our church to repair their marriage..blah blah blah.."

I immediately left, got in my car, drove home, and never went back. As I was driving home that night I was like....what the fuck? Can I please, PLEASE, just get some fucking healing from this hell I'm going through? I'm trying to do the right thing and get help and find God and get some healing. And the leader of this ministry is preying on women who are in pain to sleep with?!  And to see this couple, who were supposed to be our guide and inspiration, just completely shatter before us...it was too much for me to take. 

Anyway. That's my Divorce Care story.