Tag: Father-in-law

Chapter 31: Divorce and Dating: My Unwanted D-Words

20somethinganddivorced4 Comments

Divorce or Dating.

I’m not sure which D-word I dislike more.

The actual process of getting divorced was pretty straightforward. We’d had the legal red tape and rigmarole when we were legally separated in early 2013. That was hard. But the divorce was much, much easier. I only had to sign one piece of paper, as opposed to the fifty-something back in 2013. Sana came with me to a Justice of the Peace (JP) and I signed the page that Mr Ex had also already signed. There was a long line of people waiting for the JP, so it wasn’t even a situation involving small talk. It was just, “alright, sign here… alright, next person!”

And that was a blessing.

Two weeks later, my divorce certificate arrived in the post.

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Julia, my work colleague and dear friend – the one who randomly rocked up at my Church of Quirks on the day I first visited there, a couple of chapters ago – was separated and pending divorce, too. Her ex-husband and my ex-husband (no connection whatsoever) were both arranging our divorce paperwork, albeit from different countries. Mr Ex was in Bristol, England and Julia’s husband was here in Australia. Yet, unbeknown to both Julia and myself, our ex-husbands lodged our divorce applications on the exact same day. No mean feat for two strangers living in different countries! How bizarre.

So, Julia and I both received our divorce certificates in the post on the exact same day. Surreal. I have a divorce buddy. A fellow Jesus-loving, starting-life-from-scratch-again, had-a-cheating-husband, now-living-out-Plan-B buddy. (Not something I ever thought I’d say!)

It never fails to amaze me how easy it is to get divorced.

Sadly, I think buying a house with another person is actually a far bigger commitment than marriage and significantly harder to ‘get out of’.

Marriage, on the other hand, is ridiculously easy to get out of!

Crazy.

So, anyway, I was now divorced and feeling quite content and happy. That sounds like an oxymoron, but it’s true. I was OK.

That lasted only a short while, before my next mother-load tunnel popped up.

An email from my ex-father-in-law.

He wanted to share some news with me. He wanted me to hear it from him, rather than anyone else. He wanted to give me time to digest it.

“Mr Ex and Cosette are expecting a baby.”

And that killed me.

My heart was smashed into a zillion tiny pieces.

And I broke.

Yet again.

It’s one of the three times in my life that I have experienced darkness beyond words.

The first time was when Mr Ex revealed the affair and walked out. The second time was when I signed my separation papers. And the third time was hearing that Mr Ex and Cosette had a baby on the way.

I really, truly wanted to die.

I remember sitting on the bathroom floor in a mess. No will to live. There were sleeping pills on my bathroom shelf.

Would I ever do that?

I thought about it. But, no. Despite my very best efforts to be an atheist and despite my very best efforts to give up on myself, my life and my God, He just doesn’t let me go.

What saved me?

This blog.

Yep.

This blog. By the Grace of God.

After a time of dry-reach crying and hysterically throwing metaphorical ink pots around my house, I logged onto WordPress, my beloved blog host, and I wrote what would form a part of Chapter 19: Free Will and Throwing Ink Pots. Writing is my therapy. And a gift from God, I believe.

So, a big thank you to each and every one of my readers. And thank you, God, for 20somethinganddivorced.com.

In that chapter, I wrote about the feeling of the walls closing in. And me fighting back, like Martin Luther when he literally threw ink pots at what he perceived to be the devil. This was my ink pot moment.

While that chapter worked perfectly within my blogging time-frame (I was up to the bit about signing my separation papers), it was well and truly inspired by my reaction to Mr Ex’s pending fatherhood.

Oddly enough, my parents and friends didn’t see the baby news as upsetting. Sure, they thought it was annoying, unfair and perhaps a little shitty, but definitely not ground-breakingly terrible.

So why did I react in the way I did???

Perhaps knowing for years that I would be the person to have Mr Ex’s children, I was mourning the loss of the children that I may never have.

I’m not sure what it is with women and babies.

I spend 99.999% of my time grateful that I can be a selfish, single person with no nappies to change and the divine luxury of sleeping in (when I’m not skating, that is). I do what I want, when I want.

But then I’ll see a deliriously happy couple (you know the ones… they sit on a church pew and rub each others backs) and I want what they have.

And social media is the WORST for that.

I call it “IRWWTH” (pronounced “earth”) syndrome. I Really Want What They Have.

But, when I truly, honestly, deeply listen to myself… I mean really listen to myself… I am happy. I am complete. I am content and fulfilled and all that jazz. I really am.

It is only when I listen to the universe – through social media or that son of a bitch stereotype that tells us couples, marriages and children are the epitome of fulfillment – that I get jaded.

I don’t want to be that bitter, jealous, angry ex-wife. And I’m actually not.

So, how do I stop her from creeping in?

Fight like hell to listen to God, not the world.

And when I say ‘fight’, I do quite literally mean fight.

It’s warfare.

Much like my chapter about throwing ink pots, I had to fight. Fight the demons that tell you bullshit about your life. Fight the little voices in your head that belittle you and erode your sense of fulfillment.

And that is why my beautiful parents bought me a dog tag. It’s not your average, everyday dog tag. It’s a Tiffany & Co dog tag!

And it has two little words inscribed:

I know

One of my dearest, dearest friends at Happy’s (church), Michelle, gave me the idea.

“I know” signifies the beginning of my go-to Bible verse. Jeremiah 29:11.

‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord. ‘Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans to give you hope and a future’.

God tells me that I am loved as I am. God tells me that I’m complete as I am. God tells me that there’s nothing I could do that could ever separate me from His love. God tells me that I am made new. God tells me that I am worth it. God tells me that He has a plan for me. And a future.

The world tells me that I need a partner, a baby, a Thermomix and those annoying ‘My Family’ car stickers.

Don’t listen to that.

One of my favourite books in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. I can totally relate. It was written by King Solomon and I’m SURE he was feeling emo and dark when he wrote it. He wrote the book of Proverbs first (the previous Bible chapter), which is all nice and rosey and chipper. But then maybe he lived a little and discovered how shittily, shittily unfair this world can be.

Ecclesiastes starts off with, “Everything is meaningless; completely meaningless”. A little while on, it says, “I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless – like chasing the wind.” Not the most commonly known Bible verse, that’s for sure. But I love it. Because it addresses the universal disappointment that we experience when we place our hope, identity and faith in anything other than God. We will be disappointed. Guaranteed.

But in God, we have hope. We have completeness. We can move mountains with Jesus.

That sounds really preachy. But, truthfully, I’m writing that to myself more that anyone. Because that is the stuff I need to be reminded of regularly.

The other part of my pain?

HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW is it fair/possible/OK for Mr Ex and Cosette (who cheated on their respective spouses) to have a baby, when there are SO MANY beautiful, faithful couples experiencing infertility?! And HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW, HOW is it fair/possible/OK for Mr Ex and Cosette to get pregnant seemingly at the drop of a hat, when Mr Ex and I were trying for HOW LONG?!!?? And we didn’t get pregnant?!

SOOOOOO FREAKING UNFAIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But that’s life.

And truthfully, I know I should be thankful that I never had children with Mr Ex. Because if we had children, things would be SO much more complicated, painful and unfair. I know that. But still.

It was in that headspace following the Mr Ex/Cosette baby news that I signed up for internet dating. eHarmony, to be exact. Just the free trial. (Thankfully, I didn’t part with any dollars.)

It really hit me that I am single. And he’s totally not.

I went on a date with one guy. We had several mutual friends, so it seemed like a safe bet. I lasted on this date for 32 minutes, before I managed to excuse myself and escape! I rang Andrew, Cosette’s ex-husband and my now-dear friend, as I was walking running to my car. We just laughed. It was an utter disaster! Basically, the guy (a 33-year-old evangelical Christian) was still living at home with mummy and daddy, he actually told me that his mummy does his washing for him and that’s why he likes living at home, he told me that he’s never had a girlfriend before and that he has lots of first dates but they never go any further AND he told me that he understood my divorce because HIS BEST FRIEND MOVED TO QUEENSLAND.

Umm… what?!?!?!?!

A best friend moving interstate DOES NOT equate to your spouse CHEATING on you and walking out!!!!!!

He’s probably a really lovely guy. And I’m sure his awkwardness and nervousness would be endearing to the right girl. But that was definitely not me.

My next internet dating experience didn’t actually result in me meeting anyone at all.

A friend of mine had been dating some guy called Steve. She told me a little about him; Steve, aged 30, a Restaurant Manager from Glenelg. I was really happy for her! And although it was still new, it sounded positive! No one had met this Steve guy yet.

And Steve had no idea who I was.

But I think God revealed His epic sense of humour and desire for me to have good blogging material, because eHarmony emailed me a notification of a ‘kiss’ and ‘5 questions’ from…guess who? Steve, aged 30, a Restaurant Manager from Glenelg.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?

The guy that my friend is dating IS ALSO ON eHARMONY?!?!? Dating my friend but also shopping around for girls online?!? Sending me creepy questions and a ‘kiss’?!?! VOMIT!!!!!!

And you know what’s worse?? He’s a Youth Leader at a local church.

ASSHOLE!!!!!

And thus ended my very short 1-week spell on eHarmony.

Let me just say, I’m glad it’s over.

And I’m glad I never parted with any money. And I’m glad I never uploaded a photo of myself or any specific details about me.

Internet dating is truly heinous.

A little while later, there was a guy (not internet dating, but real life) who asked me out on a couple of coffee dates. I wasn’t sure if he was “interested” or not, but I later found out that, yes, he was. The couple of coffee dates were followed by a pier-side dinner at Glenelg (I did wonder if we went to 30-year-old Steve’s Restaurant?!) and a couple of pub catch-ups. But it didn’t progress, and that’s a good thing.

Because I realised something.

It was forced.

My most successful friendships are the ones I never saw coming. The ones I never even wanted. The ones I didn’t pursue, plot out,  hope for or self-generate. The ones that effortlessly happened.

So I made a promise to myself:

“Ess, that’s it. Don’t force it.”

I did date a little more, and have plenty of stories for another chapter. But in the meantime…

I have one rule in place:

  1. It must be effortless*. Like, Holy-Spirit effortless. That deep-down effortlessness that you just feel in your soul.

*I described ‘effortless’ in In The Stranger. There are those people in life where your soul just goes, “Oh there you are! I’ve been looking for you!” and I think it is Jesus in and within these people that our souls are recognising. You connect on multi-dimensional levels and you are sure you’ve been friends for years.

I was talking to Andrew (Cosette’s husband) recently and I acknowledged the fact that I really have limited my dating options. I said to Andrew, “If I ever date, it’ll be with a fellow wine-drinking Jesus freak, who is the same breed of crazy as me, and who isn’t fazed by my F-bomb-riddled life.”

…Yes… That does limit my options SIGNIFICANTLY.

But I’m OK with that.

And if I’m single forever and ever, I’m OK with that too.**

(**And if I ever doubt that, I’ll just scroll up and re-read this chapter; what God tells me, versus what the world tells me).

And on that note, Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City has some wise words of wisdom…

“…The most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that’s just fabulous!”-Carrie Bradshaw.

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Chapter 15: Made New (not perfect)

20somethinganddivorced2 Comments

My father-in-law and I arranged to catch up again.

After our initial meeting at a café (back in Chapter 6, which I’ve just significantly revised today after I remembered some ‘minor’ details which I’d conveniently forgotten 🙂 ), we emailed a couple of times. My father-in-law’s wife sent me a couple of emails too. She has walked this road of dealing with a cheating husband who left her, so she knew exactly where I was at. Two of the most powerful words when we are living a nightmare are “me too!” Whenever I ran into someone who could say “me too!” about my situation, it was always magical. No words are needed to explain. They just know.

So I went to their home. They had recently moved onto this property.

It is a large acreage in the Australian countryside situated amongst pine forests, wild flowers, kangaroos and other native animals, and plenty of walking tracks. Access to the property is by dirt track. The house only has a couple of in-tact rooms and there are brick ruins all around where other parts of the property once existed but have collapsed over time. They live an unusual, back-to-nature lifestyle omitting many of the modern conveniences of the average person. Very different to my city-slicker upbringing.

We went for a walk. Their young children wearing gumboots ran ahead picking dandelions and green stalks. My father-in-law, his wife, and I chatted as we strolled. I recounted Mr Ex’s recent final visit to collect the rest of his stuff and they showed a very genuine care for me and my wellbeing.

My father-in-law and his wife are unlike anyone else I know. And I suppose, we really have nothing in common. The city mouse meets the country mice. I mean, let’s be honest. I’d never be caught alive wearing socks and sneakers with a skirt. And they would never spend $600 on a Mimco handbag. But, for some strange reason, we were suddenly getting along like old friends.

Something was different.

Something was actually really different.

There was no tension. There was no judging. By either party.

There was just grace abounding!

What the hell happened?

We had both encountered Jesus, that’s what.

And something rather amazing ensued.

For the first time ever, I was authentically connecting with my father-in-law, who I would’ve just a few weeks earlier described as a judgmental and hypercritical dictator.

We both cried.

And hugged a very genuine hug.

And we shared stories of Jesus popping up in our lives.

“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are gone; and all things are made new.” -2 Corinthians 5:17.

Now, this is a really hard thing to term. When Christians say things like, “I found Jesus” or “I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour,” I can totally understand why that just sounds bizarre to bystanders. Ridiculous. Pious. Crap!

“I let the LORD into my HEART!” “I’ve TURNED from my SIN and now I am SAVED!” “I SURRENDERED to God!” Yikes. That talk just sounds so unappealing. And it makes the speaker sound like they’re joining some brain-washy occult. I get it. It just sounds ludicrous. They give the impression that finding Jesus is some kind of spectacular, flashy, pious encounter and they are now professing a perfect life of purity and cleanliness. They’ve said and done a few things and now they pledge a lifestyle of “not doing stuff”.  Something along the lines of “I used to smoke and drink and speak profanities, but now I DON’T because I’m a Christian!” And maybe it is like that for some people, I don’t know.

But in my experience, the whole concept of “finding Jesus” is not about me finding at all. It is much more like Jesus randomly popping up right where I least expect Him. And maybe even when I am totally convinced that I don’t want or need Him. He just casually pops up. And perhaps even kind of scares the bejeebers out of me.

Just like I’d previously discovered, when Jesus died and reappeared again, He popped up in front of his friends who were fishing. A casual encounter. No fanfare and no red carpet. Jesus pops up and asked how many fish they have caught; just like when He pops up in the face of the stranger, like my mortgage broker Shaun with his “me too!” common experiences and comforting words of wisdom, or possibly in the face of that homeless guy I walked past the other day.

People expect to see Jesus in churches.

But newsflash! Jesus spent very little time in church. He was always out and about. Meeting people, walking, on the street, engaging with those on the margins of society. He was dining with the mightily unpopular tax-collectors and talking to – even touching! – outcasts and lepers.

In my experience, Jesus would hands-down choose to sit on a bar stool in a crowded nightclub rather than a church pew.

And He never looks like we expect him to.

When Jesus rose from the dead and came back to earth, Mary Magdalene was the first person to see him. Perhaps the most unlikely, un-special, un-pious person around. And what’s more, a woman! She was near His tomb where his body was buried and Jesus casually walks up to her. She saw Him, but she just thought He was the gardener. The gardener! If Mary Madgalene was thinking Jesus was the gardener, maybe He wasn’t looking like an angel with a white robe and halo of light.

I mean, Jesus had been ridiculed, spat on, tortured, executed and died a ghastly death. But here He is, resurrected. Made new. But Mary Magdalene thinks He’s the gardener! Has there ever been a more down-to-earth, humble man? I don’t know about you, but if I’d just conquered death, I think I’d be going for the Edward Cullen sparkly skin, a puffy cloud to float on, and a rather spectacular array of fireflies to surround me for added effect. But that’s not Jesus. At all!!!

So maybe being ‘made new’ isn’t about projecting an outward perfection to the world.

Maybe ‘new’ can be imperfect. And messy. And unglamorous. And looks more like a gardener than royalty.

Because it’s real.

And with Jesus casually popping up like a pikelet in a toaster, in my experience, He’s actually about making me new. And my father-in-law. And our relationship with each other. New, not perfectly polished in a neatly tied package with a bow.

And if I am made new, then ‘new’ can be scarred. ‘New’ can have touch-up paint. ‘New’ can have stitches.

“New looks like recovering alcoholics. New looks like reconciliation between family members who don’t actually deserve it. New looks like every time I manage to admit when I was wrong and every time I manage to not mention when I’m right. New looks like every fresh start and every act of forgiveness and every moment of letting go of what we thought we couldn’t live without and then somehow living without it anyway. New is the thing we never saw coming – never hoped for – but ends up being what we needed all along.” -N. Bolz-Weber.

If God had hobbies, I wonder if car or furniture restoration would be one of them. He specialises in Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang-style makeovers. He just keeps taking on dilapidated, crappy people and their fragmented relationships with other dilapidated, crappy people and fitting together the broken bits.

And, through his handiwork, the end result is always much better than what it was to begin with. Our loving God keeps reaching down into the muck and grime of our messed up world, pulling out our hearts of stone, giving us a much-needed heart transplant, and resurrecting us from the rubbish piles we land ourselves in through our penchant for grudges, selfishness and pride.

“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” –Ezekiel 36:26.

Left to my own devices, there’s NO way I was going to be having a heart-to-heart with my father-in-law. HA! That was just not possible. Out of the question.

And even if I had eventually managed to let go of my grudge from the wedding (as unlikely as that is) my stubbornness and pride would’ve stopped me from actually going through with having a cup of tea with him and chatting civilly.

But Jesus pops up, gives me a heart transplant, and resurrects me from my ditch.

And the fact that I truly, honestly and whole-heartedly LOVE my father-in-law today is one of the many, many, many reasons that I believe in God.

God makes all things new.

And here I am, having a heart-to-heart with my father-in-law, genuinely connecting.

Heck, even having a beer with him!

A new relationship.

Catching up, visiting his family on their acreage in the hills, enjoying a laugh together, staying in touch, chatting about what Jesus is doing in our lives and, best of all, defiantly declaring that we are two crappy, stubborn, rotten individuals who are made new by a loving God who specialises in heart-transplants and resurrections.

And this is what God’s still doing for me. He’s making me new. Every day. Over and over.

By the way, just for the record, I’d be a hypocrite if I said that I now have a happy-clappy relationship with everyone I encounter because I am a Christian. That would be the biggest load of bullshit. I still get pissed off. I still get annoyed. I still hold grudges.  But I have a loving and gracious God who just keeps picking me up, dusting me off, giving me a heart transplant, and putting me back on my path.

Chapter 6: The In-Laws And The Mother of all Grudges

20somethinganddivorced1 Comment

My close family and friends were in the loop, but I hadn’t heard a peep from Mr Ex’s family.

Has he even told his parents?!

Mr Ex’s parents are divorced. An experience which was incredibly painful for him to go through when he was younger. And I think it is fair to say that, at this point, he wasn’t truly, honestly, genuinely close to either of them.

I sent a text message to his mother, a yoga instructor, and asked if we could catch up. She agreed. To drive to her partner’s house near the beach, she would be driving through our area. So, she said she could drop by the next day.

She knocked on the door. I answered.

We hugged for about a minute in the kitchen.

It made me cry.

I showed her our garden. A couple of months prior, Mr Ex had masterminded a new rear garden for us. He landscaped a new garden bed and planted a range of flowers and bushes. Not a cheap endeavour, but the garden had never looked better! His new lime tree was also starting to grow fruit. We spent big bucks chopping down some rather intrusive overgrown trees, which opened up a whole section of our garden and brought in the sunlight. My mother-in-law admired Mr Ex’s efforts. She could see that Mr Ex had put a lot of effort into that garden over the past six months.

My mum had bought me some decorative bird cages to hang from the pergola out the back.

“It’s a reminder that a caged bird can still sing,” I told my mother-in-law. She smiled.

I made some tea and we sat down on the sofa.

“I still love him and I know we can get through this,” I told her. “We are the real deal. Our love is special. We will get through this!”

She didn’t know any details.

She’d had a phone call from a distraught Mr Ex the day before. He had said to her, “Mum, you know how I’m the child you never had to worry about? Well, that’s changed.”  And then he broke down in hysterics and began stuttering through a few sentences which she couldn’t understand.

She told him to call his best mate, Tom.

It’s true. Tom and Mr Ex were very close.

So, I explained to my mother-in-law what had happened. She didn’t seem overly surprised. I guess she had evaluated by Mr Ex’s distraught phone call that something pretty drastic had happened. And she has probably lived through enough to know that anything’s possible.

Mr Ex and his mother didn’t have a typical mother/son relationship. They were more like mates who catch up every now and then for beers and swap halloumi recipes. No deep conversations. Certain taboo subjects. And, in particular, as Mr Ex always warned me, “Never, never, NEVER talk about Christianity around her because that will end in disaster!” That kind of thing. He told me about a time when he took a Bible to her house and she literally threw it out the front door.

But I always really liked my mother-in-law.

I enjoy her fun-loving and vibrant personality, her down-to-earth generosity, her humble acceptance of all people (albeit people who aren’t holding a Bible), and I love that she is the kind of person who will give you the shirt off her own back.

“He says that we are too ‘different’,” I explained to my mother-in-law, relaying my email conversations with Mr Ex. “He says he likes camping and I don’t. But I’m happy to go camping more often!”

She looked skeptical.

“Do you really think going camping will fix this?” she asked.

I explained my thinking, “Einstein is quoted as saying, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results’. I’m sure we can do things differently and get better results!”

She still looked skeptical.

“Do you think you can ever trust him again?” she wanted to know.

“Oh yes!” I affirmed without hesitation, in true half-dead kangaroo style.

“But what about the other woman? Even if you think you could trust him again, it sounds like he has made his choice and we both know how stubborn he can be.”

She has a point.

“No!” I exclaimed. “The affair is just a cry for help. He’s very unhappy – maybe even depressed or suffering from a mental breakdown – and this is how he is trying to find happiness. But it won’t work. Their relationship is not sustainable long-term. This is all just his cry for help. And I am committed to helping him and pulling him through this dark patch.”

As she left, she looked incredibly sympathetic and sorry for me.

“It’s not looking good,” she told me, as she hugged a mournful goodbye.

And, at the risk of spoiling the plot of my story, that is sadly the last time I saw her.

~~~

The next day, my mum had a phone call from my father-in-law. He had been shopping in a supermarket and bumped into Tom’s mother, who offered her condolences to him. Only problem was that my father-in-law had no idea what she was talking about because he hadn’t heard anything!

So, HOW did he have no idea that his oldest son had done a runner from marriage?

Well, the short answer is that several months earlier, my father-in-law, his second wife, and their young children had set off on a soul-searching, back-to-nature, out-of-range-from-technology journey across Australia. Mr Ex and I weren’t aware that they had returned home.

The long answer is slightly more complicated. And considerably more uncomfortable for me.

Mr Ex’s father: I really didn’t like him.

When I first wrote this chapter and I was reflecting on my feelings towards my father-in-law at this point of my story, I wrote, “With 20/20 hindsight, I can’t even be sure what my resentment and dislike hatred was based on.”

But, a few weeks on and I remembered!

I’d much rather just skip this whole thing because, goodness me, this seems so ridiculous now. But I’m going to tell you anyway.

When Mr Ex and I were planning our elaborate, ornate, dream wedding (which, by the way, featured in an Australian weddings magazine; invitations alone cost $27 each… did I mention we were the Titanic?!), Mr Ex’s father made demands. He wanted to preach a 15-minute sermon at the ceremony as well as incorporate the singing of a psalm, and he wanted his new babies to attend the wedding reception even though we were having no children attend. And maybe some other stuff. I can’t remember exactly. He also said that if we didn’t do these things, he wouldn’t come to our wedding.

And that was one of the only times I’ve ever seen my mum cry.

I was LIVID.

My father-in-law was a professing Christian. Others called him “a strict Christian” or “a fundamentalist Christian”.

Or a fundamentalist dickhead, as I would’ve happily told you.

He was instrumental in an uber-conservative church. He preached about adhering to strict rules and regulations. He wore a suit and tie. He prayed with thees and thous. He was anti-alcohol, anti-girls-wearing-jeans, anti-hymns, anti-reality, ANTI-FUN!

I remembered when Mr Ex’s younger sister, Maddie, received some play make-up for her 13th birthday. Maddie and her older brothers went into automated ‘Hide this from Dad’ mode. They navigated this small box of purple eye-shadows and shimmery lip-sticks from sibling to sibling through the house, hidden under a jumper, to get it into a backpack that would be going to their mother’s house in a couple of days.

He placed emphasis on purity and ticking the right boxes of “God’s law”.

And he rejected diversity of opinion. In other words, if you disagreed with him on any level, you’d never hear the end of it. And you’d be assigned to the outer. Booted.  Excluded.

Anyway, in the interest of Mr Ex having his one and only father at our wedding, we adhered to his requests, he attended the wedding, he preached a sermon, and it was all OK in the end. On the surface, at least.

But deep-down, I was holding a grudge. The mother of all grudges. And to be honest, I was probably definitely giving him daggers behind his back at my wedding.

So, I discovered that I’m actually pretty awesome at holding grudges!

But, come on! I mean, he hurt my family. He got what he wanted because he made threats like a 3-year-old. I’m holding onto my grudge because fair’s fair! And what’s the harm in holding a grudge, anyway?

That’s an in-built human instinct: Punish the people who hurt us! Get justice! An eye for an eye!

And I didn’t see any problem with that attitude, because it didn’t seem to impact on our day-to-day life.

After all, Mr Ex and I rarely saw his father, stepmother and half-siblings.

And if we ever went to their house – as rare as that was – I would sit upon my throne with the expression of a cat that swallowed a sour mouse. And that somehow made me feel better. Or did it?

So anyway, back to the story at this point, my father-in-law had heard from Tom’s mum in the supermarket that Mr Ex had left me, so he texted asking to see me. I agreed, but I said that I wanted to meet at a cafe.

I don’t want him coming over here! Maybe if he’d actually shown some level of interest in his first-born, this would never have happened!

Bitterness is never pretty.

I was hurt. I was angry. I blamed him.

I was guarded. I liked to keep him at a distance.

And we actually ended up in a conversation about schooling versus homeschooling.

Go figure.

As a teacher, I am obviously in favour of children going to school, but he (an ex-teacher) is in favour of homeschooling and had recently made the choice to homeschool his ‘new’ children, Mr Ex’s half-sisters.

My father-in-law also told me that Mr Ex’s time at school must have corrupted him. School must be the reason for him going off the rails and having an affair, he told me.

BULLSHIT!

And then he relayed the story of his own marriage breakdown with Mr Ex’s mother.

Maybe she had the good sense to run as far away from you as possible, I thought. And maybe I don’t blame her one-ounce for being anti-religion. I mean, maybe religion is the overarching cause of all pain and bullshit in this world.

RELIGION IS THE PROBLEM! Religion causes hatred, judgment and CRAP!

But the truth is, we were both still in absolute shock. Trying to digest this whole affair. Literally.

When we said our goodbyes after that cafe meeting, I deliberately only lifted one arm to hug him. A cold, this-is-how-I-have-to-farewell-you-but-I-don’t-mean-it hug.

I drove home pissed off at the professing Christians in my life.

I’m over it.

I’m not buying what they’re selling.

Bland. Boring. Judgmental. Why would I want to spend eternity with them?! And I decided that I was actually drawn to ‘anti-religious’ people, like my mother-in-law.

There are so many we-live-in-a-bubble-and-we-don’t-know-how-to-have-fun Christians.

God, help me to make sense of this. Please show me YOU. The real you. Not cloudy, murky, DULL religion, but the real YOU.