So when Jan and I had conflict, I would say terribly hurtful things and try to control the conversation with fits of rage.
I had never seen my parents resolve conflict in any kind of a constructive way. I had grown up in an environment where all conflicts were engaged in with anger and yelling. We would fight, and when I had been drinking, I would become very verbally abusive sometimes erupting in rage. And in many ways we did, but we were both broken and selfish, so problems began to manifest.Īnd though we didn’t really understand it, both of us were subject to depression and I, in particular, developed the habit of relying on alcohol as a way of coping with that depression. We were young, in love, and just assumed we would make each other happy. Neither one of us had any idea what a real marriage was supposed to look like. After that, there was virtually no recognition of God in our house.īrett As Jan and I began our married lives, we were both products of our environments. My mother took my sisters and I to church occasionally when we were young, but she was not a believer and she found some imagined reason to get mad at the church and we quit going. When I compared myself with the other girls there, all I could think about was that they must be worthwhile because their fathers had shown up, and I, on the other hand, must not be worth much because mine didn’t. I can still feel that sharp sense of humiliation that overwhelmed me that night. The father of another girl there felt sorry for me and offered to dance with me, but I didn’t want to. I was the only girl at the dance whose father didn’t show up. One of my most painful memories is when I was a young Girl Scout and my father failed to show up at a Father/Daughter dance. That’s how unaccustomed we were to his involvement in our daily lives. When my parents separated, it took 3 weeks before any of us girls asked where our Dad was.
He was constantly gone on the professional rodeo circuit or busy doing anything but being home with his wife and three daughters. He was an alcoholic, as were his parents and didn’t become sober until long after I was an adult. Jan I grew up in a house in which my father was basically never at home. I had no adults in my life who were discipling me and really had no examples in my life of anyone who lived an abiding relationship with the Lord. My new stepfather’s job caused us to move, so I saw my grandparents only occasionally after that.
He was a very decent man but also was an unbeliever. However, my mother remarried within a year and a half. They were wonderful Christians and my grandfather led me to a profession of Christ. So, when the worst of the turmoil at home was going on during the divorce, my sister and I spent lots of time with my grandparents. Her parents had tried to get her to see that it was a mistake to marry an unbeliever, but she wouldn't listen. Though my mother was the daughter of a Baptist preacher and a believer, when she left home she found the world more enticing than following Christ and married my father who was an unbeliever. There was lots of yelling and my childhood was not one of peace at home. All I remember of those earliest years was the constant arguing of my parents. My parents divorced when I was 9 years old. In 2005, we were on the verge of divorce, but thanks be to God today we have a much stronger relationship now than we’ve ever had. Jan and I are high school sweethearts who are today grateful for God’s grace in saving us and our marriage. They have a 2 year-old who is our first grandchild and are expecting a second soon. We have been married 38 years and have two sons. Brett My name is Brett Bruster and this is my wife, Jan.