NEW YEAR, NEW BEGINNINGS? NOT IN MY WORLD.

I am very troubled by what happened today. My original plan was to get together with Katherine to talk things through, to see where she's at, and perhaps agree to some civilized way of resolving our current situation. I was hopeful - a new year, a new beginning. The talk started off fine. Some shallow chit chat about what's been generally happening in each other's lives. Her recounting of her recent studies at seminary was a good segway into discussing our situation. My feeling was that it was all going well until we started talking about annulment.

She was using the story of Abraham and his having to sacrifice Isaac as an analogy. She was quite surprised to learn that when this test was quoted in Hebrews 11, it mentioned that Abraham went through with God's test, but with what would be indicative of doubt (or at the very least, incomplete trust - Abraham reasoned that God would raise Isaac from the dead - kind of like a perceived back up plan on Abraham's part). She felt that this was an appropriate analogy because she has been struggling with making the right decision, one that would please God more than the alternative. In order to establish this, she has been demanding a clear sign from God, as this was a heftier life impacting choice, bearing more weight than, say, choosing which university to attend. She is relating herself to Abraham in that though he was a spiritual giant, he had his doubts (or this incomplete trust referred to in the passage about ). As such, she felt that her arriving only now as some sort of disposition is a remarkable progress in faith. She said that it felt right for her to choose the option of "making it (i.e. the marriage) work", although she did not expect that the hallmarks of a marriage relationship (i.e. the inter-spousal relationship) would be something that would be achieved overnight, if at all. This is because if the two partners had their "focus on God", all the other elements (the hallmarks that I just mentioned) are irrelevant and considered worldly/secondary.

Honestly, I've been feeling that the only resolution is divorce. I've struggled with the idea of preserving the marriage, as evidenced by the numerous counseling sessions that I've attended with the hope of some breakthrough and even my putting off taking any pro-action in the past 3 years. But recently, I've been overwhelmed by the feeling that I'm wasting my life by not doing anything, as the weight of global social injustice grows heavier on my heart. How can I get so frustrated and handcuffed by this one relationship, when I could be somewhere else making a positive impact? So, in hearing Katherine's most recent revelation, I really wasn't too happy or thrilled about it. Partly it was my skepticism in that by attempting to "make it work" with the caveats, she is basically dragging this along. Partly, I still believe that she is unable to overcome certain fears to move on: the fear of being alone, the fear of the divorce stigma amongst the Christian circle, the fear of not pleasing God. I explained that my definition of a Godly marriage is one where the two sharpen each other (like iron sharpening iron), and that the absence of the marriage hallmarks would be the same as 2 spiritually like-minded people who are living in a false pretense for the sake of convenience. She did not disagree (and this reinforced to me how she has always viewed me: a companion for which the marriage totally screwed up convenience). To further test my theory, I suggested to her the following action, as a sign of good faith that she was sincere: I would agree to attempting to "make it work" as long as we annulled the current marriage, as a means to close the chapter on an obviously illegitimate journey. However, this is when things in our discussion took a turn for the worse.

In her mind, by going through with the annulment (she is very picky about labeling it an annulment, even though it would be a certificate of divorce that would be signed), there would be no way to "make it work". Huh? If the marriage was illegitimate in the first place, how would the symbolic formality of annulling it derail a new/more legitimate relationship? Her defense to this position was that, should we "make it work", she doesn't want to have to go through the whole courtship/engagement/wedding fiasco, as her contempt for this whole staging process was super obvious. Instead, she would prefer just to have this current label of marriage grandfather over to the next one!

From that point on, it became one of her typical accusation assaults. How could I demean the progress that she's made to get to this point, the point where she took a step of faith comparable to that of Abraham's? Why wasn't I doing my part (i.e. I read this to mean why didn't I just concede and go along with her charade)? Why was I so selfish in thinking of only what would make me happy? Why was I so worldly in wanting to have the hallmarks of a marriage present when the main focus should be on God? I don't remember what else she accused me of, but I kind of tuned out at the point. I was starting to get exhausted, having to think of how to defend my position, because I was under such immense attack. So, I gave up. I didn't give in, but I basically ignored her. I probably said some things that I regret now, but I didn't care. At one point, I even remember asking why she wanted to save "this". Couldn't she tell that I didn't want to be with her? She did not respond because my statement didn't affect her. ME rejecting her is no big deal, because it was never ME that she was into. She was into me just BEING there.

This is absolutely so screwed up. But when you're in the trenches and fighting a front line fight, you lose sense of context and common sense. Everything was so intense, and I left feeling like I just finished a marathon. In fact, I find great relief in being able to blog about it now, and am kicking myself for not having gone through this exercise sooner, instead of having to carry this all bottle up inside all night. I have no clue how this is going to turn out. My acquired cynicism tells me that it could drag on for ever.