John’s Ex-Wife and Jesus
Putting Jesus on his cross wasn’t easy. The Jews wanted it done, but it was the Romans who finally did it. And in spite of all that Jesus suffered at the hands of the Romans, he forgave them.
John thought Jesus was too forgiving, but admitted Jesus made a hell of a name for himself by doing it. Putting his ex-wife on her cross, however, was a different story.
John shuddered at the thought of the problems he would face if he literally tried to put her on a cross, including finding a cross that was strong enough to hold her, getting her to hold still and stop bitching long enough for him to get the nails in, and placing the nails in just the right spots so that she didn’t pull through them, fall off the cross, and cause an earth tremor when she hit the ground.
He had the scene pictured in his mind, her in what her mother called her Bette Davis mode, bitching all the way up the hill, all during the nailing, and his not-so-easy raising of the cross with her on it without any help. And unlike Jesus, she was not a forgiving person. She wasn’t about to forgive him for the suffering she claimed he had caused her. Instead, she cursed him and called him evil and rotten to the core.
He admitted he’s far from perfect and ashamed of some of the things he has said and done in reaction to her almost constant irritability, nagging, and bitching. But evil and rotten to the core? No way!
In the past, John told her several times that they needed to have a serious talk about their marriage and make some changes if it was to survive. But she always refused, insisting a serious talk with “the likes of him” would be pointless until he admitted their problems were all his fault.
Finally, he decided he was through with trying to hold their marriage together. He told her that if she didn’t climb down off her God damned cross and stop trying to identify with Jesus, their marriage was over. He told her that she and Jesus had nothing in common. He said, “Jesus was a confident, kind, and loving person, not some insecure and self-centered bitch who loves to play the victim and wallow in self-pity.”
He had always been reluctant to file for a divorce because he knew what it would cost him. But finally, he did it. And he was right. It cost him time apart from their three children, and that delighted her because she knew it was painful for him.
In addition, it cost him almost everything he had worked hard to acquire. They lived in a community property state, but her idea of community property was she gets everything, and he gets nothing. That bothered him, but he refused to fight over possessions. In time, they could be replaced. He had no problem with paying child support. That’s as it should be. He did have a problem, however, with paying alimony, but he accepted it when it was agreed he would only have to pay it for three years.
When the lawyers stopped pitting John and his ex-wife against each other in order to prolong the divorce settlement and thereby up their fees, and a judge signed the divorce decree, he cried out in relief. The words of Martin Luther King summed up his feelings perfectly, “Free at last, free at last. Thank God almighty, I’m free at last.”
Copyright © 2021 Frank Zahn