Proposal #1

I really should have been writing about this for the last few years, so you dear reader would have some of the back story behind all this brouhaha. Instead I thrust you into the thick of it with only my perspective to go on. Not the kindest of literary actions, to be sure. But this is my blog, not some archive of relational NPOV.

I just got off the phone with a close friend. His home phone went to the machine, so I called his cell. He & his family are enjoying dinner up in the mountains at a friends' home. I didn't quite realise until right now how living on the cusp of divorce results in a stifling social life, at least for the one who has assumed responsibility for the kids. S. enjoys parties with coworkers on a weekly basis. I miss friends who don't don serious faces and ask "How are things?" My social contacts have shrunk to three or four, and I don't doubt that they are growing tired of an always needy, befuddled friend. The Almighty , blessed be he, has seen fit to keep at least one friend in my life who is gifted/wired with compassionate outreach. He makes certain that I have not shuffled off this mortal coil prematurely. Last June he sought me and found me fishing on a local creek after an upsetting morning. S. had taken an older student out after tutoring on a Friday night and ending up having dinner and drinks with him. I grant you that her motives where not impure at the time -- he was an older Asian gentleman, mind you. But I was upset at my wife going on a date with another man. Carl found me climbing up from the creek, unfortunately just after a wonderful pale morning dun hatch ended. A true pal, that one.

Back to the topic at hand! S. has communicated (through writing. Always through writing!) that she desires an immediate separation; her latest note reads, "I would like you to move out as soon as possible." Since she has absolutely no financial acumen she writes, "I trust God will give me the wisdom I ned to spend effectively and manage prudently." As if God will honor the dissolution of a holy covenant!

I wish this were an exciting story, a new twist on a familiar plot. Instead it plays out like so many hackneyed versions before it: dumbfounded husband finds his spouse ready to endure all the horrid complications of divorce while he sees none of the warning signs. True - I have seen some of the signs, and reluctantly admit that salvation by grace does not remove the effects of a childhood immersed in the effects of divorce and lasciviousness. That is for another post.

Tomorrow I will spend Easter morning in a large boomer church which pains my soul, so that my family might be together to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ, sitting near a woman who wants nothing more than my disappearance from her life forever. I don't expect a pleasant morning, but hope for grace, none-the-less.