“This is the third time this month you have been late picking up the kids. You are going to have to figure out a way to be more on time,” I said coldly. My former spouse just looked at me with a mixture of embarrassment and exhaustion. After the kids were gone and the house […]
“I can’t forgive him, he’s not sorry for what he did.” was the response from Stacy when she was asked how she felt about forgiving her former spouse. She went on to explain that she thought that, just as in order to receive forgiveness from God for our sins we must be truly sorry, the […]
“I need your help. My son is pulling out his eyebrows.” was the tearful plea from Meg, a woman in my Recovering from Divorce group. I knew that Meg and her former husband were having a very difficult time co-parenting their children. In fact, they were in a “hot war,” fighting pretty much each day. […]
My first Thanksgiving was so difficult. My divorce was in full swing and my world was crumbling. Frankly, I did not have a thankful attitude. What did I have to be thankful for? Everything in my world was being ripped away from me. Fast forward thirteen years, and here is what I have learned: the most […]
One night, I was in a boat with my brother on a lake near where I live. We could see lightning in the distance and thought that it was far away. It was getting late and we decided to head back to the dock. We were about 15 minutes into a 30 minute boat ride, when suddenly, […]
It is very easy to become disillusioned with our faith and with God when dealing with the crushing difficulty of divorce. It can be a lonely time, and God can feel very distant. We can become resigned to thinking that our lot in life is to endure some form of misery for the remainder of our […]
One evening, I was leaving a meeting at my parish, and was pulling out of my parking space, when I stopped dead in my tracks. I had just realized that I walked out of the church and forgot to make a visit to Jesus. In every Catholic Church around the world, Jesus, in the form […]
As a kid, I used to go fishing and swimming at a lake near our house during the summer. At night, the lights on the docks would flicker on automatically when it became dark. As if on cue, a swarm of bugs would appear and hover around the dock, attracted by the light. Love is […]
“I can’t take it anymore!” were the words that tumbled out of my mouth as I sat defeated in front of a very young-looking priest. I had really been suffering from the new reality of my divorce. Well, what I heard next shocked me. He said, “Your suffering is actually helping you heal from your […]
“This feels like a death,” I distinctly remember telling my mother on a very cold, and very lonely, November day, shortly after my divorce was filed. A divorce is a death—the death of a marriage. And with it comes all the same feelings of grief that are associated with a physical death. And like a […]