The first is a man, almost fifty, who I knew back when we were just young twenty year old's. He was a promising young military officer, brought up by loving, educated, decent parents. Very handsome, athletic, and extremely intelligent. One of the nicest people I had ever met; always with a smile on his face. We worked together for a few years and I don't ever remember him not being happy go lucky. He would tell me about his latest girlfriend, about the trips across Europe he would take, and all of the weekend's social events going on around the base. He always managed to put a smile on my face. Over the years, we kept in contact sporadically.
I knew he married not too long after we returned from Germany. He'd written to me about getting married and the excitement of buying his first house and having his first child "on the way." I'd contact his mom every now and then to get an update on his address to send Christmas cards or drop him a line. I knew he was living in Florida, so when I moved there in 2000, I tried to look him up, to no avail. His mom had moved so I was unable to pinpoint exactly where he was at.
About 18 months ago, I was finally able to reach him through his brother and mother, finding out he was living in North Carolina. We started emailing each other and had a few phone conversations, where I found out things had not turned out too well. His wife turned out to be a serious drug addict who was on a path of destruction very early in their marriage, not caring what happened to her husband and her two young sons.
He told me the whole, heartbreaking story. The drug addiction, the cocaine addiction, the crack addition and everything that goes along with that: financial nightmares, never knowing when she would be home or gone, and when she was gone, never knowing if she were dead or alive. Having to deal with two little boys who wanted to know where their mommy was at and not knowing what to tell them. Having to work to support them, but not being able to be there with them, making sure they were safe. And not wanting to give up on a marriage, because thats not the way he was raised. His parents were married over 40 some years when his father passed away. He loved his wife and didn't want his sons to be raised without a mother.
His son's would call him at work and tell him "mommy is gone" and he'd have to hurriedly leave work to go take care of them. Sometimes it would be a night or two, sometimes weeks would go by and he would never know. When she was there, money would be missing, household items, even cars would disappear-sold to buy crack.
Along with the drug addiction came adultery, he could only imagine and fear what she was doing. When her boyfriends got tired of her, she'd come back home and "promise" it wouldnt' happen again. But it happened, again, and again, and again, and again.
Over the years, he kept telling himself it would get better, she'll stop. He tried everything he could to try to get her stop. Changing himself, trying to change the surroundings, trying one option after another, hoping and praying that something would trigger inside of her to get her to stop. But you can't stop a person like that who doesn't want to stop. You can't make someone change just because you want to, you have to accept they are who they are. You can't make someone treat you with respect. You can't make someone else be a good parent. You can't make someone else turn into someone they never were to begin with.
She finally left him for good, deciding drugs were more important than her family, more valuable to her than anything else.
so what did she leave behind? A trail of disaster. Two sons who are so emotionally scarred that they don't leave the house. They have very little communication with the outside world. Two sons who have built a coat of armor around themselves, around their hearts that virtually enslaves them. They don't have friends. Neither finished school-both dropped out. Neither has learned a trade or attended college. Neither have girlfriends, or best friends that they are involved with. Some online friends-but thats the extent of it. But they do have their dad, what's left of him.
The happy go lucky friend I had? He's a broken shell of a man. The former military officer with the promising future ended up losing a succession of jobs because of his wife. He works two small part time menial jobs. He's been to jail twice because of some things she did and she was responsible for, but he was held accountable.
He's a good dad and he loves his sons, but he's afraid to hurt his sons. Therefore, he can't force them to go to school-they won't go. As much as he won't admit it, he's afraid of the repercussions from forcing them to do anything-they'll hate him, they'll leave and go live with their mother, they'll reject him, they'll abandon him, etc.
He doesn't have any real friends himself. He doesn't have a "real" life either. He can't afford to much more than house and feed his sons, so he hasn't been out of his house for years except to go to work. I've lived here in North Carolina for less than 12 weeks and I already know the area better, because I have gone out and looked around. He doesn't go look around, because he can't afford the gas.
When he comes around, if we have a disagreement, he goes running. He can't stay and discuss anything, he just runs. All that he has heard for the past twenty years is the negative stuff his wife had said to him, and the negative comments from others about being divorced, or being arrested, or losing his job. He hasn't had any positive comments in years. No one has paid any attention to him, so he has just convinced himself he's the bad guy. He's the one with the shortfalls. He's somehow responsible for all of the bad things that have happened to his children. He alone. There are smiles, but it's a game. He smiles because its polite and friendly to smile at others, and thats how he was brought up. You don't people your problems, you keep them to yourself, and you don't tell others. You don't ask for help-real people don't ask for help, any losers do. You get my point. It's been breaking my heart just to see him.
So how does he deal with it. Well he drinks his cares away. He doesn't go out to bars and unless you caught him pouring alcohol into a cup, you'd never know it. You don't really smell it. He doesn't act crazy or violent, or fall down. He just sits on his couch and has a drink every night until he falls asleep. It started off as a way to just drown out the bad times, but then it became a habit. I think he has just numbed his heart from all of the pain and sorrow he has been feeling over the years.
Then the other guy. The young guy. He too was a happy go lucky young man, as a teenager. Had friends, was going to college, played sports, had his whole life ahead of him. But like the first guy, he got married young. Too young. Like the first guy, "had" to get married. Thats what you do when you get a girl pregnant, you marry her. Even if its a great possibility the baby isn't yours. Thats not how you were raised. You marry whether you really love the person or not. Thats the "right" thing to do.
So he gets married, and while his wife isn't into drugs immediately, they are on the way. Her initial "drug" is power. Power over him. Using the children as weapons to maintain that power. "Do this or I will take the kids." "Do this or you will never see the kids again." "Quit this job, or I am leaving and taking the kids." He quits college because now he has a family to take care of. He gets jobs pretty easy, but quits as his wife demands, (she doesn't like it when there are other women in the workplace).
He goes in the army at her demand, and then he gets out as soon as he can at her demand. They move across the country for a new start, but move back to her mother's at her demand. Always with the, "do this or I will take the kids and you will never see them again, ever."
He's no longer the happy go lucky kid he used to be. He doesn't go out much in public anymore. He's got nervous twitches, "tics". He talks to himself. He's convinced himself that he is the bad guy. He loves her. He won't leave her no matter what his behavior is, because he doesn't want to be that guy who leaves a wife and kids. He won't leave with the kids, because he doesn't want to be the dad that took his kids away from their mother.
And she has progressed with her addiction, to real drugs. Initially it was just marijuana, but has grown to pills, alcohol, "oxy" parties, and occasionally cocaine. He too has been arrested. He too has made poor decisions. He too has tried to justify her behavior, change her behavior, try to change the surroundings so maybe her behavior will change, all to no avail. Because he also doesn't get: you can't make people change. You can't make people be who they aren't. They are either going to do the right thing, or the wrong thing, but it's their choice and no matter how hard you try, it has to be their decision, their action, it has to be a part of their "being" to be what they are.
As I look at the younger guy, I realize, he is just the younger version of my older friend. This is how the destruction of a life happens. I've watched it from the beginning and I've watched how his personality has changed. I've watched as he has made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision, all because he doesn't want to give up on a marriage, doesn't want to be away from his children, and doesn't want to accept that his life with his wife is never going to be what he wants it to be, ever.
He's now sitting in jail. He hasn't turned to alcohol to drown out his sorrow-at least not yet. He's in the "I don't know how to fix this but I will do 100 stupid things to try and fix it" stage. And he's going to end up paying for it. He's an army war veteran with a college degree with years of work experience who has been fired, been arrested, and believes he is the cause of all of the problems in his family and his life. His self esteem is also completely shattered. While he was not perfect beforehand, he is not even a shell of who and what he used to be.
so what do these two guys have in common? What is it about them, that they have taken the paths they have taken?
They are both tender hearted.
They have the kind of hearts that will forgive over, and over and over. they will accept blame and responsibility because they are willing to "understand and forgive" the other person, over and over and over again, no matter how destructive it is to themselves. They don't want to stop loving. They don't want to give up hope. They just believe in love and that love will fix everything. They've loved the people in their lives so much more than they loved themselves, that they both now believe they are unlovable.
Many people don't understand people with a tender heart. I understand. I've been there. I made the same mistakes they made. I've lost jobs. I've been to a jail cell. I've blamed myself for "causing" my husband to leave me. I've convinced myself that I don't deserve to be loved and that its easier to just close out the world. I got to the point where I literally begged on my knees.
I shudder now at the thought of what I allowed to happen. I understand now that my intentions were good, they were right. My intention was to hold my family together. My intention was thinking that it really could be fixed if I just gave a little more, did a little more, said a little less, complained a little less. You do that long enough and you really do convince yourself that you do not matter. Thats its okay not to matter. You do everything you can to try and protect your heart, not realizing that you are giving another person the ability to destroy your heart.
Over the past couple years, I've had people tell me I am "heartless". That I am "mean," or "callous" or whatever they want to call me. I am not heartless. i still have a heart. I feel it pounding inside of me every day. I see and think about some things and I do my best to hide my tears. I figured I cried enough in the past 14 years that I don't need to cry anymore. I stand up for myself now and refuse to take any crap from anyone. Anyone wants to ignore my feelings or step all over me, I no longer tolerate it. And I speak up. I don't bite my tongue anymore. I don't cower away afraid of being rejected because of having my own opinion. I am no longer afraid of being me and standing up for what I believe in.
I am not closed off to love. I have found that out a couple times over the past year. I'm not closed off to trust, I do have some trust, I just don't blindly trust by nature anymore. I'll trust you while holding one eye a little more open than the other.
I wish I could do something to protect these two men. I too, wish I could change them into being how I want them to be. but I have learned, you can't make someone be who you want them to be. They have to want to be that person themselves. they have to take action on their own and it has to be a part of their being.
I hope they both know that I love them with all of my heart. That they are lovable, that they did not deserve what happened to them, and that they do deserve to be loved.
And I hope they both learn to love themselves.
1 comment:
Heartbreaking stories, all of them. I won't get into the who is to blame on any of them.
I just want to add that there is hope for all parties: the drug addict, the broken children, the bruised husband, the controller, the jailed, the adulterer, and the angry one.
That hope is not in toughening up. It's not in pulling yourself together and making tough decisions. It's not in giving up on bad people.
Hope is found in the living God, who never gives up on people. He never turns away even the most wicked, nasty, pathetic, stupid, wayward, hurtful one among us. Not only does he not turn us away, He embraces us. He cleanses us. If we allow him, he makes us even more tender-hearted. He makes us like Himself. We become love.
Love gives the addict what they're really thirsting for instead of shaking a fist at them. Love showa the broken children what a real mother and father are like: nurturing, dependable, relentlessly loving. Love demonstrates the peace in submission to the one who craves control. Love frees the captive from the prison of anger, violence, and abuse by showing them peace, comfort, and self-control given by the Holy Spirit. Love puts down the rocks to throw at the adulterer, keeping in mind every man's own unfaithfulness God. Love forgives. Love gives anger, hurt, and the need for justice to God - trusting that He will make all things right and good.
Nothing can be truly good without the love that comes from knowing God.
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