My name is Lisa Ann McKinley and I’m standing for my marriage. This is my testimony about where I am in my marriage and how my faith journey changed after attending the November retreat by Catholics for Marriage Restoration and the Archdiocese of Atlanta.
I originally wrote this for my family and friends. But if my words can make a difference to one other person struggling as I did, I wanted to share my experience with everyone. People mean well when they tell you to move on from your divorce. But unless they’ve walked in your shoes, they honestly have no idea what you’ve gone through.
When my husband walked out without a word (he still refuses to speak to me) in March 2022, I was completely shattered, broken. I absolutely wanted to die. Had it not been for my children and my sister, I am not sure I would be here today.
But as broken as I felt, my convictions about marriage and faith were still strong. There was no doubt in my mind about God, my love for my husband (even though I hated him at times), and the sanctity of marriage. There was no doubt in my mind he would return home either. In my broken state, I prayed for him and our family, said the rosary, lit candles, and said novenas.
A month after leaving, he filed for divorce. I went through three sets of attorneys, multiple therapists, and suffered panic attacks and depression. Things got volatile and I had to take legal action. Eventually we had a judge facilitated mediation.
I never in my wildest dreams believed we would get to that point. Thanks to our no-fault divorce laws, I had no choice but to go along with my husband’s demand for a divorce, which was granted on January 9, 2024. I cried through the whole six hour settlement conference. I shook as I signed the settlement papers. Everyone told me I had won. I got our home and everything the twins and I needed to move on financially. After 24 years of marriage, I could start over.
But I was empty and broken in a whole new way. Outwardly, I was a divorced single woman; in my heart I was still married to my husband. I had made a vow for life. Our marriage was over and done with but only in the eyes of the law. I felt voiceless and alone.
With time, the twins and I moved on in certain ways. Our house and small farm are starting to feel like the home I always wanted them to be. We have even grown together in ways we may never have if my husband had stayed. During this time, my Catholic and Protestant friends, therapists, attorneys, some family members, and, yes, even priests and other Catholics, kept telling me to “move on and find someone else.” Many of these same people told me I was crazy for wanting to be with a man that had treated me badly and abandoned me and our children. Most people in the Catholic divorce group I joined were dating again.
All the while, however, my heart and soul kept reminding me of the teachings of the Catholic Church I’d grown up with. The covenant of marriage was not to be entered into lightly. My husband and I had married in the Catholic Church, too, which meant that I had married in a holy sacrament for better or worse and would always be married. We weren’t just Sunday mass Catholics either—our lives revolved around being Catholic and our children also went to Catholic school.
So who was right? I struggled with what I had been taught versus what I was being told. I started to believe I was literally crazy. And the more the world told me how I was supposed to feel, the crazier I felt. After all if you’re told something enough, you start to believe it. On the other hand, I wondered if I wouldn’t rather be crazy than go against everything I knew to be true.
The more I looked for answers in my Church, the further away I grew from God. I lost my ability to pray. I quit going to mass. I felt out of place there. Numerous times I tried to talk to priests and deacons. They ignored my emails and cries for help.
I didn’t know how to be Catholic anymore or live the life I was faced with. I lost hope in myself, the Church, and God. The Church claimed to support marriage, but had abandoned me during my divorce. I called myself an atheist, professed that God was dead, and believed that the Church was lost—by abandoning its teachings, the sacrament of marriage became meaningless.
And then a few weeks ago, I attended a retreat in Atlanta for divorced and separated individuals (most were Catholics) called “What God Has Joined.” I know some people thought I went to the retreat to find God and perhaps join some sort of cult. Rest assured I’m not a religious extremist. Nor do I think of myself as one of those women with blinders on as to my life or state of my marriage either. Because if my marriage is reconciled one day, my husband will have to be willing to change.
Until the retreat, I had never heard the term “standing.” But now I know that’s what I’m doing. I stand for the vows I made even though my husband has abandoned them. I’m not crazy at all. And I’m not alone. I know that what I always believed as truth in my heart is indeed the Catholic Church’s teaching: I am married to my husband until death and our civil divorce changes nothing. I can choose to remain true to my sacramental vows even when he does not. What this also means is that I am not unworthy, unlovable or incapable of finding another man. Rather, I choose to honor my husband and my vows even if it means I will live alone.
Now I stand strong, pray again, and have returned to mass. I will even pray for him even though that will be a challenge. My husband may never speak to me again, much less return, yet I also know that all things are possible with God.
In the meantime, what will happen if someday Jerry Butler or the Dutchman in Ted Lasso knock on my door, as improbable as all that seems? I love men and I love male companionship and I don’t relish in abstinence. So don’t go thinking I’m someone I’m not. I hate the situation my husband has put me in. Rest assured though that I won’t be scrolling through dating apps like the world expects me to do.
But standing means that I am whole again. Even though I am alone, I feel my heart beating. For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel crazy either. I have found a community of standers and feel at home in the Catholic Church once more. Most of all, I have found God and my faith again
