Dear LFTP: divorced after a 38-year marriage
- Is it unreasonable to still have lingering pain and anger after a 38-year marriage ended in betrayal and divorce?
The reader reads a letter from a 60-year-old woman divorced after a 38-year marriage ended by her husband's affair; she asks whether lingering pain and anger are unreasonable. The hosts answer no: the betrayal was cataclysmic, the wound will soften but never fully disappear, and her ex-husband's breezy "moving on" with a much younger woman is the unhealthy response, not the healthy one. The "secular answer" counsels steering drifting thoughts back to the present and investing energy in the future — which the hosts endorse as spot-on.
More on Grief
-
Holy Spirit experience: healing, cessationism, and testing the spirits
- Is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today?
The central hard question: is there a normative experience of the Holy Spirit in the world today, and what does it mean for a follower of Jesus?
From No. 593 · Do You Hear What I Hear
-
Dear LFTP 3: Mom's false teeth
- What should the family do with their late mother's false teeth?
Mike reads the letter: the family found their late mother's false teeth — creepy to keep, wrong to discard?
From No. 590 · Theodore Franco
-
Dear LFTP: should I attend my murdered niece's funeral?
- Should I attend my murdered niece's funeral after thirty years of family estrangement?
Mike reads a letter from a woman estranged from her brother's family for thirty years whose niece was murdered by her husband in a murder-suicide.
From No. 587 · Coffee After Sunday
-
Dear LFTP: AA member who witnessed a life-support withdrawal
- How do I come to terms with accidentally witnessing a fellow AA member's life-support withdrawal?
An AA member writes that while visiting a hospitalized fellow member with cookies, he arrived at the exact moment doctors withdrew life support and witnessed the family's raw grief; he now fears he intruded and caused harm.
From No. 568 · Like Jesus