Christians And Divorce - Grieve The Loss Of The Good Stuff
Written by Karla Downing
One of the things Christians need to do when they divorce is to grieve the loss of the marriage. Whether you wanted the marriage to end or not, it wasn't all bad. Your ex-spouse has some good qualities. You have some good memories. You've lost the intact family and even if it wasn't perfect, it was still a family. You may convince yourself that being rid of the problems, pain, and stress has some benefits. But, what do you do with the good stuff? You have to gain a perspective that enables you to find a place for the good stuff that doesn't negate the bad.
During the divorce, you may focus most on the negative things going on during the divorce and the things that contributed to the divorce. You may have found out things about your spouse that you didn't know he/she was capable of doing. Your spouse may be a different person than you thought him/her to be. It may be difficult to reconcile the person you see now with the person you fell in love with.
When you progress through the divorce, there will be a time that the good memories will come back to you and at first the memories are painful. They remind you of the loss of the marriage you don't want to remember because it hurts too much. But eventually, you want to be able to embrace the good things about your marriage and your past as real and meaningful.
Part of coming to terms with the good memories is that you then have to grieve the loss of the good. You can love someone and not be able to be with them. In time, the acute intensity of the feeling you have toward them will decrease and you will see her or him as your ex-spouse, your children's father or mother, and finally as the person you were married to.
You need to grieve the loss of the good, without ignoring the bad. When you can see your marriage as a whole with the good and the bad, you will have begun your healing. God wants us to remember our past accurately and to embrace it. It is part of who you are today and God will use all of your experience for His glory and your good (Romans 8:28).
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