I suppose I need to start by mentioning another significant thing that happened that first summer of our marriage. My husband decided he couldn’t work for Boy Scouts anymore because of the time commitment on the weekends, and he talked to the appropriate person in our denomination about starting graduate training to become a pastor. So in the midst of my failing health and being verbally, emotionally, and physically battered, I was helping my husband fill out applications to seminaries to begin classes that same fall. He chose a seminary located about 1 1/2 hours drive away from my family’s home. We lived in a small apartment about 3 blocks from the seminary that first semester, and I became pregnant again. All my protective mothering instincts kicked it to shelter the little one I carried, but my body was still far from recovered from the physical collapse less than a year earlier and all the other demands I had made on my body following that. This pregnancy was diagnosed right after I had accepted a teaching position in the state I had gotten my degree and teacher certifications from; so I was commuting 1 1/2 hours each direction for work while I was horribly sick to my stomach. My body struggled to survive and protect this little one I carried. The severe nausea didn’t decrease as the pregnancy continued, so we moved close to my work and my husband commuted to his seminary. I  lost 30 lbs during that pregnancy, and vomited nearly every day. I went a full 5 weeks past my due date because my doctor wanted to give this baby every possible chance to grow inside me. Finally, when he did induce, the placenta had deteriorated significantly and the baby got pneumonia from infection in the amniotic fluid she inhaled during the birth process. The doctor figured she had lost a minimum of a pound by letting her go so late.

We had planned for me to stay home with the baby so after the school year ended we made arrangements to move into the seminary my husband was attending just before his new term started. The due date was July 1 so we thought there would be plenty of time after the baby arrived to prepare for the move; but it turned out she was born the end of the last week before my husband’s classes started and the weekend we were scheduled to move. The baby had been transferred to an infant ICU at a hospital in the city the seminary was in. My doctor had planned on keeping me as an inpatient after the delivery for as long as he could because I was so weak and vulnerable; but once my baby was transferred I was very determined to be released so that I could be with my baby. So I sat in the ICU with my baby while my husband and family members moved our belongings.

I wish I could say things got better between my husband and I at that point, but it would be dishonest. I had not planned to be so detailed about this part of our life. Now I’m going to do some major condensation. The abuse continued, at times being worse and at times being better. People think that abusers are always evil; but that is rarely the case. Frequently, as was true in our case, there are episodes of abuse, even seasons of abuse, and seasons when the abuser seems to really try to do better with some measure of success. There were redeeming qualities in my husband, as is true of most abusers, which I was  determined to hang on to and nurture. Consequently there were ups and downs, but the downs at times were dangerous. The journey that eventually lead to divorce was long and hard. I was hospitalized in both medical hospitals and psychiatric hospitals due to my husband’s abuse. For a very long time I refused to even consider divorce; but eventually I let God  lead me out of my first marriage. As years continued to go by my ex-husband did make some major changes. I don’t think he would be abusive to a new wife if he were to remarry. But I don’t believe that he would have ever come out of the abusive life style if we had not divorced him; and I’m very confident that God not only gave me permission to divorce him – God lead me to divorce him. That is a very complex and lengthy thing to explain, which is something I don’t want to do here and now; but if God had not directly lead me to divorce my first husband, I wouldn’t have done it Much healing has taken place in both of our lives that wouldn’t have happened if I had not done it.