Church

With a sermon topic on dinosaurs, I would have actually gotten my ex-husband to church tomorrow had we still been together.  Not that I ever pressured him.

I really hate how I had to carefully navigate within the context of my marriage my involvement in a church once we moved south.  Our marriage wasn't based on a shared faith.  Neither of us attended church or participated in a church when we first met.  I had grown up very involved in the Lutheran Church but had walked away from it in college when it felt hypocritical.  He had gone to a Catholic elementary school for a couple years but otherwise didn't have consistent involvement in any church growing up.  I knew he was pretty anti-religion.

So when I started talking about getting involved with a church in about year thirteen of our marriage, I didn't ever expect it to be an "us" thing.  I tried to be very clear that this was something I needed for myself and he was perfectly free to participate as much or as little as he wanted or even not at all.  I kind of hope that every once in a while, he would want to come hear me sing but it wasn't something I ever asked of him because I wanted it to be his choice.

He attended pretty regularly that first year or so before the pandemic and even came to an overnight church retreat with me.  I always got the sense that no matter what I said or how I tried to convince him I didn't expect him to participate with me, he still felt some obligation.

And then during the pandemic, I decided I wanted to officially join.  I really tried to have some serious conversations with him about this and when he casually mentioned worrying about how it would look to have a wife join but not her husband, I actually tried to talk him out of it.  I knew no one at our church would care.  Plenty of other wives had joined without their husbands.  But he wasn't willing to hear me or have a real conversation about it.  Ultimately, he decided to join with me.

After we returned to in person services after the pandemic, he started going less and less often which was fine with me.  But with each pledge season, I felt a bit more tension as we talked about what our donation to the church would be.  The amount we gave seemed pretty reasonable for the rich benefits I got from singing in the choir and participating in the community.  I saw it as the cost of my hobby and my social circle.  In hindsight, I realize now it didn't even come close to what we spent on cars for him on an annual basis.  It didn't even exceed the amount we spent on each individual trade-in which was happening 3-4 times a year.

And then when the divorce happened mid-year, he didn't even give a thought to the fact that his name was on the pledge as well.  He abandoned it as easily as he abandoned me.  He left me to have the conversation with my pastor about adjusting the amount to meet my single salary and removing his name from it.  The performance I actually never asked him to play of a church-involved husband ended abruptly with consequences to me, consequences I never would have felt if he hadn't chosen his ego and image over the authenticity I asked of him.