Unveiling Divorce: The Dark Truths Behind Happily Ever After

Join host Todd Turner on the UnYoked Podcast in Episode 14: "The Dark Truths Behind Happily Ever After," where he delves deep into the soul-stirring journey of post-divorce recovery. This episode is an unfiltered examination of life after the crumbling of matrimonial dreams, assessing if societal norms have truly given us a realistic understanding of marriage (00:02:15 - 00:06:40). Capturing insights from his own life altering changes, from a secular career to a purpose-driven life in ministry (00:22:10 - 00:25:30), Turner fervently discusses the ripple effects of divorce on personal identity, societal expectations, and intergenerational family dynamics (00:10:50 - 00:13:20). If you're wrestling with the realities of starting afresh or seeking solace in spirituality (00:08:00 - 00:09:25), this is a must-listen. Episode 14 does not shy away from the hardships faced when faith, hope, and love are put to the ultimate test. Find motivation to blossom from your most vulnerable state and gain a healthier perspective on life's unexpected turns (00:18:55 - 00:20:45). Come for the raw truths, stay for the liberating freedom as you navigate your roadmap to healing (00:27:50 - 00:30:00). #DivorceRecovery #BrokenWorldHealing  

Transcript

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You. The unyoked podcast, navigating the pain process and possibilities after a christian divorce. You. When we walk down that aisle, 98% of us never imagined things would go where they did. You know, I guess there's A-2-I hear about people who got married, and they said, I just knew when I walked down that aisle, I shouldn't be doing this. I thought, well, should have turned and run. But I guess with social pressure, that's just a little awkward. But most of us went into our marriages totally optimistic of what the future would bring. And then we entered the honeymoon phase, which is just wonderful, right? It's so easy, and you just start living your happily ever after. But to me, it wasn't the wedding that was so important. I remember telling people that one of the happiest days of my life was the day I decided who I was going to spend the rest of my life with. I was driving down a road and I just sort of looked over. I think we're at a four way stop, and I don't even know what was on the radio. I don't know what she was thinking, but I remember it clicked like, this is the person I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. And that's when I started really digging in, leaning in, thinking about the ring, thinking about asking her to be with me for the rest of my life. The decision day was the most important day, right? Not the asking, not the day itself, not the wedding, none of that. It was the decision. But then the divorce, right? When it happens, it just hits you like a ton of bricks. You're forced into rethinking about absolutely everything in your life. Your home, your job, possibly your identity. You were one, and now you're not. Your friends and your relationships with your children and even the relationship with God. You're starting all over. You're resetting. Every marriage is lived both in the present and in the future. You were probably like me, constantly thinking about the both of you as a couple and where you're going to be. Five years, ten years, 20 years down the road. A married couple is like two trees that are growing side by side. The longer they grow next to one another, the more intertwined their root systems become and the harder it is to extricate one from the other. Divorce naturally takes away any dreams and expectations that the two of you share together, often leaving you confused. And you're forced into learning how to build a brand new life that does not include your ex, or even the ex's family or the circles that you all have created of neighbors and extended family, and all those traditions that you built side by side, all gone. And this is why newly divorced individuals find it so hard and difficult to look forward, that you can feel yourself stuck in the past, unable to reconcile, that this chapter of your life is over. And you're continually replaying what went wrong, and you're thinking through all the pain and the negativity. And what happens is depression. I mean, depression is a real thing. It comes with numbing and isolation. And it's not just thinking through the divorce issues and your new lifestyle. It's the crushing of all those forward thinking dreams. They're all gone. And so your relationship died and your dreams died. And I don't think we spend near enough time thinking about the crushing of those dreams. Your vows that you said before God and others was a commitment to being a team, and that team was forward thinking. And then one day, it all comes crashing down with the judge's order. So, once again, processing a divorce is complex. There are the issues, the fighting, the affairs, the abuse, addictions are all the above. Some of you literally have to deal with all the above. Sometimes it's just one thing that causes the divorce. And then you have the sub issues. That one fight, that one sentence that was said, or that one trip back five years ago changed everything. And then, of course, there's the root issues of the divorce. Could be sin, personality disorders. And there's the fights, the circular fights that lead to more fights and repeated tension areas in your relationship with your spouse. And then, of course, there's a divorce drama itself. Unyoking is so hard. There's so many layers. This is the dumpster fire of it all. And you are mentally exhausted coming out of that. So you have this divorce grief, if you will. And that's the conflicting feelings calls. When you have sort of a similar familiar pattern of behavior and it changes or ends, it leads you into this spiral of grief. So you have these conflicted feelings and the heartbreak and the hurt, sometimes the relief and maybe a little hope that are totally normal at the end of any relationship, right? But those who've never gone through this like we have, they just don't understand this idea of broken dreams. They've never had to process it. And so I just thought it'd be important to talk about it a little bit because it's very, very real. So sometimes we forecast life, right? We think about, well, we're going to date, there's courting, their engagement. You're married, you're going to have births, and then the pillow talk, the vacations, the memories you put together. And then there's that rocking chair talk. Here's what we're going to do when we retire. And one day we'll have gone through all these milestones of a marriage, and we'll be together with all the children and grandchildren around us. You just forecast that. Then you even think through about your children. You talk about them, their dreams and their plans and how you're going to pour into them. I think about those times where you just sort of look down at your child in the crib and you think about what it took to create that child and all the nurturing of that and the woman's womb, and you just sort of think, what are they going to look like and who they're going to be? And you learn their personality. And it takes teamwork to raise that child. But who of us ever assumed that that child in that crib would be raised in a broken home? It's so tough and so crushing. And knowing that this unyoking causes drastic ripple effects in families, even for generations, it's just hard to fathom sometime. So besides knowing our covenant promise to God and family and our friends and our spouse, we carry the burden of the fantasies of society. Tv, movies, Disney. Some of you married your dream, not the person. Let me unpack that. The wedding and the status was the carrot you were chasing. Does that make sense? Even if you married for pure love, we all have to admit that we knew marriage was the goal. And we live in a society where it's pushed on us that you find somebody, you fall madly in love, the woman is saved by the prince, and you take that kiss and you live happily ever after. Not really true. And then, of course, our own families, I've seen some parents and families really push marriage on their child, or even a particular partner on their child. And some of you listening don't know what I'm talking about, because your spouse was pushed on you or the type of partner was pushed on you, right? The family is like you're marrying a doctor or you're marrying this kid at church, or they pushed a certain relationship with you. And so you may have been in love, but the whole marriage was really pushed on you, if that makes sense. And then, of course, we're christians, right? So we go to church, and there, whether on purpose or not, it is implied that we are incomplete people without a marriage partner. Does that make sense? We're incomplete and we are broken. If we are divorced or widowed, right. But that's really not the way Paul puts it. He actually talks about what an advantage it is to serve the Lord without the burden of. Don't. Honestly, I don't fully know the theology. Know Genesis is very big of Adam and how it's not good for him to be alone. And he created Eve, and that's sort of what we teach from the pulpit. And then Paul's also like, yeah, but think about how great you can serve the Lord without the burden of a spouse. And so you have those two tensions there. But as an aside, I'm not a perfect theologian, so I'm not going to unpack that. That's not the purpose. But I do have this little side note. Adam. Can you imagine Adam being alone and he's naming the animals and he's just like, well, there's two elephants and there's two giraffes. Why am I here by myself? Have you ever wondered about that? He's like, I don't get one of these. I don't get another spouse. How long did that last where he was scratching his head? Just always thought about that. So how do we process the crushing of our dreams, our goals, our fantasies, or our homes dying, if you will? Did we ever have a healthy lens to begin with? Did our parents, our church or society even teach what is a healthy view of marriage at all? Did we ever have it right from the beginning? And what does living in a genesis three world even look like? Does that make sense? Like, there is Adam and Eve and the way God created the garden, and then there's the way things were supposed to look like, and then we live in a genesis three on world, a broken world. What does that look like? And what can I bank on, if you will, when I think through marriage and a partner? So let me start there. American culture is a false standard, but what is God's lens? And is it too late to put them on? Do we need a partner ready? Do we need a second partner if we're past the child rearing ages, right? Like instead of leaving our parents and coming together and raising a family and multiplying on their earth, what happens if we're past that? Some of you listening in your twenty s and thirty s or still have child bearing capabilities may have a different lens on right. Because your second spouse, you can still create a family for those who are a little bit older, like myself. Is marriage just because we're supposed to be? What is this correct healthy lens of what marriage is? And what does it mean for us to live in this genesis three, broken world. Does that make sense? So how do we deal with these broken world issues? It can lead to pessimism. I'm telling you. It's led there for me. And I know plenty of other people just have a very negative view of marriage. I know a lot of people. I'd actually read a stat about this, is that the older you get, the chances of you having a significant other and not a wife or a husband goes up dramatically as people don't want to deal with the pains of merging two lives, not only with kids and grandkids and finances and businesses. They just say, I'll take a copartner, and my dreams are crushed. I'm not going to live happily ever after. So I'm just going to make do with what I can. I'll be honest with you, and I'm going to say I haven't landed the plane fully, just to be quite honest, because I'm still chewing, still learning, still praying about it. But I live in this world where I just see God as sovereign. And yes, he is. We all know that. But I don't know how much of us have really thought about that. If you don't understand what sovereign means, God literally is in charge. It wasn't like he set the world in motion and sits back and wonders what happened. And it's not even that he knows the future. He's sovereign. He creates the future. He knows it, creates it, orchestrates it. He is in charge. And being sovereign is like being pregnant. You either are or you're not. You can't be sort of sovereign. You can't be sort of pregnant. You are. You're not. Well, if God is sovereign, then he knows the beginning from the end and he controls it. The Bible says, lord's in the heaven. He does whatever he pleases. Right. And so got to get into a little theology here. This idea that the Bible is written for us. Yes, it is. But it's God's story. God's in control. And there are people living within the story that I feel sorry they were slaves in Egypt. Well, there are people who lived and died as slaves. And we act like, well, you can live your best life now. And God's like, well, they didn't. They didn't. There are plenty of people who live horrible, tragic lives in a sinful, broken world. And when I get my bearings and thinking about God is telling us a story, the story. I'm not irrelevant to the story. I'm in the story. And God does love me, but I don't look at life all this around me, and even my life as I'm the main player, I'm a part of a bigger story. And so with that lens on and when you go through tragedy, somebody asked me if I was mad at God. A lot of things happened to me over a couple of year period. Have you ever been mad at God? And I said, I don't think so because I think I have a healthy view of who God is and who am I to get mad at him and tell him how it was supposed to go. Divorce, deaths, horrible things that have happened in people's lives. We live in a world that sin has affected deeply, deeply. And to act like we were supposed to have or we deserve a certain ending and a certain lifestyle is wrong. This idea of live your best life now, it's not even biblical. It's not biblical at all. So on this side of divorce, you can have an unhealthy lens of what life was supposed to be. And that can put you in a tailspin, because what you wanted, what you assumed you were going to get, walking down the aisle, didn't come to fruition. And it's really complicated because this next person, I would even say that your first person, some of you have been married more than once, but each person, you go into every relationship sort of expecting certain behavior and you have certain hopes and expectations, and many of these are reasonable, right? One of these expectations may be that your partner will be faithful to you. It could be that you'll be respected, treated kindly, that you'll feel loved, and that you'll go off and build a life together. We have these dreams about what our life will look like, especially when it comes to marriage. And so hopefully, when you said, I do, you envision celebrating a 20 year anniversary together? Maybe your 50th? I'm going to be honest, post divorce, this just happened. I'm in divorce five years. And I would tell you at least the first three, maybe four years. If you're watching this and you're my friend on Facebook, I apologize. But it took me years not to unfollow people on Facebook who celebrated anniversaries. The second I'm scrolling and somebody goes, oh, my wife's amazing. This is our 30th year. I would unfollow. I don't think I unfriended any of you, but I definitely unfollowed a bunch of you because it was painful. It was painful for me, looking down at a dream I had that I'll never reach. I won't hit those numbers and it just was soul crushing to me to see other people get that, and I didn't. And I think some of that's a little bad theology, and some of it's just pain. Like, you're in the trauma. And I just felt jipped, if you will, out of something I really, really craved. And it was painful. But how we cope with that grief from a loss can hurt us even more. Even more than loss itself is mismanaging the post unyoking grief. These feelings often lead to behaviors that, even though they're normal, they're often not helpful. We tend to do at least one of a few things to cope with a breakup. We try one to replace the loss too soon, or we isolate ourselves, or we numb and avoid our feelings. With tv scrolling through social media, some people just pour themselves into their work or working out or alcohol, drugs, sex. It's the Netflix. My first years, I'm not making this up when I watch Netflix. You know that little thing that pops up when you leave Netflix and you go to the store and you come back and it says, are you still watching? How many times I saw that? Are you still watching? Like, the computer couldn't figure out. There's no way anybody has watched 18 episodes in a row. And I was like, yeah, I'm still here. Still here. Still sitting in this bed, having my pity party. Because life didn't go the way I wanted, and I was just numbing. But none of these things really help you heal. They just keep you feeling incomplete in pain. And this false sense of, I'll never be able to truly love again. But here's what I want to say. Don't waste this pain. Invest it. Put your pain to work, if you will. It sounds like a motivational speak, but it is. Allow it to motivate you to grow and become a healthier person and honestly put on healthy lenses of what life is supposed to be and untrain yourself from this idea of, you deserve anything. You've got a lot. You've got grace, the Lord's grace. Give yourself time to heal, and it takes time to face this pain and to begin again in single life. Right. And come to understand what went wrong. A broken arm takes weeks to heal. A broken heart takes much longer, but it's not forever. Right? It normally takes at least a year or more. I think we've talked about it, is that there's formulas that you've been married this long, here's how long your healing should last. Well, that's not perfect. It's not scientific, but I just don't understand how people have married 20 years and they're out dating in six months. I don't think it's healthy. I've never seen it be healthy. Never seen one yet that somebody was healed before they moved on. I've had people laugh when they talk to me and they're like, oh, you're only one year in, or you're only three years in. And I'm five. And I literally got shame the other day, oh, you're only on year five. Like, it was like, you're not even. There's no way. No way you found yourself and got a healthy lens before you move on at five years. How depressing is that? Just knowing that when somebody is that healed, five years acts like we're the newbies sort of hurts. There's a great book called, it's not supposed to be this way. And it's just interesting that the writer, she talks about the three words in God's command was it really, don't do this. Don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But it said, you are free. You are free. It was a positive, not a negative. You are free to do this. So the devil slithered in and he tempted with what they didn't have. Right? Isn't that like him, right to talk about what you don't have? Well, you would be happy if what he wants us to believe that God's holding out on us. You'd be happier if you were married. You'd be happier if you were married to someone else. You'd be happy if you had children. You'd be happy when your kids are gone and you can empty nest. You'd be happy if you had a bigger house, more money, a thinner body. But unfortunately, the you be happy lie has introduced this destructive detour into our lives. The devil is a master at deception. He did it in the garden and he's doing it now. Did God really say that? So let's talk about these lenses to put on healthy lenses, making sense of it all. So today, start working towards a goal, like a healthy goal, not living in the past, not feeling neglected, and, oh, life didn't go the way I want work towards a goal. I'm going to say something right now. It feels very left field, sort of is. But I've seen a lot of people get paralyzed right here. Where, what am I going to do? What should I do? Should I move here? Should I do this? Should I change careers? Should I do whatever? And they pray about it, which prayer is a wonderful thing, but I think a lot of people treat decisions as right versus wrong. Should I, does God want me to do this? And I'm going to go back to God says, you are free, you are free to do these things. Not every decision, not every forward possibility is right or wrong. It's left or right. If God allows it, then you're allowed to do it. If it doesn't violate God's law, it's permissible. Now, is it wise? Is it prudent? But does he want you to marry a prostitute? Probably not, though he did that in the Bible, but that's another story. But does he want you to start selling drugs and open become a pimp? Probably not. Right, but do you want to move to Florida and start doing whatever? Is it wise? Is it go, don't wallow. You are free. You are free. God put us on this earth to do amazing things. We're going to talk about that, start some new adventures. I would say this podcast is a little bit about me, right? I'm the one writing it and doing it. And I realize that different people have a different age and different scenarios. But I will tell you what hit me hard was empty nesting near a divorce. It's a double Reset. Even if you're married, empty nesting is a very tough thing. You've spent decades pouring into someone and then they leave and it's not as easy. I know kids. I remember my ex wife's parents. We got back from the honeymoon, just hugged her daughter and balled. And I remember thinking, aren't they happy? Why would they be bawling? I didn't get it. I was too young and dumb. But they were grieving and celebrating their daughter who they had poured into for decades. And she's leaving for the final time, she's leaving and it's hard. And then to be divorced where your house is double empty, your kids leave at the same time ish that your spouse leaves. And it is really tough as you have to navigate, like I say, broken dreams, this idea of what the future was going to look like, and then it comes to an end. It's really tough. But don't wallow. Your dreams may have never been helped you in the first place, they may not have been realistic and they may not have been covered with good theology, but your new dreams can be live on mission. I'm going to sort of wrap up with this. I'm going to give my testimony right. I love telling this. I just do. It's so good just because it's a God story. I got involved in the Internet way early, back in the 1990s, mid 1990s, before most of you even knew what an email was or even had one. And I worked for a company that was a secular company, and we made a lot of money. We hit the Internet hard and early, and we were one of the first companies to do things on the Internet. Microsoft gave us awards. Bill Gates took a picture with the guy who coded with me. I missed that. But they coded that we won awards on our websites because we were so cutting edge. And then I ended up thinking, well, instead of coding the rest of my life, I don't want to learn new coding languages all the time. I'll start marketing, started marketing, changed companies, made them a lot of money. And I thought, well, if I know what I'm doing, like, I know how to program, I know how to market, I can make money for myself. How about that? So I took a couple of year journey. I'm now married, I have kids, and I'm investing into my own businesses versus someone else's, and wasn't very good at managing my money, quite frankly. I made really good money. But I call it buy a boat, sell a boat, buy a boat, sell a boat. The money comes in like this. And I just didn't manage that very well. I don't remember exactly what was going on, but I remember this. I went to a church in Gunter, Texas, and I went on a weekday, and I walked up to the altar. It was dark, nobody was in there. Green carpet. I remember that because my face was down in it. And I just prayed. I said, God, you gave me a skill that. What am I supposed to do with this? I've tried to make other people money. I've tried to make myself money. I'm not satisfied. And I don't want to go to my grave just exchanging my time for money. It's yours. You clearly gave me this. You wired me a certain way, you laid out opportunities before me. I am yours. And literally that week, an international ministry called me and they said, hey, we're looking for somebody. And what they could pay me was here. What I made was here. And it was a trust moment. And I just said, all right, lord, this is you. I feel it is. I made him a promise. I said, I'm not going to feed the old animal. I'm just going to let my businesses sort of die. If you don't feed them, they'll die. And I'm going to pour everything over here to this, because it's a view. I'm not going to play the game of doing both. I went all in with this ministry and over time God just perfectly lowered this income and replaced this income. And then now here I am 15 plus years later and I'm still serving in ministry. I'm a change person. I impact lives. I live on mission. It is the best job in the world. It's just sort of knowing that you're where God puts you doesn't mean it hasn't taken some turns here and there. But my motto at Tod Turner.com is I help people and ministries grow and go. And I'm here to tell you, I hope this doesn't come off as bragging. I'm just letting you know a little bit inside of myself, inside of my story. But here's why I say it. I'm flawed. I am not perfect. If my life has any fruit behind it is because of God's grace. But it is a pleasure working on mission, knowing that I'm waking up every day doing something bigger than myself. I don't spend too much time worried about what I drive, a used car. I don't think about what I'm going to collect and what I'm going to go do. Even though I love living a fulfilled life and I do travel, I just don't think God owes me a certain life and I've got to keep up with the Joneses. No, God is a master at redemptive stories. I'm living one and you can, too. He is in the heavens and he does whatever he pleases. This world we live in, it's temporary, no matter what you say. I'll say it again. Your best life now. It's a horrible mindset. God tells us in his word where to concentrate and how to navigate this life. Collecting stuff, social status, marriage to a certain type of person is not our goal. Put on a good lens. We live in a broken world. Don't worry about your broken dreams. Worry about the freedom you have from here on out. And go to toddturner.com divorce for more helpful resources on your divorce recovery journey. Blessings.