Chapter 10: "I Had to Stop Being So ‘Strong’ – So I Could Get The Help I Needed”
Jenine: “I really felt very, very strongly that, in the end, in any given situation, God would help me. And I have always turned to Him. And I have always asked for His strength.
“1 sort of feel when you are begging the alcoholic to be nice, it’s like it says in the Bible, something about casting your pearls before swine.”
Toby: ‘That sounds like alcoholism in a nutshell! When we financially support an alcoholic who is abusive, it’s like we pawn the pearls to take care of the swine!”
Jenine: “Exactly. And when I realized that I am worthwhile, it was like a fleeting glimpse. You don’t feel that way every day. There are days you feel rotten about yourself; you feel worse than that. You feel that you are not really worthy of anything, so you take everything that you have to take from that alcoholic, that day.
“But, once in a while, this little light comes on that says, ‘You are worthwhile. You have taken enough of this junk. You cannot demean yourself any longer. You have to get out of this situation because he is going to continue to do that to you.’
“I was always embarrassed that I was taking it. I think that’s when I realized one of the many things that helped push me out: that I was ashamed about where I had allowed myself to be pushed. At the level I had allowed myself to get to.
“You talk about an alcoholic allowing himself to get down to the gutter level from drinking. Well, I had allowed him to push me down into the gutter by his verbal abuse, his emotional abuse. He was never physically abusive, but the emotional and mental abuse was unbelievable.
“I had allowed him to send me into a really low ebb. When this suddenly dawned on me, then every day, in some small way, it would come up again. This revelation about how bad it really was.
“Have you heard of the Hound of Heaven? It’s from Dante’s Divine Comedy. God is called the Hound of Heaven. And He’s not going to let you go if He wants you as His child.
“God is going to keep coming after you, no matter what you do.
“And I felt that. With all my friends and all my family reaching out to me – through them – God was working. Through them, He was the Hound of Heaven, coming after me.
“No matter what I did, He was going to make me face up to the fact that I was worthwhile. That I couldn’t’t live any longer like this.
“I would look up and constantly think, ‘the Hound of Heaven’s after me. I’ve got to make this decision. I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to have faith. I’ve got to have trust.’ I could no longer lie to myself. I could no longer demean myself. I had allowed Tim to do this. I can’t do it to myself. Because God isn’t going to let me. The Hound of Heaven wasn’t going to let me.
“That was what really saved me, helped me, to pull out of that. About a week before my divorce became final, I was driving to work about 9 a.m. I would say my prayers in the morning, on the beltway. And 1 said to Him, ‘Well you know God, this is finally finalized.’ At one time, I never thought that this would happen. That I would be able to make this break. At least, legally. Whether I had done it emotionally or otherwise, yet, I wasn’t sure.
“But I just never realized that when I was asking help from God, I could never ask for help from anyone else. I never asked them to do anything for me. I always felt it was an imposition. And I admired that about myself. I assumed it meant I was ‘strong.’ I always said, ‘Oh, never mind. I’ll be able to do that myself.’ And they’d say, ‘Are you sure?’ And I’d always say, ‘Sure!’
“If I asked anyone to help me, I really condemned myself. I’d be really angry that I had to ask. them.
“I didn’t know that I didn’t feel worthy of their help.
“But I could always ask God. The trouble was, He was putting these people out there, to help me, and I kept rejecting them. I’d say to myself, ‘I can’t ask them to help me!’ I wanted God to do it.
“I wanted that answer in some other way. I wanted Him to wrinkle His nose and make everything perfect. But I didn’t want to go through other people. I would do the work, if He wanted. But I couldn’t ask them to do the work. I felt that that was scut-work, helping me.
“Well, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that other people are truly the instruments of God. They’re His children, and I had to learn to accept His gifts.
“And you don’t necessarily receive back from those you helped. You receive from others. That’s the way it seemed to work for me.
“Suddenly, it’s turned around. You’re not the strong one. They are. And I didn’t want to think that I wasn’t the strong one.
“At least, I didn’t want them to know that I wasn’t the strong one!
“I never wanted them to see that side of me, when I was needy.
“But I learned that they’re there for me. That I could reach out, and ask, and they’d be there for me. They’d insist. They’d be insistent about helping me.
“Again, this was the Hound of Heaven.
“They’d insist on proving to me that I could do it on my own, that I could get out. That I could be by myself. That I didn’t have to be by myself.
“They watched my marriage, and they knew before I did that Tim wasn’t going to get another job, that he’d never really be there for me.
“I was almost 64 years old. I wanted someone with me. I wanted someone to live out my life with.
“But he was never really there for me.
“My therapist said to me, ‘You think he is going to change. What makes you think that?’
“When I was in group, I’d bring up a problem that would arise, and the group would say, ‘Why would Tim act any differently than he’s always acted?’ And I’d think, ‘Come on! He’ll change. I’ll just be persistent. And he’ll come around.’
“I guess I was just so full of denial about the fact that this guy wouldn’t come through in some areas, I just couldn’t believe it. I’d say to myself, ‘Of course, he’ll do that. It means the end of the world if he doesn’t do it.’
“But you know, it didn’t matter to him, that it was the end of my world.”
