NOTE FROM ELISABETH: THIS POST IS FROM 2014, 2 YEARS POST-DIVORCE
I ran up the stairs, holding in my breath to keep the tears at bay. More sharp words had been exchanged and I was fleeing the conversation – if you can even call that a conversation – along with the curious and concerned gazes of my children.
I shut and locked the bathroom door behind me, turned on music, and crumpled to the floor, where I had fallen countless times before. And I sobbed. And in between sobs, I prayed…..
Jesus.
Jesus, this can’t be what you meant by a Christian marriage.
Please help me.
Please.
I can’t keep doing this anymore.
I can’t do this anymore.
Jesus. Jesus. Please help me. Please.
Fast forward four years. I haven’t cried about that marriage in probably a year now. Not because we healed, but because I am healing. I live in a different home. Peace reigns here. Calm is all around us. If tears come, it’s out of joy or something completely unrelated to that pain that I carried for almost twenty years. If there are ever the occasional harsh words, they are immediately regretted and quickly apologized for, but they almost never come these days. There is kindness and softness and grace in my home now.
I look around my living room at women who are currently where I was then. I read my email. I check in on my private Facebook groups for hurting women. They are in marriages that harm them daily. They think about their marriages more than the average woman does. They are more sad than the average woman is. They are more confused and constrained than the average woman should be. I was them. And they represent hundreds and hundreds of women that I now virtually know.
All because one day I began to tell my story, out loud and to the masses. I knocked down the walls of the perfect little house that I had constructed with lies and denial and fear. And I said, “Come in. Come in and see my mess.”
I wanted a pretty little life. I fabricated a pretty little life. And I got what I wanted and yet I so completely didn’t. Because the pain that my spouse and I caused each other every day was otherworldly and it was killing both of us.
But there is a sweetness to my pain. I couldn’t have seen it then, even though I used to pray for this very thing that I see unfolding. I refused to believe, all those years ago, that my marriage pain was for nothing. I refused to believe that my marriage pain had simply set up camp there in my life to wound me and break me down, with no other purpose than my constant suffering. So I would pray that someday, somehow, my marriage pain would mean something bigger.
And today it does. Today, this side of my marriage pain, I have the daily gift of reaching out to other women just like my sweet little self crying on my bathroom floor. And I write and I pray and I create and I whisper to them and to me, over and over and over, until they understand…..
You are not alone.
You will never be alone.
This pain will not last forever.
This pain is not for nothing.
There is a healing.
There is a Healer.
There is hope.
Just hold on.
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So beautifully said .. My life on a page. Thank you for putting your pain to God’s use. His purpose and plan for you … To touch us all.
Denise, thank you for reading and encouraging me to keep going. -Elisabeth
yes…
🙂
Thank you Elisabeth…as Denise said, my life on a page. I also was in a marriage so painful it was unspeakable. Worse, it was demonstrating to my children a wrong message of what a “Christian” marriage looked like. Life today is beautiful. I also am able to help women from all over the world via my website, Facebook and twitter. God is such a good, redeeming God, and I praise Him! Bless you!
Caroline, so happy to hear that you’re using your pain and healing for good and beauty! -Elisabeth
Elisabeth, Why does it seem marriage is so difficult? Especially for those who classify ourselves as followers of Christ?
This was all me. My current life day to day arguing over foolishness and what really seems to be petty nothings that errupt into me continuously saying this can’t be how marriages were designed. Put downs …verbal abuse…and arguing in front of the children regularly..the yelling and justifications behind it..i hate it all. I’m done.
My famous words to myself…if others knew that this was how marriages would be…no one would get married…then I realize I have a special case…
Not so much so.after reading how.many are dealing with difficult marriages.
Thank you for sharing your story. Though my experience of marriage pain unfolded in a different way, I could really relate to all you say here. I’m grateful to you, as are so many other women, I am sure, for your bravery.
Thank you for your kind words, Margaret. -Elisabeth
Thanks for your story. Although mine wasn’t a Christian marriage, I became a christian in the midst of the end. Pain enveloped me, but God saved me 🙂
Dawn, this is painful and beautiful: “pain enveloped me, but God saved me”. Thank you for sharing. -Elisabeth
It’s so beautiful to see women using their pain to bring about healing in others. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you for reading and commenting, Rachel. -Elisabeth
Elizabeth in the midst of my broken dysfunctional marriage racked with unchecked, unrepentant sin, abuse and addiction I cried out to God not in surrender at first but in rage that I had done “everything right” as a good Christian and look what I got. He led me to crosswalk which led me to you. I read all your material, blogs and ebooks and joined your private Facebook. Something miraculous happened. I came to your blog hoping that God would restore my marriage sadly that didn’t happen but through it God did restore me. And I came to a place where I was no longer just in my own head but that I began to use my Pain to help heal others who are struggling just like me. I thank God that he broke that root of selfishness in me to see that in the midst of my sadness I still have so many blessings and a story to share and a hope to believe in. I’m a much different woman today then I was a year ago, a broken sad angry little girl. I’m finding myself now and you were a part of that Elizabeth. So whenever you wonder if what you’re doing is worth it…it is. in a lot of ways you saved my life. thank you 🙂
Elizabeth in the midst of my broken dysfunctional marriage racked with unchecked, unrepentant sin, abuse and addiction I cried out to God not in surrender at first but in rage that I had done “everything right” as a good Christian and look what I got. He led me to crosswalk which led me to you. I read all your material, blogs and ebooks and joined your private Facebook. Something miraculous happened. I came to your blog hoping that God would restore my marriage sadly that didn’t happen but through it God did restore me. And I came to a place where I was no longer just in my own head but that I began to use my Pain to help heal others who are struggling just like me. I thank God that he broke that root of selfishness in me to see that in the midst of my sadness I still have so many blessings and a story to share and a hope to believe in. I’m a much different woman today then I was a year ago, a broken sad angry little girl. I’m finding myself now and you were a part of that Elizabeth. So whenever you wonder if what you’re doing is worth it…it is. in a lot of ways you saved my life. thank you