Participants: David Sedlacek, Kathy Matthews
Series Code: TAH
Program Code: TAH000127
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00:31 Welcome again to Thinking About Home.
00:33 I am Kathy Matthews, and today we are going 00:36 to be discussing divorce. It's a problem that's 00:40 been a difficulty in many, many homes 00:43 and we hope that we will have something from 00:46 the Lord that will help you in this area. 00:48 It's not always easily discussed, 00:50 but we are going to be discussing it with 00:52 Dr. David Scdlacck, from Weimar Institute. 00:56 He teaches the Christian Counseling course there. 00:58 I want to welcome you again Dr Scdlacck. 01:00 Thank you so much Kathy. You know, I would like 01:03 for you to give us a little bit of a recap of 01:06 what we have gone over and then we will go 01:08 into how Christians should respond to this? 01:13 Well, we began by saying the divorce is 01:17 something that's a big problem today 01:19 and it's a big problem even in the Christian church 01:22 today unfortunately. The statistics in the church 01:26 are similar to those in the world and we saw 01:29 the God's view of divorce is that He hates divorce 01:32 because it symbolizes a fracture of the covenant 01:37 relationship that he has with us. 01:40 And so he hates it and we saw that there were 01:45 factors that contributed to predict the divorce. 01:49 Yes, right, right. And those were very helpful 01:51 for us to understand. Because in such a real 01:56 world today, we have this in our world divorce, 01:59 how should Christians respond to those 02:02 who chosen this course? Well, first of all I think we 02:07 need to be sorrowful with them to connect 02:11 our hearts with their heart. And sometimes even 02:14 though they may not feel the sorrow in the 02:17 body of Christ, a divorce is a cause, 02:20 is an occasion for sorrow. And so I think our response 02:24 is sorrow, but also compassion. 02:27 We have not lived their life; we have not walked 02:30 in their shoes and so even though we are sorrowful, 02:33 we want to also have compassion, 02:35 too often we in the Christian world have 02:38 either swept it unto the carpet, not dealt with it 02:41 at all. Then in this massive denial about divorce 02:45 and so that leads us not to talk about it. Right. 02:48 You know don't just talk about what they just did, 02:54 in Christendom, in Christendom, 02:56 yes and so we don't deal with it, 02:59 we don't talk about it and today, you know, 03:02 we want to talk about it, but we wanted to do 03:04 with compassion. We don't want to condemn the 03:09 people who are divorced even though it was hurtful. 03:12 And so today we wanna look in a restorative, 03:16 compassionate way, yeah, even in it divorce. 03:19 Even though we know that it's not God's 03:21 perfect plan, right. You've experienced divorced, 03:25 haven't you? Yes, that's one reason 03:27 why I have so much energy about it? Is that right? 03:29 Can you share with us something about your story? 03:32 I share, I would be happy too. 03:37 I was married first at age 25 and when I was 03:44 married the first time in the courtship phase of 03:49 things there was a lot of abuse that was going 03:52 on directed toward me and there were lot of red flags 03:56 that went up that said don't do this, 03:58 don't do this, don't go ahead, 04:00 I even had friends counseled me that this wouldn't 04:03 be the wisest course. But you know at that 04:05 particular time, I was rather immature in 04:11 my own way of thinking and my thought was, 04:15 well if I don't go through with it I am gonna hurt 04:17 her feelings and what is everyone gonna think. 04:21 And so I decided, I would go ahead and do it 04:24 anyway in spite of all the warning signs. 04:27 You let her rule you. I let her rule me. 04:29 And we were married for twelve and a half years, 04:32 we had three children and you know I love those 04:38 three children today and all of that, 04:41 but as the marriage went on a lot of the conflict 04:46 and the abusive kind of behavior, it didn't stop 04:50 and in fact it got worse. And at that particular 04:55 time in my life and in her life, we didn't have a lot 04:58 of tools to know how to begin dealing 05:01 with those things. We weren't Christians then, 05:04 and we did the best that we could to deal with 05:08 that but gradually affection lessoned and conflict 05:14 deepened until the day came when she asked 05:17 me for a divorce. And in retrospect, 05:23 I saw it coming but I didn't want to see it coming. 05:26 I kind of blinded myself to it because I believed 05:31 even then that marriage was forever and I didn't 05:34 want it to end. And so it was very painful 05:38 and very shocking for me. And I can remember the 05:42 day after we came to the decision that's 05:47 what we would have to do, then we sat our 05:50 children down and we told them. 05:53 The three kids, I can remember, 05:55 as plain as just sitting right here. 05:58 We told our children that's what we were going to do 06:00 and there was so much pain, there were so many tears 06:04 that mommy and daddy would be not together again 06:08 and it was extremely difficult and then 06:12 of course shortly after that I moved out 06:16 because it was best for the children for me to do 06:21 that and then to be a weekend father only was 06:26 extremely difficult because I was very, very close to 06:29 my children. And so it was a difficult time, 06:33 I went through a lot of grief, a lot of confusion, 06:37 a lot of questioning about myself and my future. 06:42 Because when you married your whole identity 06:45 as a person in many ways is wrapped up in the marriage. 06:49 Well, wasn't that the way God intended to be 06:51 to become one? Sure, absolutely. 06:54 And so when that unity is broken there is a 06:58 natural grief process, there is a natural 07:00 questioning of your identity and of your future 07:02 and who am I now? Right, alone again you know 07:07 and then feelings of loneliness 07:09 and all different kinds of things began crowding in, 07:13 and even after we were at the point of finalizing 07:18 it legally. I went back and said her is there 07:24 anyway we can reconcile it? You know and on her 07:31 part there just wasn't anyway of reconciling it so. 07:35 What are some of the common attitudes that 07:38 friends have toward divorcees that create 07:41 difficulties? You know, divorce is difficult 07:44 for everybody, not just for the two people 07:47 and friends are involved and church families 07:50 are involved and they all have their own responses 07:54 to a situation of divorce when it tragically occurs. 07:59 And one of the things that happens is that 08:03 there is a certain amount of fear and anxiety that 08:06 friends' experience especially as it was in our case, 08:11 we appeared to be a model marriage we didn't argue, 08:17 we didn't fight there were no external conflicts 08:20 that anyone saw and so when the divorce occurred 08:24 it was a quite a shock to our friends and what 08:28 typically happens is that when this occurs their 08:32 anxiety level goes up because they ask well 08:35 if it happened to these people who seem to have 08:38 it together how about us? It could that happened 08:41 to us too! And that's a very, very common response. 08:46 Another response is a response that 08:50 we would call a response of shame. 08:53 And this response looks something like this. 08:58 This marriage is a blot on the name of the church. 09:02 You know these things are not supposed 09:04 to happen in the church and so if it's not supposed 09:08 to happen in the church and here it has happened 09:10 in the church then you are sinners. 09:13 You know and we need to ostracize you, you know, 09:15 from the church and so the response of shaming 09:20 the people who have been divorced is one 09:23 that's a difficult one to deal with because especially 09:27 when this has been something that we have 09:29 been so reluctant to deal with and so 09:31 reluctant to talk about especially in the 09:33 Christian church. This response is a common 09:37 one that we try to help church families overcome. 09:42 But today as unfortunate as divorce is, 09:45 this is something that we need to talk about? 09:47 We need to take our heads out of the sand 09:50 and begin addressing the real needs of families 09:54 that are divorced. And so the shame is one 09:57 that we want to help churches overcome. 10:00 The next one is what we would call preoccupation 10:04 with the divorce. You know there are people 10:08 who don't want to ask any questions at all 10:10 because they don't want to be intrusive. 10:12 But on the other hand there are some people, 10:14 who become obsessed with the divorce and 10:18 they begin asking the partners a lot of 10:22 personal questions. You know the questions 10:25 that are really none of their business, 10:27 but out of curiosity or out of preoccupation 10:30 sometimes they want to fix it, they want to help, 10:35 and so they get really preoccupied. 10:37 I would call this rather codependent type of 10:40 a response to a divorce situation 10:44 or it's over involvement sometimes to the point 10:48 of trying to either fix the people or even try 10:51 to fix the divorce getting preoccupied with it. 10:55 And another thing that commonly happens 10:58 and this is more on the part of men than in the 11:01 part of women is that there are fantasies 11:05 and even sexual thoughts about the people 11:10 who have been divorced. And a lot of time this 11:12 will manifests itself with men wanting to come over 11:16 and help the woman a lot and help her 11:21 because the husband is no longer there, 11:22 they will volunteer to come over and help 11:24 fix you know things that are broken or spend time 11:28 with the kids or whatever and a lot of times 11:30 what's happening and many times they may not 11:32 even be aware of it. But there is a lot of 11:34 fantasizing about the divorced women, 11:37 a lot of sexual thoughts and energy going toward her 11:41 and that's something that we really need to 11:43 guard toward because that's a natural part 11:47 of human response. Its unsanctified human response, 11:52 but we need to be very aware of that tendency. 11:55 So that we don't fall into giving signals to that 12:00 woman or even making advances toward her 12:03 that are really, really inappropriate from a 12:05 Christian point of view. Another thing that 12:08 tends to happen is that sometimes we can have 12:10 superiority feelings and often it goes 12:15 something like this. You know, we all have 12:17 problems in our marriage, you know, my husband 12:20 or my wife and I, we don't have a perfect marriage 12:24 we have problems too. Well, we are dealing with 12:26 our problems like you guys get it together 12:29 and so it's that kind of superior attitude of 12:33 standing high and looking low that somehow 12:36 you must really be inferior people or be troubled 12:41 people or be losers because you just couldn't pull 12:43 it together. You must somehow not be a good 12:46 Christians at least as not as good as we are. 12:48 You know that kind of approach to it. 12:51 Another really common response is that of loss 12:56 in grief. You know, the relationship that the 13:02 couple has had prior to the divorce is that they 13:06 were both together they were relating to other 13:08 couples, you know, in a marriage type situation. 13:11 Now they are no longer couples, 13:13 now they are two individuals again and so 13:16 first of all it's a loss of the marriage 13:19 and the church, the friends they grieve the loss 13:22 of the marriage first of all. But secondly, 13:26 they ask themselves how am I gonna relate 13:29 to this people now? I can't relate to them anymore 13:33 as a married couple, so I have to relate to them 13:36 as individuals. You know, where is my primary 13:39 affinity? Can I love them both equally and often 13:44 what happens is, is what we call a triangulation 13:49 where people are forced to take sides of one 13:54 partner or the other and that's awfully difficult, 13:59 it's a fine line to walk of not taking a side 14:03 because naturally we tend to take aside based 14:08 upon who the best friend with or whatever. 14:11 And so not taking sides, it's something that's 14:15 really important to try to do, it's important 14:19 to try to love both people, to recognize that both 14:22 people are hurting, they both have needs, 14:24 they both need to be loved and supported 14:29 because they are both experiencing tremendous 14:32 pain in themselves. And so this issue of rising above 14:37 my own loss to really minister to the 14:40 brokenness of the two people and their children 14:43 in that divorce situation, that's what needs 14:46 to happen. And then the last one is 14:49 what we would call curiosity about the settlement, 14:52 all kinds of questions come up, you know, 14:54 how is the property being divided, 14:56 who is gonna get custody of the children 14:59 and those kinds of questions are natural questions 15:04 that people want to know but they would be wiser 15:09 not to ask, and to just love the people because 15:15 those questions are painful questions. 15:17 Unless of course they ask you for your advise 15:20 or what? Exactly, of course, if they ask 15:23 then it's always appropriate to pray with them 15:27 and to respond appropriately. Okay, did any of these 15:32 things happened to you from your friends. 15:34 You speak like you've felt this. Yes, yes they 15:39 certainly did. In our situation, we had a lot 15:45 of good friends together and we were quite 15:48 active in the community and unfortunately 15:53 what happened is that a lot of our friends 15:56 because I moved away from the home 15:59 and it wasn't that far, but because we were so 16:02 active in the immediate community and I moved 16:05 out of the immediate community I lost 16:07 touch with the lot of our friends. 16:10 And they tended to gravitate toward, 16:13 the other spouse, my first wife. 16:15 Yes, and I tended to lose contact with them 16:18 and I tended to gravitate more toward my 16:21 work situation, which is common for men 16:24 anyway, to gravitate more toward the support 16:26 system at the work provides. Again, 16:31 we weren't, I was active in church at that 16:34 particular time, but my first wife was not and so 16:39 I tended to get more support from church, 16:42 church members rather than the friends 16:44 that you had around. That's right, and I had 16:46 another support group too. I was going to 16:48 Illinois at that time and I tended to get a lot 16:52 of support from that support system and so 16:56 we each developed a support system, 16:59 but it wasn't the same. I had a loss of our 17:04 common friends and instead gravitated more 17:07 toward other friends, which she tended not to 17:10 have anyway. How could we be more sensitive 17:13 then to you, when you are in this time of need? 17:18 Well a part of it is first of all to rise above 17:23 yourself, and I know that's a hard thing to do 17:28 but as Christians that's what God calls us to do 17:33 to rise above curiosity, to rise above your own pain. 17:38 And in the first suggestion concretely would be to 17:43 pray. To be in a lot, lot of prayer for those 17:49 people who are experiencing divorce, 17:51 number one because it's such a time of adjustment 17:55 and a great time of pain and loss that they 17:58 need prayer support tremendously and I know 18:02 that people were praying for me during that time 18:05 and I know it helped to a great deal. 18:09 And so that's the number one suggestion pray, 18:12 the number two rise above human nature 18:15 and instead try to put yourself into the shoes 18:20 of the people who are going through the divorce. 18:24 And that's an active Christian compassion of empathy 18:29 and if I can put myself aside and try 18:34 and put myself in their place, what's gonna happen 18:37 is that I am going to be able to enter in that 18:41 particular level rather than at another level, 18:45 at the level of self and so it's going to be much, 18:49 much more effective. You know ultimately 18:54 when we begin talking about what churches 18:55 can do to build in programs and support 18:59 you know one of them is you know people 19:02 who have been through this kind of pain almost 19:06 know what it's like, when someone else comes 19:10 with that kind of pain because they have 19:12 been there and may be their stories not exactly 19:16 the same because no two stories of divorce 19:17 are identical. This is so complex in today's world, 19:22 there are all kinds of issues involved but at least 19:26 you have been through a certain amount of it 19:29 there are commonalities and effective divorce 19:32 recovery in a church system involves people 19:36 who have been there ministering to other people, 19:39 who are going through it, who have been there, 19:40 that's right. So what would be the normal steps 19:43 the spouse that goes through this 19:47 experience of divorce? Well, there are typical steps 19:55 in the divorce process. The first one is fairly 19:59 typical of anyone going through a grief process. 20:03 There is what we call emotional divorce 20:07 and when we go through emotional divorce 20:11 we experience separation from the one that 20:15 we have loved. Here for a period of years typically 20:20 we have invested ourselves in this other person 20:23 and we have invested ourselves in not just the 20:27 spouse, but the children, the whole family system 20:30 and now that's changed. And the very first thing 20:35 once you get beyond the denial phase that this is 20:37 happening to me, this can't be happening to me, 20:39 you know that's the normal first response, 20:43 but once you get beyond that there is 20:46 tremendous sadness and pain, a sense of loss. 20:50 I can remember for me it was almost like I thought 20:54 my heart was dropping through the floor, 20:58 that's how painful it was? It was like losing 21:02 that part of me. And being aware that's what 21:06 that person is going through and there is a 21:09 normal process, there is normal anger that needs 21:12 to happen, there is normal depression that, 21:14 that person will experience, there is normal 21:17 denial, there is normal bargaining, you know, 21:20 can we make it still work, you know, even after 21:23 it's all over. All of those are normal part of the 21:27 grief cycle and again that's probably one of the 21:31 most important things that churches can do 21:33 is build in systems that are sensitive to that 21:37 process and who can help people through it 21:40 because if you don't go through the normal 21:42 process of feeling the feelings and getting 21:46 through it, then you are gonna get stuck in it. 21:48 And if you get stuck in it then you are gonna 21:52 do one of two things. You are gonna either 21:54 marry prematurely in an attempt to medicate 21:57 the pain, okay and that's often what people do 22:01 and it's a big, big mistake. It's almost like a rebound 22:05 relationship or rebound marriages, 22:07 I don't want to deal with the pain of my situation 22:10 and so this other relationship is a medication. 22:14 In other words frankly what's happening is 22:16 I am using the other person to make me 22:19 feel better rather than entering that new 22:23 relationship from a position of strength, 22:25 right maturity in a whole person, exactly, and so. 22:28 That's one of the things that happens 22:31 and the other is if I never resolve the pain 22:34 and stay in denial of what's going on 22:37 or in depression I can't experience either 22:40 long-term depression or I can experience not 22:46 getting into another relationship 22:48 when may be I can't and should. 22:51 You know, as we talked about before, 22:54 if there is, if there are more Biblical grounds 22:57 for me to remarry and I would rather remarry 23:01 or the children need to have someone else 23:04 in their life. I will fail to respond to those needs 23:07 because I have not gone through my own 23:08 grief process, right. You don't want to suffer 23:10 anymore, exactly, too much pushing back, 23:13 exactly. Can we go into, how much more can 23:16 we go into do you suppose here in this 23:20 section because we got so much to cover, 23:25 yeah, I am not sure if we should continue on, 23:27 oh, yes, we should. Then what other areas 23:32 than can a spouse respond? Well, there are the legal 23:36 aspects of the divorce. You know, not only is 23:39 divorce an emotional thing, but in the states in this 23:46 country, now there is a legal marriage and there 23:49 is a legal divorce. And so you have to go 23:53 through the whole painful process of retaining 23:59 an attorney of discussing what it means to 24:02 divide up the property and tough questions 24:05 like custody of children and sometimes when you 24:09 don't agree about those things there 24:12 can be tremendous contention during that time. 24:16 And that can be one of the most painful parts 24:21 of a divorce that legal aspect, you know, 24:25 there is the expense involved, there is a 24:27 consultation with attorneys going through the 24:30 legal process and actually getting to court 24:34 and having the judge say okay. You know that 24:39 almost takes you through the pain allover again 24:43 for one thing. You would think a person would 24:46 rather repair it, seek for a way to reconcile 24:51 and then have to go through all of those 24:52 kinds of things that's right. And that's why a 24:54 lot of even courts and attorneys rather than 24:58 taking people down that path are doing arbitration 25:02 and mediation to try and restore and repair 25:06 marriages and asking them had you gone through 25:08 any counseling? Have you taken steps to try 25:11 and work this out before you come to this final step 25:16 of taking legal action toward complete permanent 25:21 divorce through legal means? Right, what other 25:26 things do you want to share with us today, 25:28 our time is getting short. Well one is the economics 25:32 of it, this is something that a lot of people 25:37 especially women for example have difficulty with, 25:41 because many times if in Christian families 25:45 the woman has been home with the children, 25:49 yes, you know being stay at home mom perhaps 25:52 doing home schooling and so forth and now the 25:55 economics have to be looked at all over again, 25:58 the husband may need to pay child support, 26:02 may need to pay alimony, that's going to be a 26:06 difficulty thing, he is gonna have to establish 26:08 his own home and that's gonna be an 26:11 additional financial burden. The wife may find herself 26:15 in a position of having to go out and find work, 26:18 where as before she did not have the obligation 26:21 necessarily of doing that. Now she does, 26:25 it becomes very difficult, becomes very difficult. 26:28 You know, do I have job skills? Here I have been 26:31 home all this time now I am faced with having 26:34 to find work, probably the work I am gonna find 26:37 is work for minimum wage and who is going 26:41 to watch over the children when I am at work. 26:43 Now, before I stayed at home, now they have to 26:45 go to school, lot of questions to answer. 26:47 Can you see all the economic and relationship 26:49 kinds of questions that come into play here, 26:53 it makes it extremely difficult. 26:55 I know for me it was that way, 26:59 in my situation I was willing to give 27:03 just about everything to my wife, I gave her the 27:07 house, I gave her a car, I took all the bills and so 27:14 I had to pay all the bills and take all that 27:17 responsibility. I had to set up my own 27:20 household and pay all those bills at the same 27:22 time begin paying child support and so it was 27:27 economically, it was not a win-win situation 27:31 for anybody and typically it's usually a 27:35 lose-lose situation from that situation, 27:38 from that point of view all the way around. 27:40 And you are going to be able to share some more, 27:43 aren't you on this? Yes, we are going to do some 27:45 more programming. Yes, we are. I want to ask for 27:49 you to pray for those who are in this kind of 27:51 situation. We will be praying together about this 27:54 and as you prepare for heaven make 27:57 your home the best you can. |
Revised 2014-12-17