I am doing something I never imagined I would do: file for divorce. There is a strange tension in even writing those words. On one hand, I have reached the point where I believe I have to accept that my marriage is ending. I cannot force reconciliation. I cannot make another person communicate, participate, forgive, change, or come back to the table. There are things in life that simply aren’t within my control. But on the other hand, there is something I still cannot bring myself to throw away: my vows.
When I stood before God and married my wife, I didn’t make a promise that was supposed to last only as long as marriage was easy. I promised for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health. Those words still mean something to me, and it is that last promise, in sickness and in health, that has weighed particularly heavily on me.
My wife has a brain tumor. I won’t share the private details of her medical history because those are hers to tell, not mine. I also need to be careful here. I am not a physician, and I cannot medically establish that her tumor caused the problems that developed within our marriage. I understand that medical professionals may not share my concerns about the effects I believe I have witnessed. But I was her husband for 15 years. I lived beside her every day, and over those years, I observed changes that concerned me deeply.
From my perspective, fear increasingly became a powerful presence in our lives, fear concerning our children, fear about finances, fear surrounding fidelity and trust, fear of death, and fear about things that sometimes seemed much larger to her than they appeared to me. I also believed I was witnessing changes in her ability to reason through difficult situations calmly and to respond proportionately when she felt threatened or afraid. Again, I cannot tell you medically why those things happened. I cannot say with certainty that a brain tumor caused them. I can only tell you what I experienced as the husband who lived alongside her.
More than anger, I sometimes feel sadness about it. There is a part of me that wishes someone could simply remove the tumor and somehow make everything better. I wish it were that simple. I wish surgery could remove not only the physical problem but also the fear, confusion, hurt, distrust, and everything else that has accumulated around our marriage. Maybe that’s unrealistic. Maybe the tumor explains some of what I witnessed. Maybe it explains none of it. I simply don’t know. Nobody really knows, only God.
What I do know is that I don’t want to turn my wife’s suffering into an accusation against her. There have been times when I have felt that people looking at our circumstances saw a simple story with a villain and a victim. From where I stood inside our marriage, however, our story was much more complicated. There were physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and legal issues all colliding at once. I had my own failures and things for which I am responsible, but I also lived alongside struggles that other people simply did not see.
I wish those complexities had received more consideration. I wish there had been more room to ask questions instead of immediately assigning motives and blame. But ultimately, I cannot make other people see our marriage through my eyes. More importantly, I don’t want to use my wife’s illness to excuse my own mistakes or to make her the villain instead. I want to have compassion for her.
That brings me back to those words I spoke years ago: in sickness and in health. Those words were easy to say standing at an altar. They are much harder to understand when sickness, suffering, fear, broken relationships, and divorce become part of real life. If my wife is struggling in ways I cannot fully understand, I don’t want my response to be hatred. If something medical has contributed to what happened between us, I wish desperately that it could be treated. And even if the tumor has absolutely nothing to do with the breakdown of our marriage, she is still a person facing something frightening and uncertain. I still care about that, even now, even here, even as I prepare for divorce.
Divorce Doesn’t Require Me to Stop Caring
There is a part of me that would find it much easier to become completely hardened. After everything that has happened, I could tell myself, “She’s not my problem anymore.” But I don’t think that’s the man God has called me to be. That doesn’t mean pretending everything is okay. It doesn’t mean ignoring boundaries, abandoning wisdom, or remaining indefinitely trapped in circumstances I cannot change. It doesn’t even necessarily mean that divorce shouldn’t happen. It simply means I don’t want bitterness to decide what kind of man I become.
Romans 12:17 says, “Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.” That’s difficult when you feel deeply wounded. Our flesh wants to keep score. We want justice. We want acknowledgment. Sometimes we want the other person to finally understand what they have done to us. But following Christ asks something different of me. It asks me to do what is right even when I believe someone else has done what is wrong.
What Does “In Sickness and in Health” Mean Now?
Since our marriage is coming to an end, what happens to the concern I still have for my wife’s health? I don’t have a perfect answer. What I do know is that I don’t want divorce papers to suddenly erase my humanity or my compassion. This is still someone I shared years of my life with. She is still the mother of my children. Whatever has happened between us, her suffering should not become something I celebrate or dismiss.
There may be very real limits on what I can do. There may be walls I cannot get through. There may be help I would gladly give that she does not want from me. Loving someone does not give me permission to force my way into that person’s life. Sometimes honoring what you once promised may simply mean being willing, willing to help if appropriate, willing to pray when you cannot help, willing to show compassion instead of contempt, and willing to hope that the person receives the care she needs even if you are no longer the person providing it. That may be one of the hardest forms of love: caring about someone while accepting that you cannot control what happens next.
I Still Want to Do What’s Right
Micah 6:8 asks a simple but incredibly difficult thing of us: “…what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” That’s what I want. I don’t want to walk away from this marriage celebrating. I don’t want to become consumed with revenge. I don’t want my pain to give me permission to become cruel. And I don’t want to look back someday and realize that because somebody hurt me, I decided my own principles no longer mattered.
My character cannot depend upon somebody else’s character, and my obedience cannot depend upon somebody else’s obedience. I am responsible before God for what I do next. Galatians 6:9 tells us, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” Sometimes “well doing” doesn’t produce the outcome we hoped for. Sometimes you do what you believe is right and the marriage still ends. Sometimes you forgive and reconciliation doesn’t happen. Sometimes you pray and circumstances don’t change. Sometimes you remain willing to help someone who no longer wants your help. Doing the right thing isn’t a transaction with God that guarantees the outcome we desire. We do what is right because it is right.
The Closure I Had Hoped For
One of the things I had hoped for through all of this was that somewhere along the way, we would finally sit down and talk. I hoped reconciliation might still be possible, but even if it wasn’t, I hoped mediation, counseling, or simply an honest conversation would give us an opportunity to meet somewhere in the middle and understand where each other stood. Maybe I would hear directly from her that she was done. Maybe she would look me in the eyes and tell me that she no longer wanted this marriage and had no desire to reconcile. As painful as that would be, at least I would know. I could hear it from her own mouth, accept the reality of it, and begin walking away with some sense of closure.
But that conversation hasn’t happened, and that’s one of the hardest things for me to understand. I still have so many unanswered questions. I don’t completely understand why things have unfolded the way they have. I don’t understand why reconciliation isn’t something she wants to pursue. I don’t understand why, after everything we shared and built together, we cannot at least have a conversation about how it ended.
I would like to talk to her, not to argue, not to force reconciliation, and not to convince her of something she has already decided against. I would simply like to understand. I would like an opportunity for both of us to say what needs to be said, to hear one another, and, if the marriage truly is over, to close that door with honesty and dignity. But I am beginning to realize that closure is another thing I cannot force.
Ecclesiastes 3:7 says there is “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” I wish this were the time to speak. I wish we could have that conversation. But I cannot make another person communicate with me simply because I believe the conversation needs to happen. That leaves me with a difficult reality: I may have to move forward without ever receiving all the answers I want.
Maybe someday we will have that conversation. I hope we do. But I cannot put the rest of my life on hold waiting for it. At some point, I have to accept that another person’s silence may itself be something I have to live with, even when I don’t understand it. Perhaps part of surrendering this marriage to God is surrendering my need to understand every part of how it ended. I can still leave the door open for an honest conversation without standing in the doorway forever.
Why I Believe I Can Let Go
There was a time when I didn’t believe abandonment applied to my marriage. We were separated, deeply wounded, and facing circumstances I never imagined, but I still believed reconciliation was possible. I prayed for it. I hoped for it. I wanted counseling, mediation, or simply an opportunity for us to sit across from one another and honestly talk about whether our marriage could be saved. But eventually I had to wrestle with a difficult question: At what point does separation become abandonment?
Scripture takes marriage extraordinarily seriously, and so do I. Jesus makes God’s intention clear in Matthew 19:6: “What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” That is one reason I have fought so hard internally against simply accepting divorce as inevitable. But Scripture also recognizes circumstances in which one spouse chooses to leave. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 7:15, “But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart. A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace.”
Christians disagree about exactly how broadly that passage should be applied, particularly when the spouse who leaves professes to be a Christian. I don’t want to pretend that difficult theological question doesn’t exist, nor do I want to bend Scripture until it tells me what I want to hear. Divorce is too serious for that. What I can do is look honestly at my circumstances and ask whether I am trying to preserve a marriage that the other person has already chosen to leave.
I cannot reconcile alone. Reconciliation requires two people. I can repent where I need to repent. I can forgive. I can pray. I can remain willing to talk. I can offer counseling. I can hope for restoration. But I cannot make another person participate in any of those things. That realization has changed the way I understand my circumstances.
There was a time when I believed I needed to keep fighting indefinitely because stopping somehow meant that I had failed to honor my covenant. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe there comes a point when allowing someone to leave is different from being the one who abandoned the marriage. Paul’s words are especially meaningful to me: “God hath called us to peace.” That doesn’t make divorce good. It doesn’t make the destruction of a marriage something to celebrate. And it certainly doesn’t erase my own failures or responsibilities. It simply reminds me that God does not call me to control another person’s decisions.
I believe I have made sincere efforts toward reconciliation. If an opportunity for an honest conversation were offered, I would still welcome it. If there were a genuine desire for counseling or mediation, I would still be willing to listen. But willingness is different from waiting forever.
So I am reaching a place where I believe I can let go without believing that my vows meant nothing. In fact, perhaps part of honoring those vows now is acknowledging how seriously I took them, how much I wanted restoration, and how reluctant I have been to accept that the marriage is over. I am not choosing divorce because marriage became inconvenient. I am accepting that I cannot preserve a covenant relationship by myself.
There is grief in that conclusion. There are still questions. There are still things I wish had happened differently, and I recognize that faithful Christians may interpret some of these Scriptures differently than I do. But after prayer, reflection, and everything that has happened, I believe I can move forward with a clear conscience, not because marriage doesn’t matter, but precisely because I believe it does. And now I have to entrust what I cannot repair to God.
I Can Let Go Without Hating Her
Maybe that’s what I’m beginning to understand. Letting go does not require hatred. Moving forward does not require pretending the past never mattered. Filing for divorce does not require me to wish suffering upon the person I’m divorcing, and accepting that my marriage has reached its end doesn’t mean that every promise I ever made suddenly becomes meaningless.
I can acknowledge what has happened. I can maintain appropriate boundaries. I can pursue the legal steps I believe are necessary. I can rebuild my life, and I can still care.
Jesus said in Luke 6:36, “Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.” Mercy doesn’t erase consequences. Mercy doesn’t call wrong right. Mercy doesn’t require reconciliation where reconciliation isn’t possible. Mercy simply refuses to allow another person’s actions to determine the condition of my heart. That’s the part I am responsible for.
The Man I Want to Be When This Is Over
Someday the legal proceedings will end. The papers will be signed. This chapter of my life will have a final page. When that day comes, I don’t just want to ask whether I won or lost. I want to ask something much more important: Did I honor God in the way I walked through it?
Did I tell the truth? Did I show mercy? Did I maintain appropriate boundaries without allowing them to become hatred? Did I pray for someone even when I was hurting? Did I remain willing to do good when doing good was difficult? Did I allow Christ, not bitterness, to determine the man I became?
I don’t know exactly what the future holds for my wife. I don’t know what the future holds for me. And I certainly don’t understand everything that has happened between us. But I know what I can control. I can control what kind of man I choose to be.
So even as I file for divorce, I want to honor what those vows represented. I want to remember that there was a time when I stood before God and promised to care for this woman in sickness and in health. Circumstances may now severely limit what that care can look like, but I don’t want my heart to become indifferent to her suffering. If there is an appropriate way for me to help, I want to be willing. If there isn’t, I can pray, and if all I can ultimately do is entrust her to God, then that is what I will do.
Because at the end of all of this, my greatest concern shouldn’t be proving that I was right and somebody else was wrong. It should be standing before God knowing that, as imperfectly as I may have done it, I tried to do what was right.
Not because it saved my marriage. Not because it changed somebody else. But because my vows mattered, my character matters, and most importantly, honoring God still matters, even at the end.
Related reading: Continue with Releasing What I Cannot Restore and What Does the Bible Say About Divorce?
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A question to consider: What does honoring your commitments look like when the outcome is no longer yours to control?
