3 Things I Used to Believe About Marriage (And What I Believe Now)
Reminder: Rebuilding Wholeness after Divorce starts in 1 week!
In honour of my upcoming group coaching program, Rebuilding Wholeness after Divorce starting in just one week, I wanted to share three things I used to believe about marriage that changed in the wake of my own divorce.
1. I used to believe I was not the kind of person to get a divorce.
My whole life—from early childhood playing with Barbie and Ken—I dreamed not just of getting married, but being married. Building and nurturing a family and relationship with my future spouse.
As a kid, several friends’ parents were divorced (I sometimes had to get special permission to play at their homes). By my late twenties, I’d even seen a few close friends’ marriages end. That will never be me, I told myself. Nothing against those friends, but *I* wasn’t the kind of person to get a divorce. I was too self-aware, too hardworking, too careful in choosing a partner.
I repeated this line for a while even after my own divorce, likely an effort to absolve myself from others’ judgment. To distance myself from the reality of what was happening.
Eventually, I heard the subtle pride in these words.
Here’s what I’ve realized: no one is “the kind of person” to get a divorce.
No one is built for the soul-crushing grief of losing a marriage. No one grows up thinking, I can’t wait to commit my life to someone so I can watch it slowly implode into the withered husk of what used to be my most tender hopes and dreams. Even celebrities on marriage #5 with a prenup—I’m convinced there’s something deeper and more sad behind the glossy exterior.
I still believe I’m not the kind of person to get a divorce. Now I know no one else is, either.
2. I used to believe marriage is a sacrament and therefore cannot be broken.
“What God has joined together, let no one separate.”
I used to take these words from Christ (Matthew 19) to mean marriage was indissoluble. A mystical sacrament—instituted by God—that no one should leave.
Even though Jesus acknowledges lawful conditions for divorce just a few verses later, I couldn’t imagine how a true marriage could end. I equated sacrament with eternal permanence.
Now, I hear the word sacrament—from the Greek mysterion—from a deeper place. A sacrament is not a riddle to solve but a mystery to sit with. It’s a holy reality to be carried loosely, with awe. And while we get to participate in sacrament, its substance is authored by God alone.
Just as God gives and takes away life, I believe—somehow—He also gives and takes away when it comes to marriage. He allows the death of a marriage—even one formed under sacrament—when that is the only path to life for its members. I know this because I’ve lived it. I’ve experienced the Holy Week miracle of life after death, and I’ve also experienced life after the dark death of a marriage once forged in hope.
I’ve been present at both the beginning and end of a marriage. I’ve walked around the messy backside of a sacrament to find God waiting there—allowing bonds to fray, my life as I knew it to fall to dust, and grace to hold me.
I still believe marriage is a sacrament. But now I also believe sacrament is mystery, one whose beginnings and ends can’t be forced or plotted on a map. God is greater than any institution, even His own, sacred ones. And we mustn’t force together what He, in His mercy, has allowed to become separate.
3. I used to believe the person who asks for divorce is more blameworthy.
Because they’re the one who left, right? The one who gave up. They could’ve stayed, worked harder, waited longer. Instead they walked away.
What I know now: it’s rarely so simple. What looks free, easy, or even selfish from the outside may be the hardest decision a person ever makes. Sometimes, self-sacrifice looks like staying, but other times, it looks like leaving.
What I know now is that this God-given free will of ours is hard to recognize after it’s been dragged through the rubble of sin, deferred hope, shattered trust for weeks, months, or years on end… What I know now is that what may look like an open decision on the outside may be a suffocating double-bind on the inside—a choice between not between two lives, but two deaths.
What I know now is almost nothing is as simple as I once thought, which is to say nothing is quite so complicated, or dark, or twisted as I once thought, which is to say God can be found everywhere, even in the trenches of something I once considered too taboo, too morally suspect, too merciful to ever become my life.
What I know now is almost nothing is as simple as I once thought, which is to say nothing is quite so complicated, or dark, or twisted as I once thought, which is to say God can be found everywhere, even in the trenches of something I once considered too taboo, too morally suspect, too merciful to ever become my life.
And that is the great, terrible, mysterious gift divorce has been to me… And maybe to you, too.
Rebuilding Wholeness after Divorce starts May 20
If any of this resonates, I invite you to consider joining Rebuilding Wholeness after Divorce, my six-week group coaching program.
Not sure if this program is for you? Check out the free replay of the info session I hosted last week.
Who it’s for:
Women from the Christian East (Orthodoxy, Eastern Catholicism, or liturgically and sacramentally oriented) navigating the emotional, spiritual, and practical aftermath of divorce—whether it happened last week or last century.
When it starts:
May 20, 2025. This is a beta round at a significantly reduced rate of $199. That’s under $35 per session. Plus, you’ll have extra opportunities to help me tailor the program to your needs.
When we meet:
Tuesday evenings at 7:30 EST (May 20—June 24, 2025 → six sessions total)
Why:
Because you don’t have to walk through this alone. This group offers a gentle, wise, and spiritually grounded space for reflection, support, and rediscovery.
» You can learn more or enroll here
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This post has been lightly copy edited by Chat GPT.
I remember a moment at the end of my first marriage when I was alone in the house, boxing up my ex husband's belongings.
In the middle of the work, I suddenly had this feeling, like I was packing up after someone's death.
It was similar to how it felt going through my grandmother's things when she died.
Divorce is a kind of death, but it can also be, as you say, the only path to life.