On villains (and heroes, too)
One of the first memories I have of my husband is of him dressing up as a Batman villain for Halloween. We went to elementary and high school together. I have known him, on one level or another, for most of my life.
He often plays villains as part of his work. His professional profile picture is artwork of a villain he voices. If you asked him, he would tell you that he has always found the villains in stories more compelling than any other character.
It can be tempting to paint him as the villain in my story too, especially now.
I have shared some of the more difficult aspects of our marriage and now, our divorce. There are some, even more difficult stories that I will likely never publicly share.
But he’s not a villain.
In fact, at the beginning of our marriage, he was my hero.
When my husband and I began dating, he was the most conservative man I had ever met. While I found myself questioning his fundamentalist and, at times, extreme beliefs, I absolutely loved his conviction, his passion, and his theological knowledge.
To me, it felt like safety and security.
He is truly a man of God. He will never leave me. God hates divorce. He is committed to me and my children, as to the Lord. You get the picture.
Faith, Church, and Marriage
Late into the night, we spent hours talking about our beliefs, how we wanted to create a marriage and a family that honored the Lord, and discussing the bible.
I fell in love with him in the context of our shared beliefs.
His strong convictions and church background deeply impressed me because my own experience, especially in church, has been wildly different. I didn’t live as a Christian until I was 29. I had what I can only describe as a deeply personal encounter with what (who) I just knew to be the Divine presence of God, and I truly believed.
Suddenly, I wanted to read the bible and learn more. I wanted to go to church. It was that simple. It was that complicated.
I had faith before I had church, and everything that comes along with it.
Because of this, I was often the outsider, and frankly, the outcast in church settings. I was a single mom with a past. I didn’t know the “rules” and even the ones I thought I knew from the Bible (love your neighbor as yourself) were not as important in practice as the ones most talked about in church and women’s bible studies (submit to your husband and spank your kids). At times, it felt like without a husband, I couldn’t really be a full participant in the church.
I joined Mars Hill Church in Seattle (yes, that Mars Hill) in the months leading up to my new relationship with my husband. Although many have shared the spiritual abuse they suffered at the hands of Mark Driscoll, in the beginning, Mars Hill was the first church setting where I felt like there was a place for me. He celebrated the single mom and her kids as a modern day “widows and orphans” and encouraged the single men in the congregation to man-up and care for us.
He was an absolute hero to me at the time. Behind the scenes and in ways I never knew, Mark Driscoll was an absolute villain to many. Both were true.
Every Sunday at Mars Hill, I marveled at the families. The men holding kids on their shoulders during worship songs. The pretty wives, seemingly protected, loved, and safe with their husbands leading them in their own spiritual development and practice.
I wanted it so badly for myself and my children, and prayed fervently that God would make a way for us. When my husband came along, himself a fan of Mark Driscoll’s podcasts, I genuinely believed it was a match made in heaven.
I believed he was my Boaz, and I, his Ruth.
Even my family said it – He’s a hero, coming in and saving you and the kids.
I loved it. Looking back, I think he did too, at least at first.
Questions without answers
5 years after we were married, my husband began questioning everything about his faith. I welcomed it.
I was not as conservative as he was, and often struggled to “honor” him in our home, especially with my children and their care. His staunch fundamentalist world view began to soften and I hoped that we might grow closer together, united in a shared understanding and grace.
That’s not at all what happened.
I will not share more details of my husband’s “deconstruction” because that is not my story. It’s his, and, frankly, it’s one that he has not shared with me on a real level anyway.
The only thing I will say as an outsider looking in is that over our last years together, his commitment to church and faith, or lack thereof, paralleled his commitment to me, my children and our marriage, or lack thereof.
This is one of the heaviest realities I’ve had to untangle.
As my husband grew more and more detached from God and from me, I was forced to reconsider everything I believed about marriage, divorce, the church and being a family.
I had so many questions for my husband, and for God – questions that to this day have remained unanswered.
It has been a brutal struggle to let go of what I thought, no, was convinced, my marriage would be. It has been a battle to let go of the deeply held image of my husband as the hero who wanted to save and protect me and my children.
Even in the context of our separation, I truly believed he would still care for us and want to be a part of our lives, even if we were no longer married. I thought that the shared beliefs we held at the beginning would be enough to at least ensure some level of goodness.
It takes my breath away sometimes that this is how it all turned out.
I put my faith in a man, lying to myself and saying that it was placing my faith in God.
Shades of Gray
It’s tempting to swing the pendulum and now see my husband as the villain.
But I see now that the pressure I put on our marriage being a success was not healthy. I can understand how, at times, he may have felt like I cared more about the idea of being married than I did him.
And, because I was so sure it would all work out and we would find a way to stay together, I can even have grace for how little he communicated with me about his resolve to leave.
I know now that I placed all my hope in something that was innately human and therefore also, innately flawed.
I loved him. I still do, in a weird way. It’s so complicated.
I find myself wanting to talk to him, to explain, to make things a little less awful between us one minute, to absolutely hating everything about who he is and what he has become the next.
Turns out, my husband is just human. He has his own trauma, his own stories, his own pain.
I hope one day I can better see it. I hope one day I can really, genuinely forgive all of this. Today, the very best I can do is acknowledge so many shades of gray.
I can tell you that I don’t regret the years we were married.
I can say, with a full heart, that I am so grateful to him for the opportunities he afforded me and my children for 13 years.
I can share that I still believe my marriage was made in heaven, but for very different reasons.
I would do it all again, even knowing the ending.
This side of heaven, the line between hero and villain is not as clear as I thought.
Prayer
If you would like prayer, please feel free to email me at [email protected] and I will happily pray for you this week.
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That you would do it all again knowing the ending at *this* point is mighty impressive, Lady. That’s some kind of advanced greater-perspective ninja empowerment move! (Emoji of prayer hands honoring your soul’s deeply intense journey…with a ninja kick after)
You are very kind, Heather. Thank you, as always, for your support and encouragement!