divorce

April 30, 2021 By HallieZ 4 Comments

WE. DO. NOT. FORGIVE YOU

We are standing next to one another, all of us, who were impacted by the arrest of Josh Duggar by federal agents, yesterday.

We are the daughters. The sons. The sisters. The brothers. The wives. The ex-wives.

We are the shunned. The fractured.

We are the voice that will not be silenced.

We don’t believe there is any justice, and yet, we fight for it every day of our life.

We aren’t sure there is a way out of this tar pit called life, but we keep moving, and we hold every inch of progress we make.

We can’t stop crying today.

We had put our crying on hold for a bit, bottled the grief up, put a cork on it. But the cork got popped again, yesterday. Sometimes that happens.

We are ok with that.

We were children.

We stood over chairs, your lap, over toilets, with our pants pulled down, and you beat us with sticks. With belts. With electrical wire.

We held the books you bought at the conferences, that taught you how to do this without going to jail.

We dressed in tents, in jeans too big, dresses that tried to drown us in the rivers where we played.

We were children.

You taught us that our bodies were not ours to give.

But you took what you wanted, and called that God.

YOU LIED.

We understood, we obeyed.

You put the books of another Josh in our hands, and said those were God’s words. THEY WERE NOT.

We were children.

You kept us from our grandparents, our cousins. You kept us from our neighbors and the world that longed to show us something more… not perfect, not always good, but something bigger, something REAL. You hid books, and stories, and faces that looked different from ours, and called that GOD’S WILL.

You lied.

Some of us were born with a uterus, with breast. Blood that came from our body in clumps, or a stream, a curse, and a gift.

We were named Jezebel.

We were called rebellious.

We stood in the shadow of shame, while you told us who we were.

We stood in the shadow of heresy, while you told us what God wanted us to be.

We read the stories of the witches, because we both feared and loved them.

I am a woman. But I know you have hurt my brothers just as much as you hurt me. And I will not dare speak for them, you spoke for them long enough. And you LIED to me about who they were. When you lied to them about who I was? You stole their future. You stole their success. You wounded generations, and you will answer for it.

WE. DO. NOT. FORGIVE YOU.

When you told her an education and career would be a waste resources, because she’d be busy raising the children? You lied.

When you looked your daughter in the face, and told her “your husband didn’t commit adultery because his penis didn’t GO INSIDE HER VAGINA, and therefore God will NOT allow you to divorce him”.

When you learned your sons had molested your daughters, and you put them on farms, and in “restoration” programs, and NOT IN JAIL, YOU BETRAYED US.

When you saw bruised and broken children, and you “mentored” their parents and did not protect the children.

When you banned us from family gatherings, because we did not “submit” to your patriarchal rule.

When you gathered around one another, and created an echo chamber and egged each other on to further abuse.

WE. DO. NOT. FORGIVE YOU.

April 28, 2019 By HallieZ 1 Comment

i can wait

Feeling trapped, afraid of rejection, I force the words out

“I don’t know what I want”.

He speaks clearly.

“I can wait”.

All the bells go off in my head. I am scared and I wonder if it is real, but I am not sure and I don’t know.

Softly, he cautiously voices the last thing I was expecting to hear.

“I am not asking you for anything you can’t give”.

I don’t know how to do this, really. I don’t know how to accept a man holding space for me.

It is easier for me to just assume that all men only want one thing.

It is easier to sign on for the toxic and not-nuanced expectations of what it means to be a man.

I know how to be demanded of.

I know how to give in to control and coercion.

I know how to submit, how to swear to a man that I am not real and never existed and agree that it is true, what I want doesn’t matter. In fact, what I thought I wanted isn’t something I want at all and is actually quite BAD.

He holds me close. His breath matches mine and I watch the clouds go by.

All is still.

This is new.

I am scared.

Maybe it REALLY is ok with him, if I am real.

Maybe it REALLY is ok if I want and need.

Maybe my answer is worth waiting for.

He is the men who have come into my life since my divorce and given me glimpses of what a man can be. Thank you for being a part of my journey.

August 7, 2018 By HallieZ 1 Comment

13 Things I Learned

Today is my 15^th wedding anniversary. Crystal.

Today is also my first wedding anniversary as a divorced woman.

We don’t say much, on these days, those of us with the “failed” marriages, who dwell in “broken” homes.

We are kind of outliers… those of use who were married longer than average, but aren’t any more. We lurk in the shadows… conversations about husbands… futures… sort of trail off when we walk up. It’s weird, to have your identity be linked to another person, so intimately, so entirely, and then be, well, just, you.

I learned a lot in my marriage.

It was one of the most amazing, passionate, heartbreaking, hopeful, growing things I have ever done in my life.

I left my husband.

I filed for divorce 3 months after our 13^th wedding anniversary.

That was the bravest thing I have ever done in my life.

My divorce was finalized a few months before my 15^th anniversary.

Timelines are important to me.

They help me make sense of the years I spent with him. Sometimes, I write them out, as I search for answers, as I try to figure out which pieces fit, look for the signs I missed.

Sometimes, I want to share marriage advice with young grasshoppers, but I feel like I can’t, because my marriage is over.

I don’t actually believe my marriage failed.

I don’t believe I live inside a broken family.

And I think, on the subject of marriage, I have something to offer.

So. Today. I give you…

one for every year I was married

Words don’t matter much. I BELIEVE what my partner is telling me with his actions.
My love is NOT going to heal my partner’s wounds. My love can only be a part of the healing they choose.
No partner will ever know me like I know myself.
No partner gets to define who I am. They get to be a part of my life, my story, and that is a gift to us both.
I never want a partner to be with me because he HAS to, I want him to be with me because HE CHOOSES me.
Adultery can be forgiven
I can say NO. No means NO, even in marriage.
Saying I DO was not blanket consent covering all things until the day I died.
Forgiveness is a process, and its ok to come back to the reason we need forgiveness in the first place.
I am worth fighting for.
My children are worth fighting for.
I am capable of more love than I ever dreamed possible.
I am lucky, blessed, honored, to have had those 13 years.

And a bonus for the year I was separated but still married:

14. Marriage doesn’t define us, we define our marriage.

All the pain, all the love, all the hope, all the joy, all the freedom, all the gifts that came?

I think they were worth it.

July 31, 2018 By HallieZ Leave a Comment

To Say Goodbye

It was supposed to be

You and me

Grey hairs

Wrinkled fingers entwined

Foreign movie on the screen

Sundance festival image flickering

You and me

In this theatre

100 years old

and counting

Instead

Here I am

Your body laid out

Cold

The essence of you is gone

Has been gone

For some time

I don’t know when it was

I realized you weren’t there

I have my suspicion

But

I can’t be certain

They said it would come in waves

This grief

And

They were right

They said I would say goodbye in stages

They were right

I move over your body

I know you aren’t here

But I remember

When you were

Your shoulders

Broad

Tanned

Muscled

Angling down to a waist

Gaunt from fasting

Carharts hanging

I touch

The lines I know so well

Goodbye

Months pass

And here we are

In this room again

Your lips

I don’t remember the last time I kissed them

I remember the first

Goodbye

Another season comes and goes

I watch a movie alone

And like a surge in the ocean

Your hands

Can’t we just bury you and be done?

But no

I touch the lines

Run my fingers over the ragged nails

They knew me

And

they didn’t even scratch the surface

Good riddance

I want to scream

But it turns into a wail

13 years was a drop in the bucket

I scream it to God

She hears

It was supposed to be a hundred

Don’t you fucking care

How long

Does it take

To say goodbye?

June 20, 2018 By HallieZ 5 Comments

Father’s Day, huh?

So. It was Father’s day a few days ago.

I did what I have always done, helped my kids prep and wrap their gifts for their daddy.

I sent him a text message that said Happy Father’s Day, hope you all have a good day.

I cried, because this isn’t how I ever thought our Father’s Days would be.

Once I got my heart through all that sorrow/mess, it was time to think about MY father.

That sucked even worse. So I cried more.

My father sent me an email when I filed for divorce that said I wasn’t allowed at his home on special events or holidays.

I mean. I did stop by on mother’s day and give my mom flowers, I told myself, so maybe I OUGHT to stop by on Father’s day anyway. And give him, uh. I don’t know. Like. Jerky or something?

But I didn’t WANT to do anything. I didn’t want to call him. Or drop of jerky. Or anything.

Not just because he said I couldn’t, but because he broke my heart.

I had scheduled cleaning job that day, to help keep me busy, and I cried as I ran the vacuum, and raged as I scrubbed the toilet. I had flashbacks, all day, of things that had happened that were not ok.

I remembered conversations and I remembered the agony of finally realizing my dad was only going to empower and embolden my abuser, not protect me.

I asked the Spirit what the gift was.

I asked the Spirit what was being asked of me.

– HOLD THE PAIN WITH THE BEAUTY –

Pain with the beauty?

What the hell.

There is only pain.

Images started coming to mind.

Reveling, the first born.

The love, the bond.

How well I remember holding my first daughter for the first time.

Small. Warm.

Nothing I wouldn’t do for you, my daughter.

A diaper change.

A first bike ride.

All this and more, a world awaiting.

So thank you, Papa, for the gift of attachment.

Thank you for holding me against your skin and letting me know your scent.

Thank you for carrying me on your body.

Thank you for changing my diaper.

For letting me feel the grass against my skin.

Thank you for letting me explore the world and know the feeling of dirt.

Thank you for letting me witness the birth of my siblings.

Bringing me into a place of connection with them.

Thank you for telling me stories of the natural world.

A teacher by destiny.

Thank you for being gentle with animals.

For teaching me to hold the plants with respect.

Those first 5 years cemented a character that I give thanks for. Every. Single. Day.

I don’t know how to hold the beauty and the pain in the same place and not explode.

But I am trying.

It’s right here, beating in my chest.

What I’m Writing