Precious Heart-Broken Heart: Love & the Search for Finality in Divorce

By Dr. M.G. Maness

I chronicle the nature of grief peculiar to divorce in a personal manner through the lens of my experience and clinical understanding. I begin with love and end with love.

In Part One: I begin with the fantasy that turned into tragedy, and I use the analogy of a clock's mechanism to show the general nature and course of healthy grief especially in divorce. I start with an analogy of the mechanical nature of something totally non-mechanical and fully metaphysical. A mainspring, fulcrum, lever, and pendulums show how inward and outward expressions of grief facilitate or impede healing.

In Part Two: the Black Forest Pathway How Expression Unfolds chapters III through XII, a few other analogies are used to chronicle the journey through grief, like the "Bay of Heartbrokenness," the "Bridge of Finality," and the "Wasteland." With these analogies and some liberty, I take the reader on a walk through the "Black Forest," observing the various trees that make up grief in the various stages of a divorce.

In Part Three: the Black Forest What Helps Expression chapters XIII and XV, I step back and view the Black Forest as a whole; that is, in comparison with and without diminishing the grief of death, I show the peculiar and greater pain of divorce.

All analogies have some weaknesses, and there is no pretension to having chronicled every aspect. Even these are but scribbles. But perhaps the pictures and journey will help a little. If anything, I hope for an increase in sensitivity toward those going through a divorce, for it can be the most traumatic and painful event in a person's life indeed, life-changing.

For more information, go to www.preciousheart.net.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 9, 2003
• ISBN: 9781403375100

Dr. M.G. Maness

Maness grew up in Southern California and migrated to Texas in 1972.  After a short stint in the U.S. Air Force, Maness earned a B.A with a double major in Bible and Counseling at the Criswell Bible College from 1978 to 1985.  This was a time of dire poverty and much struggle.  He went on to earn a M.Div. with languages from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth in 1990, 1,600 hours of clinical from the Association of Clinical Pastoral Education at Shannon Hospital in San Angelo in 1992, became certified as a Suicide/Crisis Intervention Counselor for MHMR in the Concho Valley in 1991, and a D.Min. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1997.   He has received specialized training with the Texas Dept. of Human Services in Child Protective Services and with Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) in Cultural Diversity, Safe Prisons crisis intervention program, and in TDCJ’s Post Trauma Staff Support team.   He has traveled throughout the United States and to several countries including Belgium, Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria.   He is the senior clinical chaplain at the Gib Lewis Texas State Prison and a Certified Correctional Chaplain with the American Correctional Chaplains Association.  He is also a member of the American Correctional Association, Lions Club International, the Evangelical Theological Society, and several other state and national organizations.   He has written on a large variety of topics, both published and unpublished, and much of the work of his pen can be seen at his web site:  www.PreciousHeart.net His interests focus on matters that affect the heart...the precious heart.    

Book preview

© 1995, 2002 by Dr. M. G. Maness. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4033-7510-0 (e-book)

ISBN: 1-4033-7511-9 (Paperback)

ISBN: 1-4033-7512-7 (Dustjacket)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2002094526

IstBooks-rev. 12/28/02

CONTENTS

Preface

PART ONE: Clockwork - The Need For Expression

I. The Beginning

I Loved her.

Crash & Doubt

Pendulums of Pain & Hope

II. HOW WILL HEALING COME?

1. The Mainspring of Expression

Fig. 1: The Healing Clockwork

2. My Expression

3. Caution About Expression

4. The Length of Healing

5. Formula for Healing

PART TWO: Black Forest Pathway - How Expression Unfolds

III. What Does Love Have to Do with Divorce?

Interlude

1. What Is Love?

2. We Fell in Love

What Kind of Wanderer - Poem by author

3. What Kind of Love Can Survive Divorce?

4. How Broken Is My Heart?

IV. Can My Faith Endure?

1. The Judgment Seat

2. A Passing Biblical Overview

3. The Exact Point of Exposition

4. Divorce and Christian Compassion

V. Just What Is a Divorce?

1. A Tragic Reality of the Times

2.The Definition of Divorce

3.Forces of Conflict that War Against Love

4. A Primer on the Pre-Divorce Stage

VI. Why Do I Have Such Trouble?

1. Love Is Naturally Committed

2. The Ethical Dilemma of Justifying Any Divorce

3. The Pre-Divorce Stage: A Mortally Wounded Soul

Fig. 2: Struggle with the SHOCK Stage in a BrokenHeart

4. A Primer on the Shock Stage

5. The Difference Between True Love & Obsession

6. Love Does Not Let Go Easily

VII. What Can I Do with the Shock of It All?

1. Find a Credentialed Confidant

2. Do NOT Be Rushed

3. View the Tragedy as Tragedy

4. Know that Time Is Irrelevant

5. Note the Permanent Scar

6. Take the Challenge of Growth

7. Finding Courage at the End of the World

VIII. What Does It Feel Like To Be In the Wasteland?

1. Let Those Who Know Be Kind

2. The Shock Stage: Is This Really Happening to Me?

3. The Wasteland: A New Beginning, A New Pain

Fig. 3: The Struggle with FINALITY in a BrokenHeart

The Wasteland - Poem by author

4. Finding direction in the Wasteland

5. Rejection: The Loneliest Hour

LONELINESS - Poem by author

IX. What Is the Nature of Grief?

1. Grief: Universal & Unique

2. Two Tasks of Grief:

1. Identifying Needs/Binding Ties,

2. Loosening Ties

3. Grief Task 1: Identifying the Needs, the Binding Ties

4. Grief Task 2: Setting Free, Loosening the Binding Ties

5. The Healing Forces of Self-Discovery & Expression

X. Intermission: The Bay of Heart-Brokenness

XI. Grief Task 1: What Needs & Binding Ties?

1. Identifying the Needs: the Binding Ties

2. Discovering Self & Our Frailties

3. Running From Grief: Judas & Other Forms of Running

4. Love & Forgiveness

LOVELORN - Poem by author

5. Toward a Higher Level of Loving

XII. GRIEF TASK 2: WHAT IS INVOLVED IN LOOSENING THE BINDING TIES?

1. The Bridge of Finality: What Delays the Approach

2. The Bridge of Finality: Successful Navigation

3. The Bridge of Finality: ARRIVAL

4. True Healing Begins Here

Fig. 4: The FULL Struggle of a BrokenHeart

The Hope-Trip … of a BrokenHeart - Poem by author

PART THREE: Black Forest What Helps Expression

XIII. What Factors Inform Us About Binding Ties?

Introduction: Finding What the Departed Meant to Us

1. The First Factor: Experiences of Losses in General

(1) One’s Faith.

(2) One’s Family.

(3) One’s Help of Others.

2. The second Factor: How Many Experiences Were Shared

(1) The Disparity Between Men & Women.

(2) The Mutual Victories Shared.

(3) The Differences That Isolate.

3. The Third Factor: Our Ability to Love & Receive Love

XIV. What Is Unique in the Pains of Death & Divorce?

1. The Unique Pain of Divorce

2. The Unique Pain of Death

The Dirge - Poem by author

XV. How Do the Pains of Death & Divorce Compare?

Introduction 1: Do We Minimize Death?-Not in the Least

Introduction 2: Finality Makes Divorce More Painful

1. Death Is Natural … Divorce Is a Shattered Dream

2. Death Is a Religious Value … Divorce Is a Religious Taboo

3. Death Has Funerals … Divorce Usually Divides

4. Death Often Immortalizes … Divorce Often Distorts

5. Death Removes the Loved … Divorce changes the Love

XVI. Is There an END?

The Black Oak Wood Door - Poem by author

Selected Reading

On Divorce

On Death & Grief

On Marriage

On Singleness

On Communication

On Love

To my all the people I have met

and most especially my family and friends

to whom this work owes a great debt

PREFACE

I chronicle the nature of grief peculiar to divorce in a personal manner. I begin with love and end with love. It was a struggle dear to my heart, though not soon seen as such.

THANK YOU

I would like to thank all of those who have been a part of my life. These include hundreds, most especially, my mother, J.J. Bush; my best friend, Kathy Brackin; my brother, Roger Maness; my friend at the Opera House, Mary Ann Kittel; my friends and colleagues, Dr. Vance Drum and Dr. Timothy Simmons; my long time friends and colleagues at the prison, Rev. Jack Lewellen, Rev. Bill Swearingen, Hails Doc Taylor and John Morrison. I thank my friend David Rust who gave a latter draft of this work the benefit of his editorial skills.

Most of all, I would like to thank all of those with whom I have walked in different kinds of grief. This is as much theirs as mine. This does not do all of them justice, for so much more could have been said. And of course, some pains just escape expression altogether. So a special thanks goes to all of those who allowed me to walk with them in their struggles, and a special thanks to the warm persons who walked with me in my crises.

Michael Glenn Maness, 2002

Visit: http://www.preciousheart.net/.PeciousHeart.net

a working archive of everything written on divorce

since the beginning of language and up to 2000

and other works by the author

PART ONE: CLOCKWORK

THE NEED FOR EXPRESSION

I.

THE BEGINNING

I Loved her.

I loved her … I still love that fine woman. Even though she is now my ex-wife, there will always be a special place in my heart that belongs to her. I wish her the best-most sincerely, the very best.

She was hurt. I hurt. The divorce hurt. How confusing. I dedicate this work to healing: hers … mine … all who have had a BrokenHeart.

It seems fitting to start somewhere near the beginning, like, once upon a time. When love was confusing, free and full of fantasies. Where reality was conveniently denied and feelings seemed uninhibited. In a place where communication seemed like the meeting of mutual needs and conflict was absent. A dream-come-true began to unfurl before our eyes.

Naive children? Blurry-eyed adolescents? Not us.

I had worked hard through over a decade of higher education. She was successfully negotiating a second career and was a successful mother of two. We had both accumulated some mileage. With the mileage and through the scrutiny of our doubts and fears, we believed we had screened those precious moments with enough insight to weed out our delusions.

The season was springtime. Such a sweet love. In the springtime of this love, we chose a song. I punctuated the lyrics and gave it to her among the several poems I would later write. The song’s name: Masterpiece by Atlantic Starr. Here are a few verses.

A picture perfect painting-that’s what our love is.

And-yes-I need you so …

And now I know,

       I’ve found a masterpiece in you;

               A work of art, it’s true;

                       And I treasure you-My Love.

A beautiful song sung with such a wonderful melody. She loved it. I loved it. Each time it aired on the radio, we would sing it to each other.

In the courtship months that followed, our love grew. Could this be real? I wrote many poems of the sublime feelings I had for her. One of the first poems I wrote to her will follow. I wrote other poems of our love that cannot be shared.

In her kind and gentle and varied ways, she showered me with love. Truly, I loved her because she first loved me. She loved better. At the time, anyway, we seemed to be in love-the both of us. So we risked marriage to share our love more deeply.

We both had doubts. Fears. We had experienced turbulence in life. Both of us feared rejection and the resulting brokenness. Nevertheless, we proceeded to the altar. Arms burdened with fears. Feet shod in risk. Hearts full of high hopes and a dream.

We married.

In the pledge of marriage, we invested our heart and soul. We cherished the endearments in mutuality. We began to build the scaffolding of commitment. To each other we gave intentions and meaningful touches and gestures and gifts.

All of our inner beings had been donated toward the future of a mutual and treasured love. We had found our long-sought-after love. All the intimate and warm caresses. This treasured love was meant to grow with each moment. Meant to build upon each heart-gift. Meant to point toward a future forever.

We were not children infatuated with another new exploration. We were adults-in caution-consciously and constantly throwing ourselves at each other. We held each other and looked to the future with all of the accumulated wisdom and understanding that we could muster. A strength affirmed here, a weakness covered here. Together … how could we fail?

The intensity was blinding.

Love was meant to grow forever. This once upon a time was going to have a happy ending. This was the beginning of a never-ending story. We were planning our move to the banks of Snowy River.

More than a dream, our love was the real live fulfillment of the dream. So much better than the dream was the reality. With each fulfillment more dreams appeared. We were in the midst of an escalating fantasy. Sometimes we were in disbelief. Hand in hand, we proceeded onward.

Our relationship promised only fortune.

Crash & Doubt

When the dream crashed, it crashed hard. Hurt a whole lot. Hurt way down deep. The crash choked the spring of life.

She doubted if I loved her-doubted if I had ever loved her. I doubted if she had ever loved me. The pain ran so deep. The love that we had caressed, that had brought us to the altar-we began to deny the love that had made us mushy.

A whirlpool of sorrow compounded our pain. We both struggled. We lost a great love in this separation, and we experienced the natural pain of separation from a loved one as in a death.

Yet to that natural grief and common pain in the loss of a loved one, there was added another even more complicated loss. We doubted the mutual love. Each of us had not only lost a loved one, we had seemingly lost the treasured love that we had thought we had found and secured with marriage.

We began to wonder about the credibility and the integrity of the love itself. The very question of love’s validity added extra weight to the already great and natural burden of grief in separation.

Beyond the natural grief, in the doubting of love’s validity, severe rejection shot our communication to hell. Henceforth almost every interaction between us complicated our sorrow even further.

I grieved the loss of a loved one, and I also grieved the loss of the long sought and treasured love itself. Added to that, I was tormented by an inability to communicate the grief and sorrow of those two losses. I was tormented by an inability to communicate my grief to the loved one who had departed. The very one I lost was the one I desperately wanted to talk to. The very one I lost was the one from whom I wished to get strength, for I wanted to communicate to her how much my loss of her affected me.

The grief and confusion was almost unbearable.

I grieved the separation, but I also felt discarded. Not only discarded, but my own feeling, my own inner experience of love was being challenged. I felt love for her, but no, according to her, I did not love; she doubted the integrity of my love. Likewise, she said she loved me, but I doubted the integrity of her love.

We challenged and denied each other’s inner-soul experiences.

Her questions attacked my understanding, attacked my inner feeling and sense of reality. She doubted the validity of my inner feeling of love for her. I doubted her inner feeling as well.

What kind of combat could be more severe? The center of our souls and the ground of our existence as individual persons were only as secure as our perception of reality. Now, in the throes of pain and sorrow, question and doubt pummeled the perception of love itself. If I chose to believe the one I loved, then I had to deny my inner voice, deny my own self-perception. If I believed her, then I would have to deny my love for her. If I believed my inner voice, I would have to challenge her doubt of my love. The same was true for her.

Our mutual love had become life-giving. Now-in the separation and confusion-love’s existence became a lie, a misunderstanding. The realized dream fizzled in the darkness, and darkness won. Hope struggled against reason, and hope lost. Our mature and honed scrutiny interrogated our vows, but the questions only yielded more confusion.

Stranded. Abandoned. The one I loved questioned my love, my experience of love for her. In her questions and doubts and challenges-on occasion-I was only a breath away from utter self-doubt. In the face of her doubts, I questioned my own integrity, my own worthiness, my own sense of reality. Too many times I came short of comfort. Her questions led me to questioning myself.

For her too I suppose.

In my loss of her, I lost part of my inner self.

I did not like that. I wanted to deny the pain and confusion. I wanted to blame her. When not wanting to blame her, I wanted to totally blame myself as an unworthy, debased, deluded and inadequate man.

Our marriage crashed. It crashed hard and hurt a whole lot.

Pendulums of Pain & Hope

I could have crashed. A couple of times I felt like I had crashed. Very tempted I was to go in one of two directions. First, in one direction, I was tempted toward a settlement in angry bitterness. Secondly, in another direction, I was tempted toward a collapse of a self-worth. One or the other. I think that my younger self would have totally crashed.

I survived and maintained hope because I had survived many prior losses over the years. In this great loss, too, by God’s help I would survive. There was one verifiable reason. Because of the hard-driven mileage, I could look back and remember some prior losses. From the span of years, I had survived those many and varied losses (I think?) or at least arrived at some kind of resolution. I was acquainted with grief. A real hope of survival existed because of several previous losses and subsequent survivals.

Though a survivor, I had not arrived yet. The temptation to settle in angry bitterness or self-doubt still battled against hope and healing. My empathic understanding of her and so many other friends were being exponentially expanded. My love of her and grief in loss informed as every loss does, but this time there was a difference.

Though no previous loss can compare to this (as none of the other losses can ever compare), I had accumulated some mileage. I had lived years alone, single and frightened. I had been hit. I had bled. In body and soul, I had been torn.

Though I was scared, I was still walking. I was still alive.

Though difficult to describe, in such loss and rejection, two kinds of emotional pendulums seemed to be at work: one of pain, the other of hope. As I began to see my emotional extremities, I saw my moods swing wide. As the pain worked itself out of my veins, the pendulum of pain swung between a collapse in either angry bitterness or in a debilitating sense of inadequacy.

Between the above and the following was an agonizing period of time. I did not remember how much time. I seemed to have been caught in an emotional time warp unlike any I had ever encountered. I thought I