Hi.  My name is Jim and I’m a statistic. 

In college, I was a good student.  I was a business major and I received mostly A's or B's in my courses.  Except in Statistics.  In Statistics, I struggled to get a C.  And that C has haunted my college GPA ever since (Ok, not really - I don't even remember my college GPA anymore!  Guess it wasn't so important after all!).  Needless to say, I hate statistics.  Besides the theoretical equations that LOOKED like math equations but WEREN'T, I learned that relying solely on statistics rarely gives you the whole picture.  People use statistics to justify horrible business decisions (see:  New Coke, Crystal Pepsi, anything Windows/PC related) or to find comfort in the safety of numbers (see:  69% of Americans have smoked weed, I should try it too!).  Rarely do statistics tell the story behind those numbers.

Well, I have become a statistic.  But I refuse to become a number.  There is a story behind my statistic and I hope to share it here.  

Approximately 50% of the married couples in the United States get a divorce any given year.  In 2008, I became part of that 50%.  You may be wondering what I did wrong to cause my marriage to fail.  Or what my wife did.  The truth of the matter is...it doesn’t really matter who did (or didn’t do) what.  We both made a commitment - a vow - to honor and cherish each other “til death do us part”.  Well, we’re both alive, yet here we are...apart.

It was eight years ago this week when we met.  It wasn’t love at first sight, but I certainly thought she was attractive, charming, funny, and impulsive.  She was dating someone at the time, but we were drawn to each other.  A friendship blossomed and as the months went by, we started dating.  We were both Christians.  She was just discovering her faith, deepening her trust in Him.  I had come through a couple of years of maturing and understanding who I was in God, giving me a firmer foundation to walk in Christ.  Eventually, our dating turned into an engagement, and our engagement into a marriage.  We were young, we were poor, we were the first of our friends to get married - and we honestly had no clue what we were doing!

In hindsight, it didn’t take long for us to develop problems - it just took us a long time to acknowledge them.  Ultimately the reasons why our marriage broke up were typical.  A failure to communicate here, a little confrontation avoidance there.  Throw in some unrealistic expectations of what “lifelong happiness” means, take away a lack of solid church community and friends, and it should be no surprise our marriage ended up on the rocks.  Of course, when that moment  came, it was absolutely a surprise for me.  

That moment happened over two years ago.  And while I can acknowledge my hand in causing my marriage to fail, I can also say unequivocally that I did not want my marriage to fail.  If you’ve done the math, you may have noticed that we were separated for nearly two years before the divorce was finalized.  With no kids, no discernible income to speak of, and certainly no house to divide up (we lived in Southern California during the height of the real estate boom!), our divorce could have been finalized in 6 months.  

There’s a story in those two years.  It’s a story of love, heartbreak, friendship, restoration, community, anger, hope, despair, and healing.  It’s a story about the battle to save my marriage.  And even though you already know the ending, I hope you’ll find value in hearing about my journey.  As I’ve shared my story with close friends, family, and pastors, I’m learning that the war I waged to save my marriage is not typical.  When many people would have chosen to walk away, I continued to fight.  

You already know the stats about my marriage - stay tuned to this blog to understand the heart behind it.  My divorce may be just another statistic, but my story is a reflection of God’s grace, strength, and wisdom.