Part 7 - Married Again

After being a single parent for several years, I married again. It was very different to my first marriage, but also ended in divorce. I loved my second husband deeply. Why did it not work out? Well, it turns out that even with mutual attraction, if two people are not on the same page, it can mean death to a relationship.

Over the years of singlehood, a couple of men showed a serious interest in me. As said, I was not looking for romance. I had a big guard around my heart. I have mentioned that I have significant dreams - prophetic dreams, as they are often referred to in Christian circles, which pretty much means they are believed to be dreams with a message from God.

I had prophetic dreams about 3 of the men who were more interested in me, within a few months of each other. Briefly, the first was about the man I had been involved with at the end of my first marriage. In that dream, I was married to him, and loved him, but there was no communication, and he was roving in his attentions, hiding it, and I felt unable to talk to him about it.

In another dream, I was married to one of the men who I had met via the Internet. In real life, I went out on one social occasion with him. It turned out that in reality he was already living with a woman but had omitted to mention that. In the dream, we were wealthy and happy together, but I had some kind of anxiety disorder, and my children had been taken from me.

The third dream was about a man who travelled to my country to meet me, and was very keen, but I was not interested. In the dream we were married, but I was not happy, it was distastefully like my first marriage had been, and I didn't want to be there.

One might think then, that if I could be shown so clearly in dreams why I should not marry someone, then surely I would be shown who would be okay to marry?

In the early 2000s, my sister, an artist, was involved in organizing a small exhibition at the church we were attending. She met another artist, who was also a single parent. She obviously chatted with him about her family, and he expressed an interest in meeting me. I interpreted that as a platonic, friendly request at the time, without reading anything into it, and frankly, I couldn't really be bothered. However, to be polite, I allowed her to introduce me to him at church one morning.

The instant he was introduced to me, a spiritual thing happened - not sure how to describe it; it was not quite a vision - the closest I can get to it, is to say that for a moment I saw inside him, in his soul. The moment passed, but I remembered it.

Over the next few weeks, we spent some time together. To my extreme surprise, he wanted to pray with me! The others hadn't suggested that! One day he showed up with a pot plant for me. Again, I was pleasantly shocked. Although many women like being given cut flowers, I prefer to be given actual plants that won't die in a vase. I had expressed this a number of times over the years, but men would give me cut flowers anyway! Without knowing any of that, this man gave me a pot plant! The guard around my heart was beginning to come down. I was silently asking God, "What are You doing with this, God? Where is this going?"

I had to admit I was feeling quite interested by this time, but I did have some reservations. Firstly, I wanted the Lord's confirmation that I should proceed with this relationship. There was the "thing" I had seen, and Scripture about divorce and remarriage. Also, another lady I knew had been very keen on him so I felt bad for her sake that he was choosing me. I needed to be at peace about these things. So I asked God about them.

When I next saw the lady, I shared how something seemed to be "starting" and asked her how she felt about it. She said she was quite alright with it, and said she had had a dream a few months previously, where she met a man who she thought was quite nice, but a voice said to her in the dream, "No, this one is for [me]." So she had already concluded this new man was the one in her dream.

Half an hour after she left, the man turned up at my door, wanting to talk to me privately. We drove by ourselves down to the beach, and he shared something from his past. Although it was public, I am not going to share exactly what it was here, as he is trying to put it all behind him. I knew straight away that this was the "thing" I had seen. As he shared it with me, it was as though the Lord was saying to me, "I'm doing a restorative work in this man, and you are not to hold the past against him." So I didn't. The next day, as were driving along somewhere, I looked at him, and suddenly I felt a wave of deep love wash over me for him. I think that is when I fell in love with him.

After that, the last thing was that I said to the Lord that I really needed peace and His guidance about the Scriptural point of view of re-marriage. A few nights later, I was reading my Bible, and I happened to be up to the passage in Matthew 6:32, where Jesus says, "But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, causes her to commit adultery if she marries again, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery."

I found myself pondering this, and my first marriage situation. Because I had not actually slept with another man, I didn't really consider myself as having committed adultery. And with the issues that Dave had, I sort of regarded him as the "baddie" to some degree. Suddenly, as I was thinking that, the Lord spoke to me, and said, "Actually, Dave regards you as the baddie." I realized that to Dave, I had pretty much committed adultery, so he felt free of our marriage. Again, the Lord spoke to me. "What happens to the baddies?" My pondering was stopped in its tracks.

Up till that point, I had been putting myself into the verse as the person who had not really committed adultery, and therefore, did I really have the freedom to remarry, if Dave had also not committed actual adultery? In an instant, it changed. I realized that, to Dave, it was already over, no going back. So in a situation where I was the one who had committed the adultery, and the new man in my life was also considered as having committed adultery, then he and I were considered the "baddies" in our respective situations. So the question, "What happens to the baddies?" suddenly referred to us! If the "innocent" parties have moved on, what becomes of the baddies as far as any future relationships go? As my mind clicked to this, I was instantly, filled with an awareness of God's great love, forgiveness and compassion for the "baddies". In His compassion, He allows people another chance at relationships. I was filled with peace about the new man and I from a Scriptural point of view.

From that moment on, I was at peace about continuing the new relationship. We had a relatively short engagement and got married.

I wish I could say, "We all lived happily ever after." But life was not so simple, after all.

A struggle we did not have was infidelity. I had always suspected, given my intense feelings as a teenager, that if I found myself married to someone I was in love with, I would be a "one-man woman". That has proven to be correct. While I retained a friendly, curious interest in what became of people I once knew, both male and female friends and acquaintances, I had no romantic interest in anyone else whatsoever. I'm grateful to the Lord that He allowed me to experience that special kind of reciprocal intimacy.

Before we got married, we worked through a book together called "Starting Again" or something similar. My biggest worry, after going through the book, was how I was going to cope with the new grocery regime! As it turned out, that was the least of our worries. Because I had always loved children in general, I was able to accept and assimilate his children into my life easily, and my own children were ready to welcome his whole family, having been raised to show friendliness to all. Unfortunately, it quickly became obvious that while he loved his own children, he was having great difficulty accepting someone else's. We soon experienced conflict in the home. Strange that none of this was exposed doing the reading of our preparation book!

Unfortunately, I became so concerned about the way he treated my children (and sometimes myself) that within a couple of years I had to separate. My message to my husband was: "I love you, but I cannot live with some of this behaviour." I tried to meet him halfway, but the issues I separated over really were serious and could not be ignored. On my side, I was also trying to deal with my mistrust of men. I was forced to try and cope with that on my own, as I could not get reassurance from my husband.

Our relationship was one of extremes. It was either very wonderful or very terrible. I did ultimately regret it, and wondered, was I really meant to marry him in the first place? But when I consider how we got together, I conclude that there had to be some purpose in it, and besides that, people have choices. As usual, one can see with the benefit of hindsight what one did not take seriously enough at the beginning. This included the effect on my own children and our previously happy home life before I got married again.

We were married for 11 years, but a lot of that time was spent living apart. In the end, I realized that the pattern of coming and going was not healthy for either of us. On the last separation, we stayed apart permanently. At the time, I was heart-broken, and once, again, an emotional wreck. He chose to end all contact. But I finally realized that the healthiest response was to accept that and get on with my life without him.

"But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31 NKJV)"

Part 1: The Growing Years Part 2: Teenage Relationship Part 3: Marriage & Motherhood Part 4: Touched by Darkness Part 5: Struggling with Temptation Part 6: Divorce & Single Parenthood Part 7: Married Again Part 8: This Present Life