…not a goal.

I mentioned in an earlier post that Dave said he was leaving his family because he wanted to be “happy” and I could spend plenty of time talking about why I don’t care for that concept. My aunt caught it too when she read my blog and we talked about how happiness is not a goal. Happiness is fleeting, and a moving target. What makes me happy today (dessert) won’t make me happy later (when my pants don’t fit).

What is lasting is contentment and peace, and often we have to be unhappy for a bit to get those. We have to obey and do the right thing. This is why Dave and Alison have taught their children, and continue that work, to share, to play nice, not to call each other names or hit. But it’s like Dave has forgotten those rules from kindergarten and he’s throwing away so much that is precious just so he can be happy. But whoever or whatever is making him happy right now will not last.

Happiness doesn’t last. Contentment isn’t easy, it requires hard work at times. It involves disciplining the mind and emotions so the shiny new things don’t distract us from the path. And it takes courage. It is often easier to avoid the truth, or try to evade the consequences, or justify ourselves in some way. But that doesn’t work for the athlete, it doesn’t work for the scholar, and it doesn’t work for a person looking to live with integrity.

Definition of INTEGRITY

1

: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

2

: an unimpaired condition : soundness

3

: the quality or state of being complete or undivided :

We all struggle with integrity. It is so easy to say one thing and do another without even stopping to realize we obviously don’t believe what we say because our actions show the lie. Sometimes it’s small things, like saying we really want to lose weight and then eating the dessert because we actually prefer the happiness right now over the future goal of weight loss. This is just one example of where it takes effort to find the motivation to live as we really want instead of giving in to our impulses.

But when we live with people, love them, trust them, we come to expect a certain level of integrity. When a man tells his wife that he will never leave her and that he doesn’t want his family to ever be torn apart by divorce like his parents did, that means you trust that he will work hard even during the bad times to keep that from happening. You don’t think he’ll just give up one day because he wants to go do something else and “be happy”. How can he really be happy when his actions cause so much hurt to his wife and children?

And the evidence from countless other similar experiences is that he probably will find that happiness is fleeting and then he’ll know regret because when trust is lost it is very hard to regain. When scars are inflicted, they can’t be erased. Anything built after this will be a little off, less than completely right. Sure, all our efforts are imperfect, but this experience will add another layer of damage.

Or perhaps he will never see that what he has done is so wrong. He seems to feel that he is perfectly in the right and any efforts we make to understand what he has done or to express to him our hurt and fear and disappointment is met with anger and draws comments from him about our hostility and interference with his life. I don’t understand how he can completely ignore the pain of his family, the hard steps he is making his wife take (the kind of hard steps you should have a loving partner to share the burden with), or the accusations and attacks against his own brother.

He has avoided any discussions as if he is too afraid of the conflict that might come up as he has to defend his actions against people who don’t wholeheartedly agree with him. He is distorting reality and using it to excuse his inexcusable behavior. And he’s breaking our hearts.

Sorry, I’m still living this so it’s what I’m blogging about.

The Tuesday that Anthony and I talked with Dave to ask him what in the world he was doing, he made some comment about he had to be the adult (or grownup, I don’t remember which word he used) because Alison wasn’t. But his behavior since 10/31 has not been very adult-like. He dropped a bomb and walked away and seems offended that we are still picking up the pieces.

First, even if he thinks this was coming all along, everyone else seems to be shocked. The responsible way to handle that is to bear the pain and agony of consistently telling his reasons and his thinking to the people that need to hear it. That includes his wife, the former pastor that is trying to contact him, and his family. (He doesn’t seem to have any current friends who aren’t in business with him.) He just has to keep saying it and looking us in the eye when he says it, or he has no right to be indignant when we refuse to believe him. David won’t look any of us in the eyes, he is angry that we want to hear him explain himself more than his short story. And what Alison, the counselor, and we heard was all different. Even if he actually said the same thing to all of us, it’s like visiting the doctor while he’s explaining that you have cancer and then he goes on to talk about the options and odds. You have to hear it repeated because your brain can’t process it all at once. It just doesn’t make sense that a man who declared divorce was a terrible thing and promised he would never leave his family and has notes all over the house about working to keep his marriage healthy would suddenly walk out this way. Alison is having to tell her family that they were right about Dave all along.

Second, if he actually loves his wife and children as much as he says he does, he would be with them. Not to give them false hope, but to provide his presence and comfort as they worked to absorb the fact that he is leaving. Dave was here a few times after he first walked out, but not to deal with his decision. He didn’t talk more to Alison or prepare to say anything to the kids. Then he worked on his business one weekend, let his brother scare him off the next week, and left for New York the next weekend.

Third, if he were an adult, aware of his weaknesses and needs, he would deal with why he has such a strained relationship with Anthony and seek counseling to work through it. They have always been a bit competitive as brothers, trying to one-up each other even in playing games. But over the past 10 or 15 years I thought they had moved beyond that to share more of their lives as men, husbands, father/uncle. But apparently Dave is still intimidated by Anthony so that just finding out we were here and wanted to talk to him upset him. Since then Anthony has put up a website asking Dave to come home and be a father and husband. The content is not threatening or designed to humiliate Dave, just to remind him and others that the public persona of his business is not consistent with the actions he is taking now. Dave, however, sees it and Anthony as creating a hostile environment.

Fourth, he would understand that all of this takes time and energy. Coming to terms with the fact that all the trust in the promises and faithfulness of Dave was misplaced doesn’t happen overnight. It takes even longer when Dave won’t talk or respond to queries about why he is acting so strangely. Dealing with the emotional upheaval of being abandoned in such a way takes time. But Dave seems to be in a hurry to get all the legal pieces in place, perhaps so he can quickly get back to focusing on his business.

Fifth, he wouldn’t rely on vague comments that there is more to the story. He walked out, telling his wife to take care of the house and kids and give him space. But every once in awhile he drops a comment (usually to their oldest son) that there are things he doesn’t want to have to say in front of him. If he loves Alison as he told the school counselor, he wouldn’t want to hurt her. Is he being childish throwing this out or is he setting some stage for later actions? Either way, adult behavior wouldn’t even bring it up as a ploy.

Alison begged him to come home, telling him she needed him to keep this family together and going. He asked what she would do if he were killed. This is a really childish comment, since the two are really not comparable. The tragic death of a parent in a loving relationship is painful and has lasting effects. But the damage done by a divorce, where one parent consciously moves forward with ripping everything apart for their own happiness is not at all the same. Sure, either way Alison would have to be strong and make it work, but in this situation David is still here and affecting the tenor of the whole situation by his presence or absence, and by his words and actions. And he is capable, if he were willing, of coming home.

We cannot figure out what he is doing.

He’s given differing excuses for why he has to leave. He told Alison he needed space and time to work on the business. He told the school counselor she was still his best friend, but they were too different. He told us the marriage was killing him and he had to get out to be happy (don’t get me started). He actually refuses to talk about it much and hasn’t spoken to Alison in a week. He was very angry that Anthony and I were here last Tuesday, or that no one warned him we were here before he showed up to take his oldest son to tae kwon do. But as we all said, he should have expected that we would be here and he had no right to be angry about this since he is the one that created the mess.

So, we sit here sometimes and try to figure out what is really going on with him.

The reason we have to do this is he isn’t talking to any of us. He had one talk with Alison that he was leaving, but his actions before and after didn’t ring true with that fact (until he walked out the door, of course). He had one talk with us but told us something different from what Alison remembered hearing and different from what the school counselor reported. Before and after the Tuesday talk with us, he wouldn’t respond to emails or phone calls from Alison or us or other friends reaching out to him. We’re left in the dark about what he is really thinking and doing. And what actions we do see seem so out of character that we don’t know how to interpret them. We find it difficult to take them at face value because that would mean we don’t know David at all.

The “he’s lost his mind” theory:

He has always been responsible and a stand-up guy. Not perfect, and like all of us there were things he avoided or wasn’t happy doing. But he did what counted and he promised his wife that he would never leave her or the kids. He knew from her background that she had a fear of that and he made a promise to her.

So, did something traumatic happen during his business trip to Vegas or there is some chemical imbalance or what?  Why would he do this after 10 years of consistently promising and being faithful? Why would he sabotage all the progress he has made with his wife and the example he has set for his children?

____

The “he’s in trouble” theory:

When people hear what is happening, often the first response is to ask if there is a financial pressure. We keep looking and wondering if he lost money, invested in something, couldn’t cover the bills with his internet business, or something. Whatever it is, surely it’s easier to handle together with his wife.

Did he mess up some other way? An affair or other mistake or lapse in judgment? Still, it can be worked out. We can’t imagine anything so terrible that running away is better in the long run.

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The “he’s been lying all these years” theory:

David has always been fun, and smart, and reliable. His walk with God hasn’t been as close lately as in years past, but he has been on that walk. He seemed to love his wife and children in his words and actions. Sure, he could be selfish and not always as attentive or generous, but we all are like that, it is an ongoing struggle to overcome our selfish desires. David seemed to be aware of that and diligent about overcoming those areas of weakness.

David told us this was not “out of blue” like we all seemed to think. He didn’t really imply it was a recent development though, but something that has been there all along. Perhaps we believed the words and actions that indicated he was a loving and faithful man, while dismissing the words and actions that indicated he was troubled and self-centered as the anomalies. Did we have it backwards? Has he really been this self-centered all along?

His actions in how he has treated Alison, walking out without any effort at counseling or reconciliation, not telling her where he is, not calling to talk to the kids for 9 days (and counting), having his lawyer email Alison (spcifically at a time when she was home alone with no children to be strong for or to comfort her?) all indicate he can be cruel or at least is trying to purposefully hurt his wife and children. We would never imagine the man we know is capable of this so we have to search for other possibilities.

____

The “Hollywood” theory:

Is he protecting the family from something? These are the wild theories when we are desperate for something that matches the character of the man we know. The misunderstood hero role, some reason he can’t talk and explain what he’s doing. We can’t really put stock in these, but they are almost a comfort as an alternative to accepting what is being revealed as the real Dave.

____

We feel like we are going in circles most days. When we lack information and details the mind gets busy trying to find answers. It is amazing to see how we crave certainty and knowledge. And how we resist knowledge that may say something we don’t want to believe.

And the sins of the parents are repeated. David’s parents split up when he was a child and all four of their children have had struggles with relationships and their identity. Perhaps Dave existed all these years, putting up a good front, but struggling all along with unresolved issues from that time.

Alison struggles, as we do, but she knows that Dave, she, and their relationship can be fixed if he will come home and work with her. But if you haven’t seen examples of people working hard and making a success of a marriage over decades, how do you convince yourself you could be different? How do we reach out to him to try to help him see that it can be done?

I ran across a blog post from Sheila Walsh today about trust. It’s short and worth your while to read. In there she talks about the lasting affects of having your trust broken as a child.

When trust is shattered when you are a child it is a wound that hides in the basement of our souls. Other wounds heal but trust seems to be the very last casualty. We learn to love again, to laugh again but to trust? The trouble is when trust is broken it affects every relationship. This wound, this slammed shut door does not allow us to be selective. If affects our ability to trust God too.

This touches me today as I look at Alison, she was betrayed as a child when her father abandoned his family but had learned to trust David when he promised he would never leave her. Now she is struggling to understand how he could betray her too. And I see the three sons who have had their trust broken and will feel the effects of that for years to come.

As Alison tried to explain to the boys that Dad isn’t going to live with them any more, she stressed that she would always be there. That Anthony and I would always be there. That other family will always be here for them. And that reassurance is good, to remind them that even when one person fails, there are others who will stand firm. But I wonder in other ways if that even makes a difference. Why should they trust us if the one person they trusted most, their dad, has walked away from them?

Wow, it’s been a month since my last post. And I haven’t run at all the past 2 weeks and won’t run this week. Oh well, life happens sometimes.

A week ago I was washing clothes and unpacking and recovering from the wonderful annual beach retreat with the ladies of my church. We had such a wonderful time, with good fellowship and a good Bible study and a chance to talk and relax. I always love this trip, even if I don’t get much sleep there.

Then, as I was working through my mail and catching up after 2 days off of work, my sister-in-law sent me a message to ask if I could talk. Alison is David’s wife, Anthony’s brother. So, we’re like double-in-laws, but we get along really well. We have a lot in common since we married very similar men. I figured she wanted to arrange a time for our families to visit or something, so I replied that I could talk just about any time that day. When she wrote back immediately asking if right now worked I started to get worried.

We got on the phone and she told me that David had walked out a week earlier and said he wanted a divorce. I was floored. David isn’t perfect, but he has always been steady and solid. A few years ago his family got out of the habit of going to church, and we kept pushing him to find one close to home, but otherwise things seemed to be going well. He had been working his full-time job in software testing plus building an internet business. But he seemed to find time for his family and kept it all pretty much in balance, with the usual corrections we all have to make along the way. Then about 6 months ago he quit his day job and went full-time with the internet business. We were very encouraged, since we know David would have been careful about that decision and if the business was working that well we were thrilled for him. We did tell him they should all move closer to us now that he wasn’t tied to an office.

But now it seems things weren’t as good as they looked. We don’t really know what was/is wrong because he hasn’t talked much. He told Alison he wanted to focus on the business and he’d provide for her and their 3 sons but he didn’t want to live in the house any more. When we drove to Raleigh and had a chance to confront him, he told us that he had spent 10 years trying to live with Alison and he just wanted to be happy, and that the tension between them in the house was making life miserable for the kids. The 15 year old said he hadn’t noticed the tension, so I’m not sure who David thought was being bothered.

Anyway, we’ve all been on a roller-coaster of emotions. A large part of us wants David to wake up from whatever weird state he’s in and run back to his family. A smaller part of us would like to hit him at least once. We hate this decision and all the damage it is doing and will do to everyone in this family for years to come. All of us come from broken homes, so we all have seen the damage done by divorce. It has taken me years to gather examples of families that struggled through and made it work, but there are enough that I know it can be done. Usually requiring a lot of help from the Holy Spirit.

When we talked with David, what he was saying sounded so self-centered and self-serving, like he’s telling himself stories to make it all appear better. We tried to talk back to him with the biblical language that says this is a sin and it would be so much better if he would continue the ongoing work of making the marriage succeed. But I don’t think he speaks that language any more, and that saddens me most of all. He seems to have turned his back on God so whatever trouble he is in and whatever he is struggling with, he’s doing it all alone.