Surviving the Uncertainty of Separation

How do others react when they hear about your troubled marriage?

Some people seem like the picture-perfect couple. But a picture only captures a perfect moment, the kind we like to post on social media to show how awesome our life is. Behind the scenes, though, things may have started to go terribly wrong. That’s what’s been happening to my friend Mark. 

All our friends thought Mark and his wife Sara were doing great. But they were not.

Mark just messaged me to reveal that he and Sara have recently separated. One night she went out for a drive, and the next morning, she just never came home. Two weeks later, Mark heard from her that she was living in another state. Unbeknownst to all their friends, their situation had reached a boiling point and it finally spilled over.

As mutual acquaintances started learning of the separation, they also started taking sides. Some unfriended Sara on Facebook. Others unfriended Mark.

But no one knew the whole story. Isn’t that always how it is? 

That’s one of the many terrible consequences of a collapsed relationship. Mutual friends may love you both, but they feel pressured to take sides. 

Who gets Mark in the breakup? Who gets Sara? For some, the decision is easy. For others, it hurts. They love you both equally and they didn’t ask for this decision. The collateral damage of a breakup is real. 

But the tragic truth is that people sometimes change… or reveal who they always were, with all their personal damage. I was not the same person my wife married six years after we met. Neither was she. People change and that’s what makes risking a relationship so scary. That’s why it requires a huge amount of discernment, wisdom, and courage to commit your life to another person. 

Mark and Sara married in the Catholic Church. Presumably, their marriage sacrament is valid. It’s just that one of them went off the rails and decided they didn’t want to be in the relationship anymore. This could be for various reasons, including simple selfishness or damage from family-of-origin issues.

Mark told me he actually feels happier than he has in five years. He feels some guilt about that, but it’s understandable. 

When you are living in a hellish situation, it’s only natural to enjoy some relief when it changes. 

When I divorced, I was sad but honestly there were also stressful aspects of the relationship I did not miss. That’s okay.

Particularly, if you are in a situation where there is unrelenting physical or psychological or emotional abuse, the Church says it’s okay to separate from the perpetrator. It doesn’t mean you might not still be sacramentally married, it means you are doing what’s best to take care of yourself, and your children and family.  

As Pope Francis stated in his exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”):

“In some cases, respect for one’s own dignity and the good of the children requires not giving in to excessive demands or preventing a grave injustice, violence, or chronic ill-treatment. In such cases, ‘separation becomes inevitable. At times it even becomes morally necessary, precisely when it is a matter of removing the more vulnerable spouse or young children from serious injury due to abuse and violence, from humiliation and exploitation, and from disregard and indifference.’ Even so, ‘separation must be considered as a last resort, after all other reasonable attempts at reconciliation have proved vain’” (page 182).

I don’t know Mark and Sara’s whole story. I don’t know all the details. I try to simply listen and not judge. And pray for them both. 

Either way, they find themselves caught in a weird position. Until both can see their issues, honestly acknowledge them, and genuinely want to reconcile, they are essentially stuck. 

They are validly married in the eyes of the Church, unless a Tribunal later declares their marriage vows were defective and grants them an annulment. What do Mark and Sara do in the meantime?

God is the worker of miracles, and Mark and Sara may still reconcile. 

Miraculous reconciliation is as much a reality as divorce. 

Until then, they can only take it a day at a time, seek God and pray. It’s kind of like the Saturday between Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. 

On that day, all hope seemed lost. A once-vibrant dream seemed over. All Jesus’s loved ones could do was wait, pray, ponder, and hope. It is not a pleasant place to be. It is demoralizing, painful, and uncertain. The uncertainty may be the worst. Will this situation ever resolve? Is my life over? Will I love and be happy again?

And then…

On Sunday, Jesus rose from the grave. More hope than ever imagined broke through and Jesus’s followers’ lives were changed forever. For good. 

If you’re suffering what Mark and Sara are going through, remember that truth as you live through your own long Saturday. Whatever happens—whether you reconcile with your spouse or things turn out otherwise—God is alive, new life is real, and joy awaits.