Why I Am Not Angry at My Ex Anymore

When my husband left, I thought my life was over.

I did not understand what he was doing, why he had become a cruel stranger, or how my boys and I would survive without him.

Confusion, fear, and overwhelm brought on by sudden abandonment, betrayal, and abuse had me on a roller coaster of emotions.

At some points I was hopeful that he would come back.

I would cling to our vows. I wanted to believe he meant his, “til death do us part.” I tried to be understanding. I offered our dishes to outfit his new kitchen. I told him he could have the kids whenever he wanted. I took responsibility for many wrongs. I blamed myself incessantly. I promised I would be better.

Other times, I broke down. My resolve to be sweet and strong crumbled. I cried and begged him to come back. I pled with him to help me understand what had happened and how life had changed so quickly. I reached up to gently caress the Under Armor slogan written on the t-shirt stretching across his chest:  Protect This House.

And still other times, I was angry. I was angry at the injustice, at how alone my boys and I were, at God, at my ex, at myself, and at life in general.

After the kids drove off for their weekend visits and I was left, lost, and alone, I spent too many days in one of three states:

1. I’d be an excessive workaholic trying to get everything done so I could be a “good” mom when my boys returned.
2. I’d collapse in grief and near utter despair. I’d lie in the fetal position behind the same door where I waved goodbye to my children. Sometimes I’d wail in abject grief as pieces of my beating heart were ripped from me. Sometimes, I’d sit silent and spent in a catatonic state of confusion, disbelief, and fear.
3. Or I’d be angry, furious that he had left me with so much responsibility and so little ability to handle it all. I’d be angry at God for allowing him to do this and not making Him come back. I’d be angry at myself for not being a better wife and mother. I’d be angry at life and just want the pain to stop.

Occasionally, on those angry days, I took my suffering out of an old broken down car he’d left in the driveway. He had bought himself a new car shortly before leaving and had left me with my aging minivan and a piece of junk car that sat rusting in our driveway.

Carrie Underwood’s song “Before He Cheats” became my favorite running through my head as I keyed the old vehicle and occasionally hit it with something hard.

It did not matter. The car did not run, and my husband did not want it any more than he wanted me.

Eventually a stranger, having driven by, asked to take it off my hands. I gladly gave it to him closing a door of pain and responsibility.

A Better Way to Handle Anger

I admit, getting rid of that old car helped to let some anger go. I did not have that constant visual reminder of what he’d taken and what he’d left staring at me every time I walked out my front door.

But getting rid of the car did not erase all my anger.

I could not replace anger with an emptiness in the driveway anymore than I could replace my husband with an emptiness in my heart or with an empty relationship and someone else’s heart either for that matter.

I had to learn to replace anger with something bigger than anger.

I had to understand what had happened to our relationship and to this man I promised to love until death.

I knew I would not get answers from him.

I was learning that when someone we love turns so drastically, it is best to let him go.

He becomes unpredictable, untrustworthy, and unstable. He becomes like a wild beast ready to bite you for getting too close. He becomes a stranger.

Superficially, it looks like that explains why I could not get answers from him, but it’s not the whole picture.

Simply put, I could not get answers from him because he did not have answers to give.

I had been blindsided, but he was blinded and could not see them himself.

The answers I sought were deeper than human comprehension.

I needed to know how the love we shared had died so quickly. I needed to know if he had ever loved me or, if as he said through this nightmare, he never had.

I needed Truth and knew I would not get Truth from him.

The Truth About Love

I’ll spare you the play-by-play of the months I spent crying out to God for answers before I finally stopped to listen to Him, but when I did, the answer was clear:

Love is based on free will.

To love the other, we must be free to not love the other.

In an instant, I understood.

I didn’t like it, but I understood it.

My husband had chosen to not love.

And we cannot force love. We cannot make someone find us lovable no matter how lovable we try to be. 

The only way we truly know we are loved is when the person can walk away and chooses to stay.

That is love.

Last week, I released a podcast that made me remember all of this again. In that episode, I claimed your kids only need one thing from you – faith!

But even before the episode aired, I knew I was wrong.

Kids need faith.

Kids also need hope.

Kids also need love.

And so do we!

Faith, hope, and love are three unique and powerful virtues. Each can stand alone but they are designed to stand together.

Independent and intimately intertwined, reflecting the Trinity Himself.

So often we think we can pursue or lean on just one (“all you need is love” for example) and life will be grand, but that is deceiving and results in division, destruction, and devastation.

Love is more than a feeling. It is a choice that must be upheld by faith and hope.

Love is the virtue we will take with us to Heaven, and faith and hope are instrumental in getting us there.

As I understood more of my husband’s freedom to choose to love or not love and prayed over what honest faith, hope, and love are and how to live them out in adversity, I grew stronger.

I shed my immature view of love. I stopped looking for a knight in shining armor swooping in to pick me up off the floor and carry me to a place where pain like this doesn’t exist anymore.

I opened my eyes and my mind and my heart to what faith, hope, and sacrificial love freely chosen could do to transform my life, the lives of my sons, and of those I come in contact with.

With that realization, I discovered I had pity in my heart for the stranger I had once called my husband.

This man who said he had never loved me may have been telling the truth all along.

Not because he was not given the grace to love, but because he chose not to love and had little faith or hope to sustain love when life got difficult or temptations swept in.

I also knew a lack of love for one isn’t made up in the arms of another.

It is made through leaning into faith and hope, through perseverance and courage and selflessness.

That decision to love, to purposely lean into faith and find hope in hardship is something loyal spouses choose and get good at.

That is good because faith, hope, and love are needed in life after abandonment.

They are strengths she can get good at when she trains to slay demons that tell her she is no good, unworthy, to blame, and unlovable or that her ex was right about her.

Choosing to love is something loyal spouses do unconsciously at times and through sheer will at others.

That power to love, DEEPLY LOVE, is boosted through faith and hope.

The ability to love becomes the faithful spouse’s super power.

Faith, hope, and love reflect the Trinity who gifted them to us.

They are unique and also inseparable. They strengthen and sustain us. They build confidence and courage. They help us sort what is important from what is periphery.

Faith and hope make us able to love more powerfully and live more lovably.

It is something a betraying spouse never learns.

So for me, when I look at my ex, I feel pity for the man so lacking in theological virtues.

I know for certain, he doesn’t need my anger. He’s got enough of his own.

I can let him go.

I build my life on what I choose now – faith, hope, and love.

And in that there is peace.

What about you? What do you think about a loved one who has walked away, whether it is a spouse, an estranged child, or parents who turned their backs on you? How can you let them go and embrace faith, hope, and love in your life too?

God Bless…

Kerri

PS – I still do love this song though! hahaha 🙂

PPS. Despite attacks on Marriage, family, faith, and community, Our Father never abandons His children. He walks with us through storms we would not have chosen to bring good we could not have found.

And I continuously find myself returning to one solid truth:

There is hidden good even in life’s hardest challenges.

That idea is shaping my life and how I walk through betrayal, crisis pregnancy, abuse, parenting, disappointment, grief, and healing. It’s shaping how I lead those in the thick of the battle, to grow stronger in faith, resilience, purpose, and love.

If you’d like a little lift in your journey, I’d love to invite you to join my newsletter. Each week you’ll receive a challenge, prayer, and encouragement, to help you discover the hidden good in your own life even when it’s hard to see.

As a thank you, I’d like to give you my free ebook to help you stop asking the wrong questions and start healing with the right ones.

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