Hi Angelsnow,
I've been waiting and praying to give an answer to your thread, because I was afraid if I had answered earlier, my post might be riddled by a little too much emotion.
I think divorce is a very tough thing to understand if you haven't been through it. Unfortunately, in the Christian world, divorce is seen as the Ultimate Sin and certainly 100% Preventable if you "just center your marriage around Christ", etc. No true Christian goes into a marriage believing they are going to get a divorce, so if it happens, that only compounds the shock and devastation. This is especially true because divorce is seen as the Ultimate Christian Failure That You Certainly Must Have Brought Upon Yourself.
What people don't seem to realize is that marriage is like everything else--things can go horribly wrong in very unpredictable ways, and each individual has a story as to what happened. If you get to know many of us here who are divorced, you'll come to find that a great majority here were rejected by spouses who left us for a whole host of reasons--often, that reason came in the form of another person. And that's something you definitely can't control.
I understand your questions. I come from a Christian family in which I am the only one who is divorced, and some of my very Christian family members took issue with me, asking me why I couldn't "hold my marriage together", because everyone else in the family had. It's a very tough place to be when no one understands what it's like.
However, I do sympathize with some of the feelings you've expressed. I've been divorced for a very long time, and have dated some over the years. I was married a much shorter time than many others, and I do find myself feeling a bit intimidated by someone who was married for, let's say, 15 years, especially if they have kids. I think I would feel like an intruder in an already-established family unit.
But I will tell you that (and this is just my own opinion), I would most definitely feel more comfortable with someone who had been faithfully married to one person for 15 years than, let's say, someone who had lived a single life and slept with 15 people along the way.
Now, I'm not saying that having multiple intimate partners is an unforgivable sin at all. But I always find it curious that many Christians (and I'm not saying you think this way; this is only an observation) condemn anyone divorced to hell but seem to classify having multiple intimate relationships as somehow being a much lesser sin. I have also met some Christians who have had (and continue to have) several sex partners but see themselves as being 100 times more "pure" than any divorced Christian, even if that person had only been with their spouse.
May I ask you, how would you feel about a relationship with someone who hadn't been married, but had slept with someone else or even multiple partners? Would it make a difference? I realize there is the "forever" aspect of marriage that makes it very different, but for myself, I'd feel a little less comfortable with someone who had habitually given themselves away without making any commitments as opposed to actually making the commitment and then having it go wrong in an unanticipated way.
Where was God in my life? He was right there with me, though I didn't know it at the time. He was with me during the times I made my own mistakes, and He was with my then-husband when he was falling in love with another girl. I don't know what God might have whispered to his heart during the times he went to see her. Whatever was said... it was ignored.
But God is with us every step of the way.
And so, no matter what happens, we keep on going... Knowing that God forgives us, wants us to forgive others, and never stops giving us a purpose, which might even another marriage in the future.
God bless you, and I hope you will give the divorced people you meet the benefit of the doubt. It sounds like you've met some very troubled divorcees...
But please, give the rest of us a chance.
We're not all "bad" people, and we are certainly not unforgiven by God.
