Getting a divorce is bad, but there are worse things than simply no longer being married.

Since my wife and I made the decision to divorce on Feb. 17, 2010, that event has been a significant force in shaping who I am. I grew up Mennonite, but I took my faith for granted and made a conscious effort to get out and explore what the world had to offer as soon as I could after high school graduation.

Rather than going to Goshen (Ind.) College just a few minutes from my home, I went to a large state university, and though I was armed with the morals and values instilled in me by my parents and the church, I was still impressionable.

Surrounded by a world that valued power, career and possessions above all else, I was swayed. I graduated from college and got an important job, a nice car, a house in the suburbs. I married a wonderful woman with whom I seemed to have everything in common and decided I was happy. She brought out the best in me. She got me up on Sundays to go to church when I wanted to sleep in. She donated money to good causes when I was worried about our retirement years. She volunteered her time at homeless shelters and got me to go with her.

Years went by in which I woke up in the morning, put on my suit and tie and went to work. I came home, we ate supper, watched TV and went to bed, only to do the same thing the next day. On Saturdays, I mowed the lawn, chatted with the neighbors over our white picket fence, bought things at big-box retail stores and maintained shallow relationships with friends at pool parties in the summer and cocktail parties in the fall. Somewhere in the midst of this cookie-cutter life, I realized I was miserable.

At first, I tried to deny it. There was no way I could be unhappy. This 50-inch plasma TV alone should have brought me happiness for at least a few months. Millions of Americans would have traded their eye teeth for the existence we had built in the quiet Chicago suburbs. The harder I denied it, the more miserable I became.

When Valerie wanted to go to a club opening on Friday evening, I wanted to stay home and can tomato juice. When she wanted to take a vacation to Hawaii, I wanted to see what volunteer opportunities were available through Mennonite Mission Network. I was finally baptized in a Mennonite church at the age of 32. I began taking seminary classes online through Eastern Mennonite Seminary, Harrisonburg, Va. Our pastor gave me opportunities to give the sermon at church. God was guiding me in a new direction.

Valerie and I tried counseling. To this day, I don’t know what the expectation was. Was she to suddenly change her mind and decide that the kind of life that we had both wanted just a few years ago was no longer for her? Was I to find a way to repress God’s call and go back to being satisfied with my sterile, unquestioned existence simply because of the love Valerie and I still shared? I’m glad we tried.

After nearly 10 years of marriage to a wonderful woman, it was the least we could do. But in the end, the common ground between us shrank and finally dissolved completely. She loved me too much to ask me to be someone I wasn’t, even though she knew I would have done it for her in a heartbeat. And I loved her too much to ask her to try to change her life when I knew that somewhere in this wide world, there were other men who could give her the happiness she deserved. Neither of us was wrong. We were just no longer on the same path.

I worried how my family would take it. Although I wasn’t the first Mennonite I knew to get divorced, my basis of comparison was small. A good friend of the family had had an affair when I was 10 or 11 years old. And my sister had fled her abusive husband just a few years earlier. I didn’t have the foggiest idea how to explain a divorce to my family, our friends or our church when there was no abuse, infidelity or even the smallest hint of ill-will between us. And on top of that, I was in the middle of a seminary class on pastoral care. How could I ever expect anyone to trust me to give them good counsel when I couldn’t even hold my own marriage together?

We set these questions aside for the time being and went to the courthouse. They gave us a stack of paperwork, and we went home to fill it out. We walked around the house with a legal pad and decided who was taking what. We looked at the bank statements and split our assets. I bought her half of the house so that she could afford to buy a new one. There was no discussion of attorneys. There were no arguments about who got the TV.

As amicable as it was, to call the divorce a crisis of faith for me would be like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground. I’ve always believed God causes or allows everything to happen for a good reason. What could possibly be the rationale for bringing Valerie and me together only to rip us apart years later? Why would God allow me to waste her time with a relationship that was ultimately going to end?

My guilt is sometimes overwhelming. I want to give her her life back. I owe her a decade I can never repay. My faith tells me I will understand the answers to these questions in time. Until then, I struggle with doubts that threaten my relationship with God at the very time I am trying to be the Christian he so clearly wants me to be.

In November 2010, I moved from Chicago to a small town in Kansas. I bought a farm and started dating a good Mennonite woman. Valerie still lives in Chicago and also dates. We talk almost daily via phone, text or email. When I travel to Illinois to visit, I stay in the guest room of her new house. We remember each other’s’ birthdays, and her parents and other family members send me cards. We end every conversation by telling each other we love the other. We are each other’s best friend and biggest supporter, and I pray to God every day that that will never change.

I have been asked why we got divorced with all of that being true. My response is simple. We could have stayed married a few more years. We could have continued to try counseling and praying for God to bring a solution. We could have lived simply as housemates and gone about our lives in opposite directions and being married in name only. But given enough time, we would have ended up resenting each other. We would have met people with whom we were more compatible and would have hated each other for being the reason we couldn’t pursue those people. Instead of being the two happy people that we are today, each with the potential to meet another person to whom we want to dedicate our lives and form a Christ-centered family, we could have stayed two miserable people.

Years ago in California, a political candidate died of a heart attack a few weeks before Election Day. Her campaign manager decided to continue the campaign absent a living candidate. When asked why, she pointed out that the man against whom they were running was an entrenched, career politician who didn’t share the values of his constituency but was re-elected each year using soft money given by massive political interests. Those special interests wanted to have someone who would continue to allow the polluting and unfair business practices to which those industries had become accustomed. Having a dead candidate is bad. But there are worse things than simply no longer being alive.

Getting a divorce is bad. But there are worse things than simply no longer being married.

Eric Litwiller is director of development at The Cedars, Inc., in McPherson, Kan.