Technically, Tori and I have two marriage anniversaries. The first one was on April 19, 2016.
We were already engaged with no clear plan for a wedding, and we were trying to make ends meet to pay down our debts and more financially prepare ourselves, so we had been living in my car together.
A married couple we knew who were new Christians insisted that we were technically “living together” (they had a point according to some interpretations of Ephesians 5:3), so we eloped in a courthouse as soon as we could.
Of course, that wasn’t really a “wedding”, so Tori and I started making plans for a wedding reception.
It was the most beautiful wedding two extremely poor people could have had, and given our crappy extended family dynamics it went better than we could have ever hoped for. The anniversary for that event was 9 years ago as of today.
We almost had it in a nearby park, but my parents stepped up and offered their home for the event. We had an extremely casual event, with a 3-foot pizza, 6-foot sub, 5-foot burrito, Costco cake, Facebook event invite with no RSVP Nazism, and it wrapped up with the happiest possible bride and groom compared to the normal stuff weddings do to the stars of the party.
Our pastor depicted our marriage as “the union of an artist and an accountant”, but time has shown it may more accurately be “the union of a schizophrenic genius and an autistic savant”.
I’m still holding out that the 10th will be much better than this year, and trust God will empower me to at least see my kids by that point.
How I’m Doing
Converting from one philosophy to another is painful.
By its essence, upending the entire framework of existence that defined how you go about life reprograms the image that you’ve filtered everything through:
- What was once a good idea is now dubious or downright foolish.
- Thoughts that faded into the realm of subconscious habit are thrown into question.
- You’ll end up saying and doing things you promised yourself you wouldn’t.
This typically cascades over waves of understanding, with each new wave drawing in broader emotional elements. Eventually, the pain subsides once the new value system has taken hold and normalized.
The strongest direct buffer against the trauma of changing a philosophy comes through Stoicism. The Stoics were the only ones who could successfully subdue emotional expression to avoid the inefficiencies of a panic attack or depressive slump. It took away some of their humanity for that to happen, but that’s a small price to pay for the preservation of one’s ego.
In the absence of Stoicism, we simply have to experience the waves of emotion as they flow through us. There is nothing to be done, just to let the years and decades of trauma and brokenness flow across us while we resist the urge to do or think anything.
It’s not easy to let reality exist when we want to control it, and it gets harder in proportion to our talents and abilities. The more we’ve sharpened our tools, the harder it is to not use them.
I’m now convinced that only God’s direct work can provoke someone to step out of the comfortable egocentrism that comes with self-help. Only God Himself has the capacity to soften a damaged, cauterized heart. Every other system, institution, philosophy, and religion doesn’t work because it filters through either our ego or the ego of the people running things.
I have accepted that I’m powerless to change anything here, and have moved past most of the adjustment disorder. I’m still not emotionally capable to make a point-by-point breakdown in writing, and certainly not able to keep blog posts to one subject at a time, but I’m well enough to string together ideas that seem connected, and am starting to rebuild.
I have been crying a lot, but not much has outwardly changed. I am still a transient pariah of society, though I now work at a convenience store chain. I was unemployed for four months with only snippets of support here and there, so it will take at least a few months for me recover enough financially for the next stage of my life.
And speaking of a few months, if God permits things to keeping going as they have, the mistake last September that begins the trouble for my family will have never legally happened.
I am far more optimistic than before. I’ve accepted that this season of patience and slow suffering is His direct will for me. I was granted some bullet-pointed inspiration by reading Exodus 21:
- What happened last September was something God allowed to happen (v13). I didn’t, in any capacity, premeditate or plan it, so the consequences in all their craziness were permitted by Him.
- I have the non-revocable right to indemnify Tori for the damage I’ve done (v18-19). If she doesn’t want me to repay her or won’t communicate that, that’s her moral issue.
- I have fully repented and made sure this will never happen again, and have the right to receive forgiveness, and it is Tori’s moral issue if she doesn’t grant it (Matthew 18:21-35).
- Any wrong Tori has committed against me (i.e., preventing me from seeing Victor and Mia) can also be indemnified when she is ready to ask for forgiveness from me as well, and I have quite a bit of moral freedom over what is spiritually permissible if she doesn’t.
In light of this, I’d like to share a clear revelation with respect to how society processes guilt and shame, since it may give context for how I’ve changed.
How I’ve Framed My Anthropological Views
Eastern societies, including the ancient Hebrews (2/3 of the Bible is framed around them), have used an honor/shame culture. The value system enforces control through evoking the powerful and overarching feeling of shame. It keeps people in line, but can also stifle innovation and generally makes people miserable.
Western societies, including the Greeks and Romans (the other 1/3 of the Bible) use an innocence/guilt culture. It exerts control through the less-powerful feeling of guilt. People can often find creative solutions that make them innocent by the letter of the law but not the spirit (e.g., growing a tree just barely next to the property line to overlap into a neighbor’s yard).
Finally, there is a safety/fear culture, which never really works except with tyrants and narcissists. It requires an ever-vigilant controller, and there’s no reason for someone to stay in line as soon as the tangible consequences go away.
If you want a little snippet and portal to the rabbit trail I’m talking about, here you go.
In my unique upbringing, a confluence of factors has left me with a correct/incorrect value system.
- Control comes through legitimate authority in compliance to the hierarchy.
- Anyone is free to act as creatively as they want, assuming it is not immoral.
- Immoral actions are “incorrect” ways to live, and therefore should be addressed with corrective procedures.
This is incompatible, however, both ways:
- This throws a wrench into society. By all accounts, as a convicted felon and wife-beater, I should be groveling for the right to live. However, I have made complete correction to all of my mistakes, and can’t make any more corrections, so I don’t identify with my past.
- Society isn’t worthy to coexist with me. They preoccupy themselves with endless power dynamics based on a modified debt concept (you “owe” someone for your wrongdoing), but I will focus instead on facts and what can actually be done.
Of course, this value system sounds like I’m being a pretentious anti-establishment iconoclast. This recent spate of humbling had me thinking the same thing, until I ran across this unique paradox within Christianity:
- Each one of us was painstakingly, lovingly crafted by God Himself, with all our days pre-planned for His purposes (Psalm 139:13-16).
- Everyone is abominably, indisputably a sinner, with a death sentence waiting to be carried out (Psalm 14:2-3, Psalm 53:2-3, Romans 3:10-12)
- Due to #1, the presence of #2 means God in His love acted to die in our place when we didn’t deserve it (Romans 5:6-8).
- Due to #3, Christians are responsible to effectively reproduce what Christ had done (Colossians 3).
- The Church, however, often fails, and the response to the Christians who fail their duties is to forgive them like Christ forgives the Church (Romans 12:14-21).
Therefore, in Christ, in His perfect Kingdom, correct/incorrect is the only legitimate way to live, under the presumption that we are all prone to error at any given time. In Him, all believers are clothed with His grace, and their focus on what is right drives out any room for developing shame, guilt or fear.
This…doesn’t work for others, though.
How My Anthropological Views Don’t Work For Others
As I share my experience with others, I get a few of the same choice statements.
A. “Well, that’s all fine and good, but what about what you did? You can’t forget what you’ve done!”
You’re right, and I’m happy to settle the accounts. That would require me to have a good, long talk with Tori.
My unemployment has come as a secondary consequence of this, and a tenuous living situation derived from the unemployment. Do I need to be more active trying to fix my problem? What All-American™ solution have I overlooked? Tell me which bootstraps I should pull.
If Christ has indemnified me, then what Tori thinks doesn’t matter. In that, He’s my guide, and His desire is complete reconciliation.
B. “But what about [risk involving the kids]? If you don’t protect your own rights, you’ll lose them!”
While that’s true, I wish for there to be peace, and I don’t want to overstep my rights into someone else’s. I have parental rights, and Tori has parental rights as well. If I act severely, I may infringe on her rights.
Let’s look at rights from a different perspective:
- Rights are God-given, bestowed implicitly as inherent liberties that give people the freedom to act.
- While mankind can bestow more privileges (e.g., free food), their most effective means of getting people to act is to take away rights.
- Therefore, the entire criminal justice system is built around taking away rights, and the entire civil justice system is built around paying lawyers tons of money to enforce one’s own rights.
By going through any legal system, it will be because Tori is behaving so incorrectly that there’s no alternative course of action. Otherwise, it’s not wise to bring a tank to a knife fight.
If I may shoot the elephant, the above-stated view revolves around control. There’s really no reason to use shame, guilt, or fear if you aren’t trying to wrestle for control. I have renounced that self-determining lifestyle, and this family is entirely in His control.
C. “That has to hurt so much. Don’t you miss your kids??”
Yes, I miss Tori, Victor, and Mia. I miss Mia’s wild mood swings, and how Victor gets obsessive about a subject. I miss the deep philosophical discussions with Tori, and I miss the ability to provide for all of them. I miss the routine we had, and the hopes of building out an adventurous childhood for Victor and Mia.
Further, I’ve missed nearly a year of their development, which I’m never getting back. I miss the hopes and dreams Tori and I were working to build together. I miss slaving away toward clearing out Tori’s debts (and thereby removing her shame about it). I miss hugging Mia and giving Victor spins, and answering the ridiculous questions both of them were asking as they sought to understand the world.
But, I don’t like to talk about it. It hurts to be reminded. It’s difficult to go to church every week, and any little thing can trigger me to the point that I can’t sit in a public place at the risk of my crying disrupting everyone else.
And, in all of this, the hardest part is the void. When we have an unknown element, it’s very easy to insert malicious actions into the space. Our emotions are more disposed toward managing risks than focusing on potential benefits, but that’s not what God commands us to do. I have no idea what Tori is thinking, though I can be certain that my kids certainly miss me. My wife is now a stranger, and depending on her motivations she is either keeping our kids safe or holding them hostage.
How I See My Position
In light of everything, my lowly position a type of blessing (James 1:9-12). In under four years I have gone from established IT guy with a wife and two small children to a convicted felon with a court-established order of protection against my wife and nearly a year of not seeing my kids. This was God’s design, and I will speak more to it when I have a clearer picture of it.
My blessing, however, doesn’t come through the hardship itself. Stoic philosophy (as well as Nietzschean post-modernism) advocates masochism by another name: that which does not kill you makes you stronger. I am blessed through the One who strategically places the hardship, not through any self-defined value derived from it (James 1:2-4).
I stress that point against the risk of sounding like a pedant because Tori and I have lived under that philosophical masochism for a long while. My hope is that whoever reads this on behalf of her can get her the help she needs. If she happens to be among the crowd who seems to have taken an interest in my little blog, I hope she sees that it’s only in Him that we are healed or restored.
What I Expect
Time doesn’t particularly care what decision we make, and we move through it consistently at 1 day/day.
The entire mechanism of our decision-making hinges on information. Unless we consult a spiritual being, we essentially run things through a calculus.
My information is sparse, and dated. Beyond secondary information, I only have the following useful facts to guide my decisions with my family:
- 2024-09-08: After my severe lapse in judgment on 2025-09-08, Tori left our apartment with the kids in a rush before the DHS could arrive.
- 2024-09-14: Someone from our church at the time sent a vaguely worded and spiritually unedifying email that indicated she left Des Moines. That was the last time I saw or heard them.
- 2024-10-30: I received a deferred judgment due to that non-information. The short version is that means the event will have never legally happened as of late 2025-09.
- 2024-10-30: To the best of my knowledge and research, no government authority has interacted with her or my kids. The church also stated they have no more contact with her or my kids. This was intentional on her part.
- 2024-09-08 – now: Absolutely nobody has contacted me with any news of her or the kids.
Given what she hasn’t done, it has been strictly selfish and not malicious. She has not spent or taken a dime of our money, hasn’t taken any of our possessions beyond what she threw in our Jeep, and I have had nothing adverse happen in my direction beyond the natural consequences of the circumstance.
As far as motivation, there are two non-exclusive reasons she is doing this:
- Protection from a perceived risk from the government.
- Protection from a perceived risk from me.
I still hold out the first, since there is little to no precedent in our lives that would justify the second.
I’ve become someone different, and so have they, so it is impossible to make many more clear judgments without further information.
No information is generally no information, but no information within some contexts can sometimes provide information (e.g., pleading the Fifth in front of Congress).
In this situation, her true motives will come clear after September, and I will know how to respond:
- Protection from a perceived risk from the government: she has made a misguided attempt to preserve this family and keep the government out of it. This is the consequence I naturally deserve, since she’s acting the way I had trained her, and she will re-emerge as soon as the government risk dissipates.
- Protection from a perceived risk from me: she has made an intentional attempt to separate herself or our children from me. As stated above, I deserve indemnity, and God will address her moral hazard if she continues in this path. It will then be my responsibility to take action.
- Even as a hybrid of both, I have to act in the interests of the children, since nobody else will stand for their rights.
I can add more certitude with some spiritual truths:
- God wants the restoration of our family. 1 Corinthians 7 indicates this.
- God wants repentance and forgiveness. I’ve repented as far as possible.
- He is faithful to guide authority figures to what He wants to see (Proverbs 21:1).
- He cares more about my kids than I or Tori does (Matthew 19:14).
I will stay faithful to Tori’s intentions, and that He will restore something that appears unfixable. 9 years is a lot to throw away from two mistakes that I’ve repented over, especially given about 15 positive qualities that have made our marriage relatively healthy up until now.
I see this all as God’s discipline, and He is doing something that I know will work together for good. I’m not sure how He’ll use this, but I’m keeping an open mind. God doesn’t tell us to do the likely thing, but only the right thing, and He has made it clear that the consequences are His domain (Proverbs 16:9).
What I’m Planning
I resent my options right now. I have very few even-handed options available, so the best option is for me to wait.
In the meantime, until my work schedule interferes or God obstructs it, I will be visiting Union Park in Des Moines every single day at 2 p.m. or 5 p.m. to pray for my family.
God wants me to be reunited with my family, so He will accomplish it. Time will tell if Tori wants His will or is trying to oppose it, and the truth will eventually rise to the surface (Revelation 20:12-13).
What I’m Doing Now
While this recent experience has broken me, God has strategically used the situation to lop off some of the character defects magnified through autism.
In light of that, I’ve seen how mind-blind I’ve been to how others perceive information. To that end, I’m migrating all my commonplacing to this repository, as well as dehoarding from this repository. As of 2025-07-29, I have 251 left.
As I go, I will also work to magnify the worthwhile concepts that nobody else seems to address.