As promised, here’s what’s been going on with me lately. I’ve been struggling with how to even begin taking about this. I don’t have to share so much publicly, but it’s kind of what I do. It would feel wrong not to share something that is affecting my life so significantly, at this point.
I’m just going to go ahead and rip the Band-Aid off. It’s supposed to be less painful that way, right?
My husband and I separated, after 9 years of marriage. He moved out last weekend. It is both mutual and, thus far, amicable.
I am a walking cliché, it seems. Conservative Christian becomes an atheist and divorces her husband. The narrative pretty much writes itself, huh?
Well, whatever. Hey, they told me that if gay marriage passed in New York, it would endanger every marriage. Heh.
All joking aside (that is, if I know how to not joke when things are tense, which I don’t), blogging about my marriage and separation puts me in a bit of a tight spot. See, I have one and only one rule about blogging – no blogging about my husband.
I have had so many posts that I wanted to do over the past almost-two years about marriage and Christianity, but it was hard to do that while we were going through our problems without revealing that we were going through our problems. And, well, it’s just not cool to blog about your marital problems, you know?
So, now’s my chance to talk about some of that stuff. Of course, I will still keep my husband’s privacy one of my primary concerns. I don’t intend to use my blog as a forum to air my dirty laundry.
However, I do intend to use it as a place to discuss what’s wrong with Christianity’s views on marriage, and how those beliefs negatively affected my own marriage, from my perspective, of course. I think these things need to be discussed because they constitute so much of what is wrong with Christianity.
Hey girl!
Sorry to hear that you are going through a rough time right now. I wanted to check in on your blog to see some fellow athiest comments, as I have given up on my facebook account due to feeling that the only posts that were ever on there were Christian bible exerpts with exception of yours and about 2 others…ugh…
I had no idea that you and your husband were having trouble, so kudos to you for being able to keep such a difficult secret to yourself. We all struggle in marriage. I once asked my mom how come she didn’t tell me it was going to be this hard, and she told me “I wanted grandchildren”. UGH…hahah.
I have been around the block a few times since my husband and I got together about 12 years ago. We have almost split several times. Logisitically, it would be a huge mess so yeah, never happened. Eventually things have leveled out or even gotten better from time to time. Marriage is something that I would NEVER do again if this one fails. To me it doesn’t seem realistic anymore. Maybe that is where the whole atheism thing comes in.
Before we decided to have kids, my husband and I bought our house, had dogs, were happy. Then one day I decided that I wanted to have kids and pressured him into marriage. Probably not the best way to walk down the isle, but never the less, he was/is my best friend and I knew I wanted to be with him but thought that for our children marriage was the best way or only way I would have kids…so…why is that anyways?
Probably because my parents stayed married “for the children” and because they were more conservative than I am. Funny how your family really shapes your views huh? Eventhough I could have really cared less (other than wanting to have the whole white wedding/honeymoon thing) it never occurred to me WHY I was wanting to be married. We were happy owning a house together and living together for a couple years before, so why did we need paper anyhow?
Well, all I know is, it is definitely difficult. Especially with kids. If you ever want to talk, let me know. I hope your kids are adjusting ok and are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am sure there will be some bumps here and there. From what I can see though, my recently divorced friends seem to be enjoying themselves emensely!
Talk to you soon!
Jess
(PS. if you email me, we can chat still. I just don’t do the facebook thing anymore)
Good luck with all that. But I’m already waiting for the next change.
Well? Come on. We’re waiting for more.
Please don’t pull an Obama on us. You know, promising change and then hiding.