Splits: Church and Marriage

*Okay, so - I had planned on continuing my "Faith, Church and MORE nonsense" post, but this came out instead and I'm rolling with it.*

The great unraveling in our marriage gained speed in 2015 when our church went through a major split. Until that point, we had the sweetest community of friends we called framily (Sprint totally stole that from me by the way). We were in ministry together, had barbecues, girls nights, accountability groups, Bible studies and we would always come together if anyone was in need, donating of our time and ourselves to love on our brothers and sisters. I remember how good it felt to belong somewhere especially when I didn't feel that way in my own marriage. 

For the churchy folks reading this, the split was caused by usual church politics garbage where deacons felt like the elders and pastor weren't being leadery enough or preaching the right/relevant things. For the non-churchy folks, some people threw a fit and decided they didn't like this place anymore and used Scripture and prayer as a way of making themselves feel better about deserting the church to go to a "better" one. Many conversations were had about church problems that we were never apart of, so we were blindsided when we heard friends were literally just up and leaving. We felt led to stay while our huge group of friends at this church felt differently and moved on.  As a result, all of the friendships that were made at this church started to fizzle out and the people that we once shared countless meals and intimate details of our lives with, had basically vanished in a matter of weeks. 

Do you know how hard it is to explain a church split to a six year old? All Tommy knew was that he didn't get to see his friends anymore and he was sad and didn't understand what had happened. It broke. My. Heart.

It was devastating to me. This hurt and loss caused a major rift in my relationship with God, and without the distraction of friendships and things to do, all that felt broken with us as a couple seemed more tangible somehow. I lived with this ache in my throat, like I could fall apart at any moment in despair. I was incredibly lonely and having a large group of friends made me feel less alone. I didn't realize how much of a crutch my friends were for sustaining our marriage as long as it did. 

As it would turn out, we ended up leaving this church about a year later after I had become "too noisy." I was being much too vocal for a woman in the church, as women are supposed to be restricted only to children's ministry and other women's things, to sit and be quiet and look pretty and to absolutely not have any kind of voice of influence with the serious and spiritual men. I still have the email from the elder who when repsonding to my thoughts and concerns about the youth group and the teens I had worked with for years, told me that things were simply going to be his way. I was to remember that he was an elder and was speaking on authority of the Pastor and that as a woman and church member, I had to submit to him and his decisions. So I said no. I actually didn't have to submit to this man in any way. So, I waved good riddance and sobbed the entire way home on our last Sunday there. I deserted a couple dozen teenagers after everyone else had left them the year before and I felt like the worst person ever. It was awful. It made me want to be done with church entirely. 

Fast forward another year and a half, the same people who disappeared in the church split, were the exact same people who crawled out of the woodwork to rebuke me for wanting to divorce my husband. Mind you, I hadn't seen or spoken to these people IN A VERY LONG TIME. They had deserted us when everything was falling apart. At the time I was very angry and I told most of them in ugly, angry ways to basically leave me the hell alone and work on their own damn marriages since they had it all figured out. Not my finest hour, but I was very not okay and I pushed everyone else who gave an actual sincere damn away from me because I wanted to feel something other than sad and miserable. I was convinced that mirrors and truth-tellers would keep me in my marital misery. 

It broke me to leave there and it ended up breaking us too. Without the community of people we had grown accustomed to doing life with, there was little left for me to hang on to. I had tried to be as godly as possible and throw myself into every Bible and church activity I could be a part of hoping that I just needed a spiritual kick in the pants to keep me committed to my marriage. The things that usually worked for me didn't work. It took us ages to find another church to call home, and even then, I felt cautious and weary to get involved with anything outside of Sunday morning service. When our marriage ended, there were only a few people that knew or noticed. Our Bible study group frantically tried to keep us together but then ultimately wrote me off because I had no interest in anything other than getting a divorce. Everyone seemed shocked that I wasn't willing to "let him work on some things," and I wasn't "giving him a chance." All I have to say to people like that is: SHUSH YOUR MOUTH. You don't know what you don't know.  

Sidebar: FYI, people going through divorces aren't okay. Realize you don't know the whole story and offer them some unconditional support and encouragement. Regardless of the circumstances, what God says in Scripture about how He hates divorce, or your personal convictions - there is so much going on that you cannot, will not and don't need to understand or know about. Just love people without judgement. And if you can't, then SAY NOTHING and go about your business. 

I went about everything all wrong when it came to my divorce and social media. Shortly after I had filed, I met Travis and we went public with our relationship before my divorce was final. Again, not my finest hour or wisest choice, but there's no going back and undoing what I did. Meeting Travis though was extraordinary and I cannot convey in any amount of words how good it felt to be HAPPY. 

Was it so wrong to want to be with someone new and feel happy after a very long time of not knowing happiness in a relationship? If you ask a churchy person, their answer would be a loud and very holy-sounding, YES. That is wrong. And for good measure, this statement would also be added: "God doesn't care about your happiness Jennifer. He only cares about your holiness." I felt like I had to make a choice between God and being free from a life-less and sad marriage. So I chose freedom.

What I didn't realize then, was that I never had to choose.