Recovery Story on Codependency and Divorce

     I am a grateful believer in the salvation given to me by Jesus Christ and recovering from co-dependency. Tonight I am going to tell you a bit of the story that got me to where I am today. I hope part of my testimony is familiar to you and the journey you have taken through life. In a divorce class I took a few years ago the leaders said sharing the pain cuts it in half. I believe that is what we do here at Celebrate Recovery, we share our pain and cut it in half.

     First of course is the bit about childhood. So much of what we experience at a very young age determines how we will react to other people in the future. I remember riding and showing my horse at numerous horse shows, but most of the time only with my mom. I was pretty good. I won man ribbons and more often than not they were blue. I remember making mud pies and playing in the hay bales, but mainly alone. I was an only child.

     I remember being in trouble more often than not when I was around my parents. I do believe I frustrated my parents because I was terribly independent and did naughty things. I remember spending a lot of time alone and wanting to belong somewhere. I remember struggling with friends in school and feeling outside starting in the third grade. I remember being molested by the daughter of family friends, but even though it seemed so wrong I felt accepted in some sick way. I remember my parents verbally assaulting each other nearly on a daily basis. My child hood memories are not ones to cherish. I meet people who have story after story of fun times as a kid. I do not have those memories. I try to remember a good child hood time, but either my getting in trouble or my parents arguing fogs up the memory.

     I remember having one close friend each year of middle and high school. It seemed I could not have more than one. I was possessive with their time. This is perhaps where co-dependency began for me. I would try to control that one friend and after a year they would either go away or I would break the friendship for some reason.

     I remember going to church every Sunday and CCD(Sunday school in the world Catholicism) on Mondays. I was raised Catholic and going to church was the one thing my parents did every Sunday. My father was quite involved at times and my mother did pretty much nothing but attend mass. My mother was diligent about getting me to CCD. I was to learn about the Catholic Church and the Trinity. I hated every Monday night. The people who volunteered to teach the classes were always nice, but the kids I went to church with were not. I felt picked on and isolated every time I went. My mom even managed to have me attend a different church, but it did not change me and how I got along with others. I always made the wrong move or said the wrong thing. I remember during confirmation classes when I was to become an adult in the church I was talking with my adult sponsor. I had come to the conclusion that God was up there in heaven looking down and we were his pawns as he moved us around for his entertainment. I thought it was for God’s sick entertainment.

     I went off to college, a catholic college at that, and decided to reinvent myself. By this time I was very focused on appearance and became quite bulimic, hardly keeping anything down. My father told me to study hard and play hard. I studied enough to earn high grades and partied enough that I should not have been such a success academically. My party friends were on academic probation and struggling, but not me. I managed to get through. I tried going to church, but that brought no fulfillment nor did it fill the empty whole inside me. I was focused on good grades and my outward appearance.

     I did have several boyfriends that were long term relationships, but amounted to nothing. I isolated myself within each relationship just as I did before with my one close friend a year during middle and high school. Those poor boys must have been overwhelmed by my controlling behavior, but I was successful because I ended each relationship before they could. My body and boyfriend at the moment became my gods.

     I met the man I would marry during my last year of school. We were together for a couple years and he proposed. The moment he proposed I did not want to say yes. I was dumbfounded, but it was the thing to do at the time and he seemed quite devoted to me. I moved in with him right after our honeymoon. I remember thinking he would treat me just as my father had treated my mother, but he did not. He never yelled or swore at me, but he did things different. He lied, manipulated and isolated me even more. Those warning signs were apparent far before we got married, but I chose to ignore them. After the first year we essentially became roommates. He controlled me by telling me people did not like us, that I made his family feel uncomfortable in our home and how my family was crazy. The whole thing was crazy making. The isolation was even more exaggerated by his workaholic behavior. He was driven by the idea of making money and I was left alone more and more. I would find things to do and he would be unhappy about my being gone when he got home. It was even more crazy making. I tried to talk to him about my being alone, but we masked it over with the thought that we wanted things and he could make more money if he spent time at work. I began to think he liked money more than he loved me.

     We did start going to church and even went to one Christian couple’s camp. He did not like the Catholic Church, so we started going to an evangelical church. I even went to Bible Study Fellowship and learned huge amount of information about the bible, but I could never get it from my head to my heart. I remember being so jealous of those people who would worship God with their entire being and speak so freely about their faith. We moved for his job so he could make more money and I found Bible Study Fellowship in the area. Life just seemed to keep going on, but everything was flat. We were doing all the right things, but our hearts had grown apart and God was not at the center. All of it looked good from the outside I am sure, but I still felt alone and isolated.

     I went into the marriage with the idea that I would never have children. I had enough children in my life as a teacher. The biological clock was ticking and my husband was doing well financially so the time seemed right. But even though we decided to get pregnant I knew my life would change. I knew I would be the one doing all the child rearing and I was not going to allow this change in my life to happen. I was miserable as a pregnant person and I made sure everyone else around me was too. It was as if the hormones and my sick thinking had taken over. I was so outwardly miserable the doctor suggested an abortion at one of our appointments. I tried to talk to him about how I was feeling on the inside, but he could not cope. I had been the strong one and now that I was weak he was running away. I could feel it, but never describe the feeling in words. I was isolated in an empty marriage and having a baby. Whenever I tried to talk about how I was feeling about this pregnancy and the new life coming into the world I felt like people did not want to hear about my struggles, so I hid it. I was six months pregnant and going about my days hiding the fact. Most people did not even know. I even kept going to church, but that idea from long ago that God looks down upon us as pawns in his game returned to my thinking.

     After my son was born, my husband seemed so happy, but I did not exist in our home. I was a mere shadow going through the motions. Shortly after the birth I stopped going to church and became what a friend described as a robot. I was suffering from post-partum depression and did not even know it. I had a beautiful son and people would be excited to meet him and talk about babies and I could care less. God had sent this curse upon me was my distorted sick thinking.

     Shortly before our sons first birthday my husband said he was unhappy and wanted a divorce. I later found out he had found support and comfort with another woman. I did not even see it coming what so ever. I felt I had no friends and certainly no God and worse yet I had abandoned my church home. Something clicked inside me as soon as he left the house. I was going to church on Sunday. I was broken, humiliated, embarrassed and a million other negative words. I took my son to childcare and went to church. I went to The Alter for the first time and cried like I have never cried before. The exact date escapes me, but it was in August of 2003. I know it was on that day that I was bathed in the Holy Spirit and all my knowledge of the bible, God, and Jesus rushed from my head to my heart. I was finally home and where I belonged in my essence of being.

     Sometime in September, upon the advice of Pastor Tom, I started coming to Celebrate Recovery. The first time I went to Foundations, the way small groups were started at CR during that time, I completely fell apart and could not even get the words out. I was so broken and God had sent me to the perfect place. I eventually got into a grief and loss group and worked the steps. I was hurt and angry, very angry as some of you might know, but God was at work in my heart through people here at CR. I was accepted just as I was and loved. It took time to heal to a point that I could feel like a functioning person. I found friends here at CR and found my old friends again. I truly had people, friends and family, who cared about how I was doing.

     I was clawing my way out of isolation and feelings of being alone. God was not up there in heaven playing a game with people. He was sending His love through the people around me. Each of us holds a bit of God in our hearts. We can choose to keep it to ourselves and it never grows. Misery and isolation will follow. We can choose to give away the bit of God we hold deep within us and it will grow. Giving the bit of God inside me to others is loving each other in my eyes. I have to trust God and that he will do what is right for me as I am his child. My favorite verse is Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. When I give that bit of God living within me to others I experience the fruit of the spirit in Galatians 5:22-23. That fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

     My life has changed completely, but more so is the change in my heart. I am able to accept others as they are and not pass judgment. I am not isolated and alone, my life is full of people who love and care about me just as I am. I used to be a very jealous person, but that has improved greatly by the grace of God. With God I am free to grow and be the person He wants me to become.

     In growing with God I read my bible and journal. I have faltered on this a bit as of late, but during my lowest moments that is what got me through many days. Usually one night a week I make dinner for several friends and we enjoy sharing our lives over a meal that has not killed us yet. I have traveled by plane, train and automobile. My next trip is my second mission trip, which is to Ecuador. I will be sharing the gospel. It was not too long ago I would not even talk about my faith and now I am delivering the message. Wow!

     In hind sight I am able to see that God was working things out for my good. I would never have gotten divorced, but wow life is so full now. His plan is divine and I can now see and understand how miserable I was. In breaking me to my lowest point I have been built back up with God at my center and not me. I am in no way complete and God still has a lot of work left to do, but I have heart-felt faith now. God has given me the courage to set goals and find adventure. I can live each day as if it were my last and yet still look to the future with Him in my heart. It is my prayer that everyone listening may come to know and feel in their heart that God can take a person who feels isolated, alone and ugly inside and out, and remake them into a beautiful worthwhile person who can touch the world in a way that no one else can. I was the former and now the later, but it came from God’s divine intervention and no power of my own. Remember to trust in Him. Thank you for listening and letting me share. God Bless.

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