When The Damage Isn't Over

I’ve shared a lighter series recently, and I’m glad many of you connected with it. But lighter doesn’t mean healed, and it doesn’t mean finished.

I’m still carrying some heavy things. This is one of them.

I don’t really know where to start, so I’ll start honestly. A little while ago, I shared a version of my testimony here. Not the whole thing—just enough to tell the truth without telling every detail. I did that because I recently shared my full testimony in person at ARM in Ottawa. There were about thirty people in the room. I believe it mattered to some of them.

I also know that my story is polarizing. Maybe more than that. There are people who would find it offensive. Detestable, even. I don’t think I can fix that—and I’m no longer trying to.

I try to live my life doing the right thing. I don’t always succeed. Nearly four years ago, I failed in a way that still follows me.  What’s difficult is that many people reduce me to a handful of moments—moments I deeply regret—and treat them as the full and final definition of who I am. I don’t always know how to overcome that.

I can own my mistakes without letting them be the only thing that gets to speak about me. That tension is something I live with every day.

I have complicated feelings about my ex-wife. As a rule, I don’t use names without permission—mine included—and I won’t start here.

Our marriage effectively ended in October of 2024, just after my birthday. It was a blindside. What hurt most wasn’t just the end itself, but how it happened. My children were told months before I was. They knew in early summer that I wasn’t coming home. I didn’t find out until late October.

I’m not pretending I’m blameless. I know I played a role in the breakdown of my marriage. Maybe a large one. I can live with that. What I struggle with is knowing that I recognized we were in trouble years earlier and asked for help—counseling, conversations, anything—and was turned down long before my life imploded.

Some of the hardest parts came later. Choices that were deliberate. While I was incarcerated, power of attorney entrusted to her was used in ways that caused serious financial damage—damage I may never fully recover from. When I questioned it, I was told plainly that I was being punished.

I’m sorry, but who the f**k do you think you are to punish me?

When I raised the possibility of resolving things through proper legal channels, I was warned—thinly—that doing so could cost me access to my children. I know what the law says. I also know how the real world works. Access doesn’t have to be denied outright to be restricted. Someone can always be “busy.”

What hurts most is that she knew she was wrong and doubled down anyway. No apology. Just justification. I don’t justify my mistakes anymore. I did that early on, and it nearly destroyed me.

Let’s talk about how all of this affects me.

To say that I have a broken heart would be a profound understatement. I struggle to trust people now—especially women. I’m hesitant to pursue any kind of romantic relationship because I don’t trust my own judgment the way I once did.

In the final post of my last series, I wrote about my ex having taken “all that I had.” That still feels true.

I get deeply sad when I see children around the same ages as my younger two. It’s often overwhelming. There are moments when I have to remove myself from situations simply because the reminder of what I don’t have anymore is too much for me to bear. Alongside that grief, there is a constant, low-grade anxiety that I carry with me.

This is the part people don’t see. This is what lingers.

I’ve been sitting with a passage from the Psalms that I haven’t been able to shake. Not because it makes things feel better, but because it tells the truth about this kind of pain:

“It is not an enemy who taunts me—I could bear that… Instead, it is you—my equal, my companion and close friend.”

That distinction matters.

Betrayal doesn’t wound because it comes from an enemy. It wounds because it comes from someone who once knew you, trusted you, and walked alongside you.

The Psalm ends with an instruction I’m still learning how to live out: “Give your burdens to the Lord, and he will take care of you.” Some days that doesn’t feel like relief—it feels like survival. But I’m still standing. And for now, that has to count.

I’m not writing this for sympathy. I’m writing it because silence doesn’t heal anything, and because I know I’m not the only person carrying something like this.

If you’ve been judged by the worst moments of your life, if you’ve lost more than people realize, or if you’re trying to rebuild while still grieving what’s gone—I see you.

If this resonated, you’re not alone here. And if you need to say, even quietly, “me too,” this space is open.

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