I don’t think most people choose to place themselves in abusive situations. I also do not think most parents intend to abuse their children. I am not making light of abuse of any kind. However, the response to abuse isn’t always so cut and dry. People often repeat what was done to them until they learn something else. Childhood abuse is like a cancer. It plants itself in the core of your soul following you no matter how fast you run.
Ken and I met when Alexander was three-years-old. We were inseparable from that day on. He would come over to my small apartment every day to have dinner with us, play with Alex, and do the bedtime routine of reading and prayer. He was the smartest man I had ever met and I was in constant awe of him. He would tell me, “I will love you always and forever” before he left each evening.
I remember him sitting me down one day to tell me that he planned to “court” me and eventually marry me. I was used to men always “trying something” and me having to block their unwanted advances. I never had to do that with Ken and this confused me. I finally worked up the courage to ask Ken if he found me attractive. He told me he was utilizing incredible restraint to honor me because it was what God wanted. Ken wanted his life to be a life of honor that would glorify God like no one I have ever met. It was genuine and sincere.
Our dates consisted of going to Mozarts where he would read these amazing poems to me and share his heart and plans for our future. I had never known such unconditional love in my life. As the oldest child of very dysfunctional parents, I was used to being the caretaker. When I was little there was no one to tuck me in, no parents at rehearsals or teacher conferences, and no emergency contact to call. I was the emergency contact even as a very little girl. Here was this man wanting to take care of me and be my forever emergency contact.
Our first Christmas together, he gave me 100 gifts. He would bring one in at a time, let me open it, and then bring in another one. He was as giddy as a little boy to see the surprise on my face. However, it wasn’t about the gifts. It was about his intent in bringing me the gifts. He told me that he wanted to make sure I knew I was valued and adored.
We dated four years and then we were married. He told Alex that he had married BOTH of us. Ken would invent these awesome games for us to play. One day he took golf clubs and tennis balls and took Alex and I to the tennis courts to play tennis hockey. On rainy days, we played chase and hide and seek in the house. He even resorted to putting on my pink robe, standing on my bed, and singing “I am too sexy for this robe” one day when Alexander was sad. All of us ended up on the floor laughing hysterically.
In 2004, God blessed us with Isaiah and our family was complete. Isaiah was the happiest baby. He would clap his little hands together and squeal. Ken loved both of his boys so very much.
A year into our marriage, Ken and I decided we wanted to foster children. We were given a large sibling group almost immediately. We loved being foster parents and for a while it seemed we had found our calling. The need for foster parents was so great though. We were given more and more kids and their issues more and more significant. At that time, the training provided was not adequate for the level of needs we were given. We did our best though. We had alarms on the doors to warn us if a child left their room. There were surveillance cameras all over the place. We had a six-year-old boy that tried to kill Alex. His brother started fires. Another little boy would slam his face into the furniture and threaten to accuse us of his bloody nose. Another smeared his feces on the walls and furniture and his own face. Ken and I stopped sleeping because we were always standing guard to make sure the foster children didn’t hurt themselves or someone else.
I started to have dreams of incidents I had experienced as a child. In the past, I knew I had been hurt as a little girl but I didn’t see my attacker’s face. In my dreams, I started to see glimpses of who this person was. I was too ashamed and embarrassed to tell Ken that a relative had hurt me so I said nothing. In my silence my shame grew. In turn, Ken was having flashbacks to things he experienced as a little boy. I knew about what had happened to him, but I didn’t know he was having difficulty with the memories.
We were each being triggered hearing the stories of awful abuse these little foster children endured. As our own trauma increased, we became less and less available to each other. Each of us responded in negative ways that hurt our children. Things began to decline in our life. It was slowly at first. So slowly that neither one of us recognized what was happening. However, our counselor recognized the signs of trauma in my oldest son. The day the counselor told me the children and I needed to leave was one of the most awful days in my life. I had always been a passive little mouse. This day was no different. I did as the counselor told me. I know with my entire heart that Ken would have never left me. He would have done all he could to keep us together. My leaving shattered something in Ken and made it impossible for him to seek the help the counselor required. He began to implode. I didn’t realize this was happening to him at the time. I believed he just didn’t want to be married and was not willing to get help. The enemy lies.
It was so difficult to be a single mother with two chronically ill children. I lacked the faith that God would see me through. Isaiah was having seizures and Alex was in and out of the hospital. I was drowning without help. Hence I jumped into another marriage before my marriage to Ken was truly over. Ken started to pursue me then, but it was too late since I was married. In time, he stopped coming over altogether. My youngest son couldn’t accept the divorce. He would tell me things like, “God didn’t sign the divorce.” He would tell me I needed to make things right. I agree with him on both counts. It is impossible to have a successful marriage with anyone when you hold strong ties to someone else. The truth is that God never intended us to go from one marriage to another. In divorce, there is no way to make a clean break. A part of you will always stay with your spouse and a part of your spouse is always with you. I could sense Ken’s presence even after my marriage. I sensed his presence even when I told myself Ken had been wrong. Ken told me that I was always a part of him even though he forced himself to ignore it. He told me I was a part of him even when he tried to be angry over what I had done.
I tried to rebuild a new life, but the weight of my wrong choices was always present. I told my counselor that I know God wanted me to wait for Ken to get better. To give myself time to get better. We both suffered from PTSD as a result of our experiences as foster parents compounded with our respective childhood trauma. Each of us was experiencing so much personal pain that we couldn’t help the other. I busied myself with my work and my children and serving others. Ken busied himself with his work and his church and his side businesses. I kept apologizing to Ken because I knew I had failed him and the children. He didn’t want me to know how poorly he was doing so he acted as if all was well and kept himself ridiculously busy.
I thought that his life was going well. It seemed that way from the outside looking in. Then one day I received an email from Ken. In the email he wished me well. He told me that he hoped my marriage would be blessed. He also told me that I was the only woman he had ever loved and even though he tried to become interested in other women that he simply was not able. He told me that I would be the only woman he would ever love. He told me that he kept our wedding photographs and could not part with them.
When he learned that the boys and I were living alone, he started to come over again. It was as if we had never been apart. We started to peel away at the issues we had simply ignored before. It was then that I learned that Ken had not been okay this whole time. He had found ways to stay busy, but his soul still pursued me. The last few weeks we talked about how difficult it would be for his family to accept me again. We talked about how I would need to make amends to them and to his friends. We knew the children were happy to have him back in their lives more, but that this was confusing for them as well. He spoke of the things that had gone wrong the last two years of our marriage. He thought we should get counseling. He told me that he planned to apologize to Alex. He confessed to Isaiah that he made many mistakes and that he and I were equally to blame. We were both owning up to our many mistakes before God and before our children. Earlier this week, when Ken learned I was trying to sell things to pay for the children’s needs he told me I wasn’t alone. He put gas in our vehicles and helped me with groceries. He told Alexander he would give him money to fix his car and took him to the mechanic to start the process. We were going to take Isaiah shopping for clothes this week. He wanted to right his wrongs and made plans with the kids to start spending more time with them. He was going to give me a chance to right my wrongs. He was going to right his wrongs with our kids. It seemed like our life was going to be back on track again.
Ken asked me if I wanted to help him work out and we went and purchased workout clothes for him. As we walked to Alex’s truck, he realized he had left his cell phone in his apartment. Isaiah and I encouraged him to go get it. He answered, “I don’t need it. You guys are already with me.”
The children and I were taking this winter break time to help him clean through the years of ignoring the maintenance of his home. I learned that when our inner pain is so great we are sometimes not able to deal with household chores. I, myself, have struggled with using food or apathy to numb my own hurt. This is the legacy of divorce. It is a painful void that doesn’t go away in us as adults and in our children.
On Christmas Eve, Ken told me that he was thankful to have the opportunity to discuss all that had happened. He and I agreed that neither of us wanted to hurt any more people. We both wanted so much to right our wrongs and find restoration for our relationship and our children. It is so difficult to clean up a mess like the one we created. He was no longer angry with me, but the hurt was going to take time to heal. We each took back words said out of pain. Truly, it would have been so much easier had we remained married and waited it out. As Isaiah has pointed out to me, “This would have been what God wanted.”
Alexander told me today that he is sad that he didn’t get to spend more time with his dad. He told me that he could tell things were about to go back to the way they were before we became foster parents. He had been happy about that. Now he just feels sad that it didn’t happen that way. Alex also told me that the last few weeks were like we were a family again. I know that is what Ken and I hoped for.
In the last couple of years, I have tried to warn friends contemplating divorce. I know they have resented my passion at times. I hope they know I never meant any disrespect towards them. It was my attempt to throw them a life preserver. Oh, how I wish I would have known the things we would endure as a result of our divorce and my remarriage. I wish every person contemplating divorce would stop for a moment and consider the cost to your own soul, your spouse, and the cost to your children.
My heart is heavy tonight. I wonder what would have happened had I insisted he spend New Year’s with us. He had plans with family. He offered to cancel them to be with us, but I encouraged him to keep his plans. We made plans to meet up today. Yet, the call I received from him today came earlier than I expected. It was a call letting me know that he wasn’t well and needed me to come to his apartment. “Come soon…” he said barely able to speak. Alex drove faster than was legally permissible and it seemed too slow for me. I knew that if the police had stopped us, I would have told him to continue. Alex would later tell me that he had no plans to stop for anyone including the police. And even though we made it there in miraculously record time, we didn’t make it in time. The children would later tell me they saw the body bag outside when we pulled in. I didn’t notice the bag as my focus was on making it past the blocked front door.
The officer asked me if Ken had friends or family in the area. He had many friends including several living in the same complex. As the officer spoke to the judge to determine next of kin, the officer told the judge that out of all the people Ken could have called he chose to call me. He placed his arm around my shoulder and said it is obvious you were the most important person to him. He meant to offer me comfort, but the knowledge cut like a knife. Those words still echo in my head and in my soul. If Ken had called one of his neighbors perhaps he would have received help in time. If he had not taken the time to call me and had unlocked the door instead, perhaps the EMS team would have been able to reach him sooner. I am beyond sad because today I lost not only the father of my children, but the man who taught me unconditional love. The man who shared my youth and most of my adult life. Ken and I were just shells of the people we had been when we were together those first years. The hardships of our life caused us to limp emotionally. My heart aches knowing I can’t pick up the phone and call him. But, my hurt is a selfish and self-serving hurt. Alexander said it best to me today, “I cried because he was my father, but now I have to be happy because he went to be with the God he served. His death just makes me want to follow God more.”
I am still crying and not ready to let Ken go. When I can get past the agony I feel inside, I have moments of gratitude. I thank God that my children had winter break with their father. I thank the Heavenly Father for His grace that this sweet man is no longer wounded in anyway. He has been restored in every possible way. God, restore the boys and I, too.
