Each spring brings the grand unveiling of my barbecue, as soon as it is vaguely warm enough (the weather, not the coals). To be honest, there just needs to be no snow on the ground. I’ve had so may barbies in January, my neighbours think I’m Australian.
We invite them round and there I stand, lord of my domain, turning the sausages and frying the onions. I also make a mean minted shoulder of lamb, searing it on the coals before grilling it till it drips with juice. For dessert I grill mango and melt bananas with chocolate, a culinary delight that has to be tasted to be believed.
And I do it all myself. It’s not that I don’t trust my wife, but it’s my job. A man’s place is by the barbecue, with a monstrous pair of tongs in one hand and a chilled can of Fosters in the other; avoiding idle chitchat with strangers, unless it’s about cuts of meat.
This was all very well, until one weekend I promised my family a barbecue, forgetting that I had to be away doing a gig in the north of the country.
My wife was going to have to take control of my barbecue. We both felt uncomfortable at this blurring of our territories. We had to have some swift staff training – and it was with great trepidation that she took on my mantle.
But she did a good job. I checked, of course, asking the kids if Mum’s sausages were as good as Dad’s, to which they sang a resounding ‘Yes’. Moreover, she had got cocky and created home-made burgers, which the children were raving about. I felt a little redundant. After all, the reality is, she prepares the salads, bread, utensils, napkins and sauces, lays the table and clears up afterwards. While I clearly have the most important job; standing over the barbecue. I’d been emasculated.
It’s not just barbecues. It happens easily, and often there’s no option, but we need to make sure that we’re not the only people who can do what we do. We get caught up in a role, imagining we’re the only one who can do it. It’s simpler to do something ourselves because it makes us important, keeps us useful and makes people need us.
So let’s not hold on to our positions in life and get precious about who we entrust things to do. Let’s encourage those around us to get involved, share our passions with people who care, and mentor others to carry on the work.
Next, I will see if Bekah is up for putting the bins out. I’m not precious.
How can you get through a divorce? Charles Reid has some first-hand experience of the process and some considered suggestions if you, or a close friend, are in the throes of this difficult and emotionally wrenching undertaking.
In 2021, there were 113,505 divorces granted in England and Wales, according to the Office of National Statistics. That’s 227,010 adults who have struggled through to the point of having a decree absolute granted by the courts. That doesn’t include the children, grandchildren, siblings, parents, grandparents, friends, and colleagues who are impacted when a married couple terminate the relationship and start on separate paths. Do not be fooled by the simplistic way divorce is portrayed in the media; this is not likely to be an easy smooth process, and it will test every element of your character.
During the summer of 2015 I started out on this painful, difficult and expensive route. As with nearly two-thirds of male-female married couples, it was my wife who decided to instigate the divorce. We had struggled along together for some years going to repeated counselling sessions, and trying hard to do the best we could. However, we both brought historical baggage into our marriage, and it seemed that we were never going to get to a great place, and so she made the decision to end the relationship.
Although I knew our marriage was not a great place to be in for either of us, it still came as a horrible shock when she informed me that we were going no further together. Over the course of the following few years (this is rarely a speedy process), I learned a lot about myself, my friends and family, and my relationship with God. I’d like to share a few things which may help anyone going through a similar situation – just practical observations.
Take it slow
Patience is the most important quality you will need. The legal process runs slowly, especially while the courts are trying to regain their pre-pandemic equilibrium, but even in ‘normal’ times things seldom happen quickly. If you are the sort of person who cannot cope with delayed gratification and needs everything now, you may find that you regret decisions, things said or done, and the final agreement reached, for years to come. At every stage, in your head ask yourself, “Will I care about the outcome of this part in five years’ time?” If the answer is yes, then stand firm on that point. Otherwise, be prepared to give a little. Pick your battles – you can’t and won’t win all of them.
Get legal counsel
Make sure you get good legal advice, and do it as early in the process as you can. Don’t hire a combative solicitor – they may cost you dearly in financial terms as well as in time and eventual outcome. Look for someone who understands that the desired end of a divorce negotiation is a ‘fair and equitable’ settlement which allows former husband and wife to live a reasonable life, and that the now individual adults should be self-supporting within a viable timescale. The days of being taken for every penny you have are, thankfully, past, in favour of a more balanced approach. The solicitor I chose, having been recommended by friends, told me at our first meeting what the he expected the financial outcome would be. Two years later, he was almost entirely accurate in his prediction. This is the sort of person you need representing you.
Pick your friends
Next, carefully select some really good friends. I cannot stress this enough. Do not trust anyone who may be reporting back to your former spouse. I was fortunate here: I enlisted three very long-standing friends, two of whom had known me in the years before my marriage. All three had proven that they were honest with me: I knew this by the fact that they had sometimes told me things I may not have wanted to hear, but nonetheless were accurate and true. I asked my three friends to become my ‘Council of Reference’, and they were absolutely invaluable in helping me walk through the divorce process. We set up a WhatsApp group where messages could be posted at all times of the day or night and responded to as time allowed.
I had realised very quickly that the emotional burden was going to be enormous and challenging, and there was a high risk that, due to anger or sadness or some other strong mental demand, I would make poor decisions. My Council of Reference were my wise counsel, people physically removed from most of the emotion, who could feed back jointly or together a considered response to my questions around, “This has happened, and I want to do this, but should I?” To try and ensure a balanced view, one of the three was single, one married, and one divorced. Two were male and one female, again to try and balance the advice offered. In almost every situation I used the counsel offered by these friends, and I am enormously grateful to them for making themselves available for a couple of years of their lives to support a struggling man.
Avoid the twits
Speaking of emotional burdens, social media is not your friend during a divorce. Seriously consider deleting your social media accounts. At the time, I was on Facebook and Twitter, and my ex-wife weaponised it, trying to turn friends, colleagues, and family against me. I told friends and family that I literally didn’t want to know or hear anything about what was posted, and it genuinely helped me to cope with the pressure of making good decisions. I deleted my profiles and didn’t rejoin for some years.
Tell the boss
It’s vitally important to let your employer know what’s going on in your life. Make no mistake, divorce is going to impact you in ways you didn’t expect, and it may affect your work. I was lucky enough to have a sympathetic boss, and so when I privately told them that I was starting to work through a divorce they helped me to ensure that any work being issued to clients was correct, sanity-checked some of my emails, and even offered me some time off when I really needed it. Trying to hide a life event as all-encompassing as the separation of a long-term relationship is extremely difficult, and adds stress to an already stressful situation. Don’t do it. If your boss is wholly unsympathetic, it may be worth considering changing jobs, but in general my advice would be not to make any huge life changes at this point if you don’t absolutely have to.
Find a home
One life change you will have to face is finding somewhere to live. Renting property is a nightmare in the UK right now, with high demand and low supply making rents and deposits scarily high. Unless you’re seriously wealthy you’re unlikely to be able to buy a property, as your former wife (and any children still at home) can choose to stay in the family home until an agreed date. This means that you’re still on the hook for the mortgage, which may affect your personal ability to borrow to buy another property.
With all that in mind, wherever you end up living will be your refuge, your place to curl up and mourn the loss of your marriage, but also where the roots of your next life chapter will be born. Don’t be too proud to look at places you would never have previously considered. I ended up living above a shop in a small two-bed flat in the middle of a council estate, having borrowed money to get the deposit together. It was (just) affordable, and money was incredibly tight for a few months, but having space of my own, and somewhere for my children to be able to visit, was a literal Godsend.
Feel the emotion
You won’t come out of this process emotionally unscathed. Everything you thought was your future has just come crashing down in pieces, possibly never to be resurrected. If you have children, they are going to be hurt, upset, puzzled, and all sorts of other things, and it’s partly your fault. Acknowledge that guilt. Mourn the death of your relationship. Worth through it. Get counselling Cry to God for help and healing. This is where some of the Psalms of David start to chime. Life is not good. God’s gracious help, love warmth and forgiveness is there for the asking. Don’t repress your emotions in that way that we Brits are so renowned for. Get it out, get it dealt with, and then move on with a lighter step.
Let it go
There will be plenty to forgive too. First, yourself. You are very likely to shoulder blame, some of which will be warranted and some not. Either way, God forgives when you ask Him, and so you need to forgive yourself too. You will also need to forgive your ex-partner. Easy? Ha! No, but as has been widely quoted in the past, holding a grudge against someone is like drinking poison and hoping that the other person will die. Her life is no longer your responsibility. Her decisions are now hers alone.
Photo credit: Luigi Estuye via Unsplash
Taste the joys
Search for, and enjoy, the unexpected freedom. One of the finest feelings I can recall during that period was realising that I could buy orange juice with bits. Daft, right? In our house we only ever had smooth orange juice, and I quite liked the bits. So go round the supermarket and buy the things you enjoy but which were previously restricted. Hang pictures which you love. Read books, watch your favourite TV, listen to the music which makes you smile. There’s a lot of touch stuff in a divorce, but there are little glimpses of sunshine through all the dark clouds.
Look to the future
Remember, none of this is permanent. After your financial settlement is agreed, the decree absolute has been issued, and all that legal stuff is out of the way, you are free to move forward on your own, following God and your heart, and find out what is in store. I have a (worryingly large) number of friends who have gone through divorce, and it’s true that in the years after the process they have discovered positives in life, and are often happier than they were immediately pre-divorce. To state the (hopefully) obvious, I’m absolutely not recommending this journey, but God can truly use all things for his ultimate glory.
So, continue to be patient with yourself, with your family, with your children, and with your ex-spouse (no matter how difficult that is). Patience and wisdom, good friends, and, over all, clinging to God, will get you through intact. I wish you well if you’re battling through this part of life. One verse that constantly helped me was Jeremiah 29 verse 11, and I commend it to you.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11
We all have a story and, as the story of our life unfolds, it will intersect with the stories of others.
In 1846, James Caughey visited a little church in Nottingham as a guest speaker. He talked about developing the character of a servant, helping the poor and sharing faith.
One particular man sitting in the congregation had been drifting in his faith. He felt God speak to him that night. That young man was William Booth and the movement he founded was the Salvation Army, which today is an international movement sharing the gospel and meeting human need in the most deprived situations.
Some things struck me about that story. Firstly, there’s a challenge to faithfulness. James Caughey was a Methodist minister who faithfully followed God’s call to move to England, not knowing what might lie ahead. He was faithful and wasn’t bothered about fame or profile or preaching to large audiences. He was happy to show up at a small gathering and share what God had put on his heart. He had no idea of how his words might impact another’s life.
And there’s a challenge to serve. He presented a challenge not just for folks to turn to God in faith, but called them to action to serve a needy world. James Coughey’s faithfulness intersected with William Booth’s shaky faith. God spoke, Booth responded, and the story was forever changed. Booth turned back to his faith and found a way to strengthen and bless others.
Gordon is a good friend. We have spent some fun times together, but he is totally locked into ‘stuff’. He’s a busy person and he’s gadget mad and considers it a priority to have the latest versions. He has a good job and can afford to buy these things. I suppose when I was earning more money I was a bit more carefree, but I sometimes wonder whether for him it is an addiction. I’m probably about five years behind when it comes to the latest technology, but as we talked it became clear that he would find it very difficult to go back even a couple of years to what then seemed like a must-have piece of equipment. In his eyes going backwards represents a failure of some sort, and his fairly forceful insistence that I should upgrade my stuff was actually quite hurtful.
I’ve always wanted to be a good provider. I feel the weight of that responsibility. I hope I never lose that sense. But I sometimes feel self-conscious that my car is getting on a bit. Why should I? It runs perfectly well. Yet I feel slightly off the pace of other men whom I perceive to be more successful than me. Do you ever feel this kind of pressure?
Financial difficulties can leave you with feelings of uselessness and under-achievement. The trouble is we’ve all come to expect a certain standard of living. Some young couples expect to start out in life where their parents ended up after a lifetime of work. It was all made worse by the ‘buy now, pay later’ idea. When I was a young man there was a cultural shift from saving up until you could afford something, to buying it now on credit. After all, why pay more for it a year down the line if you could get it cheaper now, even allowing for paying some interest?
Men can feel an unspoken pressure to compete with one another. I know one guy who doesn’t watch adverts on television because he doesn’t want to know what the latest gadget is. He doesn’t want that pressure on top of everything else he has to deal with. Sadly, advertisers find ever more cunning ways of peddling their wares especially through the internet. It’s so annoying when adverts pop up uninvited. It’s almost impossible to avoid.
It takes will power to swim against this tide, to channel some of that drive to be a good provider into holding back on what we want and being happy with what we have. Let’s be strong enough to avoid the tendency to compare ourselves with others. Let’s not overstretch our resources just to keep up appearances.
It’s healthy to be content, but envy can eat you up. Proverbs 14:30 CEV.
Dr Glenn Doyle is a licensed psychologist based in Illinois and the District of Columbia, and Director of The Doyle Practice, a private psychotherapy practice with offices in Chicago and DC. I’ve benefited from following Dr Doyle’s regular snippets of insight and wisdom which he regularly shares on his social media platforms. Dr Doyle speaks in easy to understand, sometimes colourful, language and seems utterly grounded in the reality of human existence.
Doyle writes with far greater authority than I ever could about the internal world of the mind and the heart. With astonishing honesty he addresses the realities of living with anxiety and depression. He is particularly astute when it comes to tackling external stimuli which can trigger unwanted, overwhelming responses. His writings, and the work he does around Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are so helpful. While researching for a book about home I was delighted to discover that he has shared some of his thoughts about the concept of home on his personal website – useyourdammskills.com.
In his inimitable style Dr Doyle writes:Home is a complicated subject for a lot of people. I wish it was simple, straightforward. I wish that nobody had mixed feelings or associations with the word “home.”
But we do. In the best of all possible worlds, home speaks to a place that is safe.
A place where we feel wanted. Where we ARE wanted.
In the best of all possible worlds, home speaks to a place where we established a safe base from which to explore and experience the world, and to which we can return to rest, recharge, and remember.
But for many people, it’s more complicated than that.
For some people, as they were growing up, home was a place that was unpredictable.
We WANT home to be a place where we’re able to kind of lower the mask that we wear out in public, and be ourselves, let our hair down, let our defences down.
But a lot of people weren’t able to do that growing up.
For them, home was a place where they had to engage different kinds of defences and wear different kinds of masks, than they did out in the world.
A lot of people don’t know what it’s like to feel truly safe.
There are different kinds of safety, and different kinds of danger, both out there in the world, and even back at home, for a lot of people.
When we grow up feeling fundamentally unsafe, we tend to blame ourselves.
What’s wrong with us, we wonder, that we can’t or don’t feel truly safe?
After all, we hear other people speak affectionately or nostalgically about home.
What’s wrong with us that we don’t feel that way, we wonder?
If you grew up feeling that home wasn’t a safe place, a place where you felt safe, wanted, understood, supported, it wasn’t your fault.
It wasn’t on you to make home a safe place. You were a kid.
There are people reading this who really, really want to go home but not to the house or the place where they grew up.
We want to FIND home.
We want to FIND that place where we DO feel safe, wanted, understood, and supported.
Even if we kind of doubt it exists, part of us STILL wants to find, and go, home.
As it turns out, a big part of recovery from depression, anxiety, trauma, and/or addiction is creating that sense of home inside us.
We will try, again and again, to find or create that sense in other people, or places, or institutions, and we may even experience bits and pieces of it here and there … but the truth is, it’s on us to make the inside of our own head and heart that fundamental place of safety for us.
We need to know, without a doubt, that we are safe inside our own head.
We need to know, without a doubt, that we are safe with ourselves.
We need to know, without a doubt, that we can retreat inside our head and heart, and find a landscape that is familiar and non-toxic.
For some of us, that may be completely unfamiliar territory and we may have doubts about our ability to create that safety, that home inside of us.
But that’s the work of recovery. That’s what’s in front of us. Nothing we do in therapy or recovery is going to matter all that much if we don’t make the inside of our own head a safe place.
I wish so many of us didn’t have to work so hard to create a whole new meaning for the word home.
I wish home was a default place of safety for all of us.
But this is the hand we’ve been dealt, and all we can do, is what we can do.
So let’s do that.
Read more in depth articles from Dr Glenn Doyle here. Find his books here and professional services here.
The writers of Endeavour had earned my trust, but dare I trust them one last time? As the ninth and final season of the hit ITV crime drama broadcast the final episode I had one burning question: Could I be certain that the writers would tidy up all the loose ends to my complete and total satisfaction?
I enjoy a nice solid ending, thank you very much. No cliff hangers, fatal accidents (Unforgotten writers; I’m looking at you), unresolved issues, sudden cut-offs, bizarre plot twists or waking from a dream two minutes before the closing credits roll. No, those options simply wouldn’t do. After all, I had let their characters into my living room, I’d invested emotionally into every single one of them, but would they stitch me up for the last episode?
Would the charming and witty Dr DeBryn ever find love? Could Chief Superintendent Bright carry on? Would the fabulous Miss Frazil finally meet someone? What would become of young Joan, our lovely Joan? And Detective Sergeant Endeavour Morse (Shaun Evans) himself, what of the lad upon whom the main plot line rests? And oh yeah … I suppose all those pesky crimes still needed solving too. But my very worst worry was – would they kill off my beloved Fred? How could they convincingly write Detective Inspector Fred Thursday (Roger Allam), the man who had mentored Morse, out of Morse’s future?
For dysfunctional reasons of my own I confess there’s a part of me which needs to believe in the Freds of this world. For a couple of hours Endeavour provides me with a brief respite in which to do exactly that. I desperately want to believe that the important big things are being run properly, by proper grown-ups who properly know what they’re doing. They’ve lived a life. They know people. They may be deeply flawed and human, but they are also fearless, fair and fatherly.
Fred Thursday has seen, and been, both the very worst and the very best of people. And while he’s no stranger to rough justice, on the whole, he aims to play by the book and uphold the law. He navigates his way around the edges of turmoil, inner conflict and human suffering with equal measures of tenderness and toughness. Roger Allam commands an incredibly powerful screen presence. Without uttering a single swear word his steely glare oozes don’t-mess-with-me old school justice. He plays Thursday with such gripping force, I can barely stand to watch him play another part, and face up to the reality that he’s actually an actor.
Another part of me needs familiar things not to end. Not to change. Not ever. Because there can be a dreadful sadness in endings. There’s a part of me which longs for familiar things, and people, to go on forever. It seems I am not alone in this longing. In the final episode of the final series the writers of Endeavour grab this issue by the horns. They face up to it, well, like grown-ups. They somehow shine a light on these longings, which are an essential part of our shared humanity, thus allowing the viewer to feel less alone. And isn’t that one of the things which good writers of fiction do? They somehow help the reader, or the viewer, to feel less alone. As the final credits rolled and the familiar Morse theme played, I knew I had been right to trust them. They did ok.
Episodes of Endeavour are available to stream on ITVX.
Conspiracy theories seem to be everywhere. Folks can fall for unsubstantiated stories whizzing around on social media without having seen any evidence to back up their belief. Others would say that seeing is believing, and unless there is indisputable evidence they won’t take a risk. Yet what we believe can determine the path we choose and the way we live our lives.
I don’t think it’s that difficult to believe in something we can’t see. We believe that the chair we’re sitting on wont fall apart when we sit on it. Why? Well, we know a thing or two about chairs don’t we? We’ve seen them before, and got some experience of how they work, and we’ve seen others sitting on them and not fall off. We’ve tried some out for ourselves and we trust that the design of the chair won’t let us down.
Someone might have told you that there’s a brilliant film out and you need to see it. They may rattle on about how good it is, and about a special effect that blew them away, or describe a particular moment when the hero had to take courage and head off into the unknown. Maybe it even changed the way they looked at some aspect of life. But if you haven’t seen it yet, unless you see it for yourself, you’ll never fully believe what they’re telling you and it will be difficult to share their enthusiasm.
In many respects, faith is about believing in things we haven’t yet seen. Long ago a man named Paul sent letters to friends who had started to believe certain radical things about faith. Paul wrote this: We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. (Extracted from 2 Cor 4 New Living Translation)
Pressed on every side by troubles. Is that how you feel today? Have faith that things will get better; have faith that you can get up again after being knocked down; faith can help you get beyond the current struggle and believe that it won’t always be like it is right now. There is an unseen story unfolding, have faith to believe it.
Editor’s Note: I’m delighted to welcome JP Dao, UK Chief Executive, GFA World as a Guest Writer for Sorted Magazine.
JP writes: Valentine’s Day is here, and many of us will be caught up in the excitement of sharing a romantic day with our loved ones. Preparations have been made all over the country, restaurants with their deals on champagne, teddy bears with love hearts stacking the shelves that recently held advent calendars. But what is less obvious is, where does Valentine’s Day come from?
Compared to some other events in the Christian calendar such as Easter or Christmas, Valentine’s Day usually flies under the radar, if it even makes the Christian calendar at all. Indeed, very few Christians that I know of mark the occasion by celebrating one of the Church’s revered saints. Instead, St. Valentine has largely been lost in the annals of history, and very few of us today know anything about him.
So, who was St. Valentine? And why is it important for churches to remember him?
St. Valentine was a courageous missionary priest and martyr who lived in Rome in the Third Century, an incredibly dangerous point in history in which to be a Christian. His faith and purported healing of the son of a prominent teacher led to many becoming believers. This miracle, however, also led to St. Valentine’s arrest. But before he was sentenced, St. Valentine healed the judge’s daughter of her lifelong blindness after he had heard of St Valentine’s healings and wanted him to pray for her. The judge then cleared St. Valentine of all charges and let him go free.
At the time, the Roman Emperor Claudius II made a decree that no soldiers could be married, as marriage was seen as a distraction from service to the Empire, and St. Valentine would marry Christian soldiers in secret. St. Valentine did many other things to help Christians who were being persecuted in and around the capital. However, the news reached the ears of the Emperor and St. Valentine found himself in prison once again.
Many of those who helped St. Valentine were also arrested, and he wrote letters to them, encouraging them to run the good race. His letter to the judge’s daughter ended with his signature “from your Valentine”, which has developed into the much-loved phrase we use today. Ultimately, St. Valentine was beaten and beheaded for his faith on February 14th around approximately 270AD.
St. Valentine was a man who loved Jesus Christ, and through whom the power of Christ flowed to minister and to heal. His work opened doors for him to share about the love of Christ with many people, and many found Jesus as a result. He died for sharing his faith and not holding his own life dear to him. So why does the Church not celebrate him?
No doubt, there are challenges for Christians in the UK too; our views are strongly challenged and often ridiculed. But just imagine if to be a Christian we had to lose our British citizenship. Or if our children were not permitted to attend certain schools because they are Christian. Or if we were refused work because of our faith. Or if we could not get access to clean water because we attend church. This is what people in some parts of the world are facing.
One of our GFA-supported overseas workers once had his hand broken while sharing Christ’s love in a village as part of our Film Ministry. Others have been beaten and chased out of communities for doing similar things.
Imagine if, for Christians, Valentine’s Day could become about remembering our families and friends overseas who are risking their lives for their faith. Imagine if, instead of just buying our romantic interests chocolate roses or going to the cinema, we stood together in prayer for our brothers and sisters who face the death penalty simply for being believers. Imagine if we came together to support them prayerfully or financially, connecting ourselves with their lives as they see the Lord working through them and answering their prayers with healing and miracles.
The UK church has a long, proud history of supporting our brothers and sisters overseas and in challenging situations. This Valentine’s Day, isn’t that a tradition worth continuing?
To support indigenous overseas workers this Valentine’s season, visit:gfauk.org
As Marriage Week 7th-14th February2023 draws to a close, Harry Benson, Sorted Columnist and Research Director at the Marriage Foundation closes this series with a brief personal update on the progress he is making with his own PhD.
Harry writes: I’m half way through and have finished my third rewrite! I’ve got 25,000 words on paper and at least 20 tables and charts. The results are interesting and new. So it’s mostly now a case of presenting them in a way that makes my supervisors smile rather than cringe! One super thing is that I’m using some of the results for a new joint paper with Professor Galena Rhoades at the University of Denver. We’re aiming for one of the top two family journals. Next steps are awaiting my supervisors’ verdict on my latest effort. Then I have a couple of new projects to start, get this journal article written, and reconnect with my fellow students back in Bristol.
May your marriage, and marriages of those you love, flourish!
As part of Marriage Week 7-14 February 2023 Harry Benson, Sorted Columnist and Research Director at the Marriage Foundation shares the latest publications based on academic research.
Our bestseller that reached #11 on Amazon, Tells our own back-from-the-brink story. The secret: husband, love your wife, and she will love you right back, in that order
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