I Choose Love & Life... & Accept Pain

I often meet clients in my office as they navigate the dark path of divorce. Some run the path, eager to escape what they describe as an emotional prison. Most often, these men are chasing the very habit or folly that destroyed their marriage. Though they’ll swear the marriage, the relationship, was long gone before they crossed the line. In their minds, they simply severed the tiny, remaining legal threads connecting two people long over one another. Never mind the children. Without an abuse conviction, each ex will get their turn to mold their kids’ perspectives. Courts lack the time to care about fault or truth.

Others enter wearily, stressed, exhausted, facing imminent defeat. They have tried to fight for their marriage. They’ve sought to change. Perhaps too little too late. Perhaps their wife couldn’t or wouldn’t see it. They’ve begged and pleaded. Perhaps the blame is all theirs. Perhaps not. Either way, they are approaching the end of this desolate path. They will soon be divorced. Alone. Single. Sad. Always afraid. Often angry. Some numb. Some deeply resentful.

Most hate my advice, to abstain from dating for a year. I know what that means. About one in four will return within 24 months after they are soundly paying the price of carelessly stacking their bulging personal luggage upon a new partner’s own unclaimed baggage. They’ll drop their heads and humbly admit that they should have heeded my advice. Then they will quickly justify their circumstances with words like love, sex, hormones, and crazy. Somewhere along the way, they’ll put some responsibility on their own parents. They’ll accept some level of fault for their first failed marriage, but this one… No one wants to shoulder that kind of weight.

Others just want to guard their hearts. They are deeply wounded. They scoff at my mention of dating. They choose to harden their hearts. They vow to keep others out. They simply can’t bear the pain. So they pledge themselves to a life of singleness… at least, for a season.

When you do what I do, seeking to help people who have similar stories, you look for common threads. The most common thread among these men is that they each married someone with whom they loved, or thought they loved, and wanted to share the rest of their lives. Without marriage, divorce doesn’t happen.

I once received a “Dear John” letter at about 17 years old. The writer explained to me how much she cared about me and why that was a problem. She wanted to see the world, and while she knew I would be by her side, she feared what would become of her if she lost me after years of allowing her love for me to grow. That logic boggled my teenage farm boy brain and yet somehow, in some twisted adolescent realm, made sense. I think I got what she meant, as best a teenage boy can grasp what an emotional teenage girl is saying, “Love leads to pain.”

It's true. Love leads to pain. Great love leads to great pain. We can blame the stars, fate, friends, emotions, circumstances, even God. Love is not a flickering or fleeting emotion. It does not simply burst forth at first sight. It is not the aligning of stars, the result of too much to drink, the cleverness of friends, the reward of great sex, or even the orchestration of a loving God.

Ultimately love is a choice; and choices come with responsibilities. We choose to love. We choose who we love. Yes, emotions, lust, hormones, circumstances, and even expectations may make us feel as if our fate to love is irrefutable. But that’s one reason divorce rates are so high. Feelings are real, yet they make foolhardy leaders. We mistake feelings for love and plunge into action based solely on how we feel about someone.

Yet feelings are not sustainable. That’s why couples who date for at least two years before marrying have a much better marriage survival rate. Statistically, we know that feelings alone rarely carry a couple more than two years. Once the feelings cool down, couples must make choices. When in-laws are encroaching, finances are eroding, health is disabling, kids are screaming, peers are flirting, and chores are mounting, those swirly, pitter-patting, goo-goo-eyed feelings disappear. When the reality of life sets in, it’s our decisions, our commitment to love, not our emotions, that keep us faithful and true. It’s the joy that comes from deep commitment, rather than the happiness that is always bound by circumstance, that draws us to one another while emotions drift.

The Bible tells me that God is steadfast, and that God is love. He doesn’t waiver. He will not divorce me. He will not abandon me. He chose to love me. He chooses to love me. He hurt for me, and he hurts for me. In my imperfection, I cause him pain. In my imperfection, I cause my wife pain. But she chose to love me. She chooses to love me. We live in a fallen world. Our circumstances cause us pain. Feelings are bound to circumstances. Choices, commitments, are not.

Today, my heart hurts. A friend’s wife was diagnosed with life-threatening cancer this morning. I can barely hear the word cancer without getting a lump in my throat. Cancer itself has not caused me pain. I have not had cancer. Millions of people face cancer without a tear from me. Yet, it’s my love for someone who fought cancer which causes my pain. I hurt because I choose to love, and I embrace the responsibility that comes with that choice.

Perhaps one could avoid untold pain by choosing not to love. But the same God who claims to be love also claims to be life. That suggests that we cannot have one without the other. I choose love, and in choosing love, I choose life and accept pain.