An announcement

I have throughout my marriage worked hard to protect my wife's reputation, and as far as I could to speak well of her to others; and so what I'm about to say may come as a shock to many of my friends.

Dessie is divorcing me, something she's periodically threatened to do since very early in our marriage.

I'm not going to say anything else, or discuss this subject in detail, now or ever. I cannot possibly present my side of the last eighteen years while still honoring the mother of my children, which she will always be. So let me just say this:

I want to urge my friends and family not to pass judgment on my wife. The last couple of years I have simply not been able to deal with the years of accumulated frustration and pain and sense of loss in a godly manner. I can look back on the eighteen years and point to a long list of ways in which I was not a good husband, certainly not a good husband for Dessie specifically. I don't know whether or not there is a Mr. Right out there for Dessie but I certainly wasn't it. It doesn't surprise me that Dessie doesn't want to live with me any more.

Please pray for me, that I can handle this in a godly manner. And pray for my children.

Being myself with my own way of coping, I would drop a joke in at this point; but I think whistling so loudly past the graveyard is just a little bit too inappropriate even for me.

I'll be all right, by the way.