As I have worked with mid-singles the last five years, one of the most common and most vexing questions has been “Why?” “Why didn’t [my spouse] love me?” “Why would my [spouse] choose to throw away our eternal family?“ I tried everything I knew how.” “I wore myself out trying to please him (or her).” “I kept my covenants the best I could.” “I was a good parent.” “I made a good living and gave her (or him) a good life. I forgave his (or her).” “Sure, we had our problems but nothing serious. No infidelity. No pornography. No physical abuse. No emotional abuse. It’s just baffling.” When I was confronted with an unwanted divorce, I asked myself similar questions. Deep down these questions all amount to the same deeply personal question, “Why wasn’t I enough?”
We naturally want to say “But I was enough! I did do my best! I did try everything! I was a good spouse! My [spouse] was the one who made our marriage difficult!” That has been our pattern since the fall, when Adam said, “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat” (Genesis 3:12, emphasis added).
While it is generally advisable for me to evaluate my own conduct and choices in the context of a relationship, it is generally not useful to dig deep searching for what another person’s feelings or choices mean about my sufficiency as a person or a spouse. If my first wife didn’t love me, does that mean I wasn’t loveable? Or does it say more about her than it says about me? Her choices were her choices. Her feelings were her feelings. I can (and should) evaluate my own conduct and choices and ask myself whether they were likely to improve or harm the relationship. But that is a different question from the painfully raw question, “Why wasn’t I enough?”
Let me suggest that you don’t need to build a case for why you were 100 percent right and your spouse was 100 percent wrong to justify your pain. Even assuming for the sake of discussion that you were 100 percent wrong, you are still allowed to feel pain and sorrow over the loss of a marriage. You don’t have to blame your former spouse or prove that you were guiltless to be justified in feeling sad and grieving your loss. So why not just allow yourself to feel sad and leave the judgment to God?
Thinking about the pain of rejection, I am reminded of a favorite story in the Book of Mormon. On a missionary journey, Alma came to the city of Ammonihah where “Satan had great hold upon the hearts of the people” (Alma 8:9). Alma “labored much in spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people” (Alma 8:10). In other words, Alma did everything he could. He gave heart and soul to the people, but they “hardened their hearts” (Alma 8:11). I know many mid-singles who have gone through deep soul struggles and given everything they had to make their marriages work, and still their spouses “hardened their hearts.” The people of Ammonihah rejected Alma, reviled him, spit on him, and banished him from their city (Alma 8:13). They rejected him. They didn’t want him. They didn’t care to hear what Alma had to say.
As Alma took his journey away from the city, he was “weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people” (Alma 8:13-14). How many of us have been weighed down with sorrow and anguish of soul because of the choices of a spouse? How many of us have “labored much in spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer” desperately pleading that our Father in Heaven would touch and soften the hearts of a disenchanted spouse?
As Alma was traveling away from Ammonihah, his guardian angel appeared and gave him some wisdom that all of us who experience rejection can benefit from. The angel greeted Alma saying, “Blessed art thou, Alma; therefore, lift up thy head and rejoice, for thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God from the time which thou receivedst thy first message from him” (Alma 8:15).
Tony Robbins has often talked about how a change in body posture can help to adjust mood in a positive direction, including raising your head and squaring your shoulders. The angel counseling Alma to “lift up [his] head and rejoice” is consistent with Tony Robbins’ advice. Adjusting your posture to adjust your physiology is something you can do without relying on anyone else. Regardless of what anyone else thinks, you have the option of lifting your head, squaring your shoulders, and adjusting your physiology to put yourself in a rejoicing mood. The angel also asks Alma to shift his thoughts. Before the angel arrived on the scene, Alma was weighed down with tribulation and sorrow “because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah” (Alma 8:14). He was feeling sorrow because of the actions of other people. The angel told Alma to rejoice and assures him: “thou hast great cause to rejoice; for thou hast been faithful in keeping the commandments of God” (Alma 8:15). The angel invited Alma to shift his focus away from things he could not control (the actions of others) to things he could control (his own faithfulness).
The angel did not say, “Alma, what did you do cause the people to reject your message?” The angel did not say, “Alma, why weren’t you a more persuasive teacher? Maybe if you had been a more effective teacher the people wouldn’t have banished you from the city!” The angel did not make Alma responsible for things he really didn’t have control over. He helped Alma to focus on the things he did have control over.
You can always evaluate how you could have done better and try to do better in the future. As Maya Angelou said, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” But don’t use your well-intended mistakes to blame yourself for another person’s choice to reject you or to question whether you are good enough to deserve love.
Do you have control over whether your spouse loves you or chooses you? No. So don’t beat yourself up trying to figure things out that were beyond your control. Endlessly asking why another person rejected you or didn’t have certain feelings about you is a futile effort. If you did your best, lift up your head and rejoice. Your best will always be good enough for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Resource:
Intentional Courtship can help in this journey.
About the Author
Jeff Teichert, and his wife Cathy Butler Teichert, are the founders of “Love in Later Years,” which ministers to Latter-day Saint single adults seeking peace, healing, and more joyful relationships. They are co-authors of the Amazon bestseller Intentional Courtship: A Mid-Singles Guide to Peace, Progress and Pairing Up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeff and Cathy each spent nearly a decade in the mid-singles community and they use that experience to provide counsel and hope to mid-singles and later married couples through written articles, podcasts, and videos. Jeff and Cathy are both Advanced Certified Life Coaches and have university degrees in Family & Human Development. They are the parents of a blended family that includes four handsome sons, one lovely daughter-in-law, and two sweet little granddaughters.
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