I can't believe this is my life and this is where we find ourselves. But, it is. This has happened. This is our reality.
I write this because these are things that need to be said, and because living in the truth is still needed here.
Truth is so very important. It is all we have. It is our guide.
I hope that it starts to be your guide.
I write this, also, for answers. Answers are needed. Really look inside yourselves and dig for the facts here...and provide answers so that growth can happen, and truth can be lived in.
There is a paragraph below that asks you questions. Our counselor and I really do ask that you answer those questions.
Again, I can't believe this is the life we now live. My children and I should be happily inside a family that includes a husband/father living in the home. We should all still be living our happy, healthy bilingual, bicultural lives in Brazil. But, choices were made by Joel that has made that impossible.
Joel chose his family of origin over the family he made. He chose you. He did not leave and cleave. So, his wife and children were left emotionally all the way back at the beginning of 2012. Joel showed exactly who he was yoked to, even then. And he never came back to us (if he was ever really emotionally yoked to us in the first place...which is questionable of course).
It's really sad. No, it's way more than sad. It is devastating and heartbreaking and soul-crushing to know all that we had and all that we lost...all because of his choice to stay with you (yoked to your hearts and beliefs and ways) instead of choosing us. A family was destroyed. Know that. Know that deeply in your souls. A family was destroyed here.
And that family was destroyed because you weren't (and never started) living in the truth.
We (the kids and I) did nothing wrong. We did nothing unholy. We did nothing that made us the enemy.
The kids and I remain a family. We are a unit. Your son/brother should be right here with us in that unit. But, he chose to leave that unit to remain with you.
That is abnormal. That is toxic family behavior.
Based on all your past behavior since 2012, you will inevitably be tempted to just add this and my other recent blog posts to the 'reasons' you have for thinking me wrong. For thinking me 'unstable.' For thinking me 'argumentative' and 'manipulative' and 'controlling.' For thinking Joel is better off not being in our family unit. For thinking that I only want to fight or cause trouble...or whatever else it is that you think of me. I would caution you not to do that. Please just listen and learn and grow. Be open to what I have to say here.
You all still claim to be a HEALTHY and LOVING and GODLY family. Joel still defends you to the end and says that he and you all are healthy and so loving and Godly. But, the things you have done, and continue to do, are not healthy and loving and Godly. I'll tell you what I mean...
We'll start at the beginning and work our way to the present (just the highlights...believe me, this is not even almost an exhaustive list).
And before we get started here...again, the FIRST thing a healthy, loving, Godly family would do, right now, would be to be EAGER to listen and learn and humble themselves. They would be eager to listen to the person they have damaged most in this world, so that they could learn what they did wrong, what they need to do to safeguard themselves from ever being the people they have been in this situation again, and so that they could have their eyes and hearts opened to exactly what happened and the huge amount of contrition they should be living in (but aren't...if you were, everything would be different for me and my children; you would be different, even now).
You should be heartbroken. A family was destroyed. People's lives were destroyed. You should not be joyful or happy to have your son/brother back, because the only way you have him back is because that family was destroyed, those lives destroyed. You should be heartbroken. But you're not.
If you were a healthy, loving, Godly family...
**When Joel came to you and started complaining to you about how I was being unfair at the beginning of 2012 (we've discussed in detail how that wasn't even true...and he had never even had that discussion with ME...he just went straight to you and started complaining to you about me), you would have questioned his behavior (that to any emotionally mature person was obviously questionable behavior) instead of just blindly believing him and jumping onto the snowball (made of only lies) that then just went further and further and further down the hill, growing leaps and bounds each time you all talked to each other.
**You never once questioned him and that behavior. If you did, you would have talked to me and gotten my side of the story (BEFORE the snowball even left the top of the hill would have been the best obviously...but, if you were the people you still say you are, and that Joel still insists you are, you would have at least done it at any point on this journey) and you would have seen that there was a completely different side of the story, and that I actually had facts to back up my story (your son/brother never has had facts, and still doesn't). And if truth was your guide, then everything would have been cleared up.
**When I tried to give my side of the story in the fall of 2014 (even though you'd never asked for it at ALL in the almost 3 years since the beginning, except the one time Kristin did but with ulterior motives and at the same time was stabbing me straight in the back...yes, I have all that correspondence documented very well, I have proof of the things I say, as usual)...when I tried so hard in good faith to talk things out with you all so that we could reconcile...if you were a healthy, loving, Godly family, you would have been ecstatic that I was even willing to talk to you all after all that you'd done to me. You would have been filled with contrition even then and eager to hear anything I had to say so that it could all be cleared up. You would have WANTED everything I said to be true (which it was), but instead you didn't want to talk anything out with me. You didn't want anything to be cleared up. You all acted as if you didn't want anything I said to be true...you wanted to just keep thinking of me as the enemy (which you had just fallen into believing about me without any proof or reasoning). You didn't care to hear anything from me. You wanted to just walk forward and pretend like nothing ever happened. That is NOT healthy/loving/Godly. If you don't know that by now, hear that and learn it.
**When I refused to move forward by just sweeping things under the rug, and Joel stood by me in that at first, you held your (very unhealthy, unloving, ungodly) ground and refused to talk it all out. You very wrongly (and unhealthily, unlovingly, and in a very un-God-like way) labeled that as me just wanting to live in the past, wanting to shame you all, me being bitter. You talked about how ungodly I was...although I was the one who wanted to do the work of reconciling. That was ME who fought tooth and nail for your family (I tried to get you guys to reconcile with me for over 2 months), when I had already been abused and beaten down completely by that time (almost 3 years into the spiritual and emotional abuse I had endured)...it was ME who was fighting to keep us all together. It was YOU who was continuing to throw me away like trash, refusing to talk to me. You didn't care if it broke us all apart. You didn't care, turns out, if it broke my marriage apart. You just refused to do the work of reconciliation.
**We made the boundary (finally, in November 2014) that if you refused to reconcile with me, then we would have to cut ties with you for a year, focus on JUST US as a married couple and family, and then revisit extended family after that year of healing as a married couple. The focus was to be healing as a married couple. That had to be the focus at that point. We were both sad about it, and honestly couldn't believe that was happening (that you had refused to reconcile), but we HAD to put our marriage first.
Then Joel contacted you just a couple of weeks later *completely behind my back* (as you well knew) after he decided that he just could NOT be without you all. First of all that should have been a BIG RED FLAG for you about his behavior. He was longing for you in a way that he had never longed for his wife when we were separated. And not because he just simply didn't love his wife. And not because his wife was wrong in her boundaries (she was not). But, because he had never done the leaving and cleaving thing. That was OBVIOUS...if not before, it was obvious then. He was yoked to YOU. He was emotionally committed to YOU. But, you didn't care. You LOVED that he was back. It didn't matter that he was doing it in secret. You didn't care that he was LYING to his wife. You didn't care.
Do you not see how very corrupt that is?! How sick that is?! That behavior went on for a long time. It's documented here...and other places with details about how he did things like conspired with Danny during that time who emailed me (violating the boundary we had set) to ask about meeting up with them and when I got understandably very upset, he faked anger at Danny ("What?! Why would he do that? Why would he disrespect the boundary we set?! I can't believe it!!") and wrote a fake email scolding Danny for crossing the boundary...when he was behind it all along! How twisted and sick is that?! Yet, you call me manipulative? And things like after Joel and I had spent a full week together sequestered in our room, having a very healing week, Joel posted about it excitedly on Facebook. Did he get support about that? No...Angela and others who were *supposed* to love us like family attacked attacked attacked, accusing ME of posting for Joel...as usual, treating me as the enemy (that I'd never been in the first place). We had just healed so much in that week...and instead of being happy or encouraging, you destroyed it.
Ebersoles...SURELY you see how messed up you are!! NONE of this is even close to healthy, loving, and Godly. Not even close.
**At any point during that 7 month period that he was having a secret relationship with you completely behind my back, and you all were doing things like encouraging him to call you when I wasn't around and to delete your correspondence and be careful not to get caught by me...you could have stopped what you were doing with him. At any point during those 7 long months you could have done the right thing. You did not do the right thing.
**When I found out about your secret relationship with my husband (in July 2015), I was completely devastated. COMPLETELY devastated!! You will never grasp just how broken and beaten I've been so many times since 2012...only able to survive in the fetal position. But, as battered and barely-hanging-on as I was, I chose to not give up on our marriage. Still. Still, even then. After we went to counseling and it was decided that the best thing to do was to give us some time as a couple, to heal, to recover, to focus on our relationship...the boundary was set with you all that September that we would be taking at LEAST the next 6 months, but that it would probably be longer than that, to focus on JUST US, and trying to heal and move forward.
**Joel sent you an email giving you the update...that counseling had been a breakthrough and that thankfully we were going to continue in our marriage and not separate/divorce. We both felt scared (esp. me, for good reason). After a full week of intensive counseling, we had been reconnected and were celebrating...we were hopeful. Andre responded to Joel's news with a frantic, crazy email talking about how he was so very worried for Joel and his well-being (again...what had I done wrong?...how did I pose this 'threat' to Joel?...no one could ever tell me what I had done wrong.) It was an urgent, hysteria-filled message that honestly, made Joel roll his eyes and laugh. In that moment, even he saw a bit of clarifying truth. And he said, "Why aren't they just happy for us? What is the big deal?" And the hopefulness was still there, but it was dampened, yet again. It was clear that you all were against our marriage and against me...that you saw me as this enemy even though it had been made clear to you with actual facts as part of my side of the story (that you didn't want to hear or engage with in order to reconcile) that I wasn't. I had never acted in any way that would characterize me as an enemy...to Joel, to you, to our marriage and family, and even to our extended family. The people who had acted in characteristics displayed by an 'enemy' had only ever been you (as detailed even in the facts of this short blog post...there are so many other facts where these came from that prove this). Again...what facts do you have to support your beliefs and actions that made me out to be the enemy here? And do not say, "We didn't see you as the enemy." Because that won't work. All of your actions and behaviors since 2012 (documented actions and behaviors) toward me and my marriage prove different.
"Why aren't they just happy for us?" he said.
But, no...you weren't happy for us. You were focused on what YOU wanted and what our being back together and working on our marriage meant for YOU. You didn't care about the well-being of me or my children. You didn't care about our marriage and family. You weren't even happy for us. You were worried for Joel (for reasons that have NEVER been made clear or even verbalized by you), and you didn't like what our marriage surviving meant for YOU.
None of these things, again, are what a healthy, loving, Godly family would do.
**Joel clearly told you that WE would contact you when it was time. That it would be up to me, the one who had to heal the most...and that we would contact you when I said it was time. What did you do? At the 6-month mark, you contacted us like that was no big deal, like it was 2011, and acted like nothing had ever happened.
**That was the beginning of the end again. His heart was rekindled for you again, and there was no turning back. I swear, it's like you are not only his family of choice, but his drug of choice too. It's...sick. Truly. There's nothing normal about it, and it has destroyed the family Joel had once built here. It is incredibly heartbreaking.
**When he came back to you all in May 2016, a healthy, loving, Godly family would have said to him, "No, son...no brother...your family is your wife and children. You fight for THEM. You belong with THEM. If that means that you can't be with us because of what we have done and the choices we've made, then so be it. But, you are to leave and cleave. You should be tied to the soul of your wife, not us. You should be with her and your children. THEY are your family, first and foremost."
You see, had I done something wrong during any of this time...had I been destructive to your son/brother at any point during this time...then maybe you would have reason to gather Joel up in your arms and hold on tight. But...I asked you all over and over what I had done wrong. What was it that made you see me as an enemy in all of this? Where were the facts that backed up what you believed about me? None of you could ever provide any facts that backed up the beliefs you had all conjured up in your minds about me.
So it never made ANY SENSE what was happening.
Still...I'm still waiting for the facts that back up anything you've believed or said about me since 2012.
Joel can't provide me or our counselor with any facts that back his beliefs up either.
Literally none of what has happened makes sense.
**We were separated, again, for the second time and I made a last ditch effort to save my marriage at the beginning of August 2016. A team gathered around us and after much distress and unrest for many different reasons, we finally pulled through and came back together. The team working around us made a huge difference. Joel let you all know in September 2016 that we were going to work to restore our family again...and again, you all were the opposite of encouraging about this. There were very lengthy conversations about how you didn't think it was the right thing and how it wasn't the healthy thing for Joel and how you wished it would work out, but you didn't think it would. You protested and said things like, "So, Michawn just gets her way?" Sigh. It was not pleasant. Joel told you that he would be sending you an email at some point with the final boundaries that needed to be set. In the beginning of 2017, he did that.
Let me just say that at NO POINT since we set our very first boundary in 2014 have you actually abided by the boundaries. At no point did we set a boundary and then trust that you all would respect the boundary. We always knew that you would try to send emails or letters or packages, and then you eventually resorted to sending postcards because those couldn't be Returned to Sender. And yet you call ME manipulative?
I also want to say this...
--Our counselor and I are still wondering...why? Why did you believe me to be manipulative, controlling, rebellious, given over to the enemy? Where are the facts for that? Why do you STILL believe me to be wrong in all of this? You and Joel both have said over and over that I need to focus on what I've done to destroy our marriage and how I've been wrong...how I've mistreated him, you, etc. Make a list of all of those things you see in me that needs to change, that has been wrong and destructive. Nobody can ever give me an answer for that (I've been asking you all sincerely for this list since 2014)...yet you continue to say that I've been these things and that I need to just focus on me and what I need to fix about me. We would like actual answers to this. Living in the truth is important. Please supply us with facts to back up what you have believed and acted upon this entire time.--
2017 was to bring about a whole new life for us. We were starting over in every way. We were happy. So happy. Joel was working on building trust again...that was his sole focus. I was working on healing. We were a family again. It was hard. It was going to be a long long road to recovery. But we were doing it. The future looked BRIGHT.
Joel and I were friends again. We were becoming closer with each passing day. We were having fun again, and I was starting to trust.
And then, on October 22nd, he texted and said that he couldn't 'do this.' He said that he didn't want to live without you...without his family.
WE are his family. Yet, he couldn't, or wouldn't, focus on us and keep us. He only wanted you.
He wanted you so much that he was willing to give up his wife and children.
(Does that sound healthy and loving and Godly to you?)
I cannot tell you the deep darkness that came around me at that point. I couldn't believe this was all happening again. I couldn't believe it. I truly thought that we were finally moving past it all, that we were going to make it. We had already made such strides and were so happy again together. And then, for no reason at all, he said he chose you instead. Again. He was choosing you...again.
It's crazy how relentless about what is right I am. It was the darkest of times for me. I was just in the deepest, darkest fog of pain and disbelief that this was happening again. The pain...it was unfathomable. But...because of that relentlessness for what is right, I pulled myself together and fought...again. I fought for my family...my husband and my children and me...THIS is MY family. My husband and my kids...they come first...every single time.
I finally found a counselor who was healthy and strong and egalitarian (KEY)...the first we had had. She had been part of the team who had come around us in August 2016. And an added bonus...she had a history with us. She had followed us as missionaries and knew us and our marriage when we were unbelievably blissful all those years. She had seen that, she had seen the turn, she had witnessed it all. And she came to our rescue, in November 2017, and worked with us literally daily, until Joel again made the final choice to go back to you in April 2019. She is still here with us every step of the way, still trying to help. But, Joel wants you.
**In April, when Joel told us that he was going back to you, I sent you an email, Ken (on April 29th). I asked you to please turn your son back to his actual family...his wife and children. I said this to you...
Will you release Joel by telling him, in no uncertain terms, that when it comes to loyalty to his family of origin or loyalty to his wife and children, loyalty to his wife and children is absolutely and without question the right and holy choice?Your response in the end was "We are praying for you all and trusting that Joel in his relationship with God will be instructed in the right responses." But, Joel in his relationship with God had already proven that he wasn't going to be instructed in the right responses through God alone (because had that been the case, none of this would have happened at all, beginning back in 2012...because God never wanted any of this and none of what he has done has been under God's direction, proven by the fact that what he's done has been the opposite of what God/Jesus taught and modeled). You were so quick, Ken, to give Joel counsel before when you were counseling him to make decisions without me and counseling him that I had given myself over to Satan and there was no reasoning with me, etc. Counsel that he wholeheartedly believed and followed...without question. But, now that you had the chance to provide healing counsel, you refuse? It took everything in me to come to you, one of the people who has hurt me most in this world, and ask for your help. And, you refused to help me...again.
I know what this will look like in 5, 10, 15 years. Divorce is not what is best for this family. Divorce is sometimes necessary, yes…but that is not the case here. I do not want that for my family. Joel doesn’t want that for his family. But, his loyalty to you and your family is preventing him from moving forward with me and the children. I do not want my family to be broken. I want to heal and stay together, intact, and end up stronger than ever before. I want my kids to grow up with both of their parents in their home.
A couple of days later, I knew that he was about to enter into contact with you again. I sent you a text. I said this...
I love your son. I love the family we made together and the life we had together before everything blew up.I never heard back from you.
I want your son to be ok. I’ve only ever wanted what is best for him. I even wanted him, and all of us, to be able to be with you all. That is why I tried so hard to work things out with you all for so long. All I ever got in return was more backstabbing and lying and betrayal. But…I tried so hard. I tried so hard to clear up all of the confusion and slander and lies that you all believed about me.
The things your son tells you are partial truths. Just partial truths.
I heard a quote the other day that said, “They are really good at using truth to tell lies.”
That is exactly what he does.
That is what he started doing in 2012. I wanted to tell the full truth for every situation…that would have cleared things up and allowed reconciliation with you all. But, that wasn’t allowed.
He might contact you…tonight, tomorrow, Sunday…I don’t know when.
When he does contact you, he will tell you partial truths. Not full truths. Our counselor worked with him for a long time trying to help him to see the importance of telling full truths instead of partial truths (which = lies).
He is leaving his children and his wife to do that, to contact you. His wife who has been nothing but loyal…and his children who know the truth about everything and are just heartbroken that he is choosing to leave our intact family out of this really messed up sense of obligation to his family of origin.
I hope that you will be the man of God that you claim to be and steer him back to us. We are his family now. I hope that you will do the right thing.
-Michawn
Joel was not steered back to us.
You sent an email to our counselor a few days later. It starts out like this...
"Good Morning!
As you can imagine we all are overjoyed after hearing from Joel last weekend, and this week."
Overjoyed. That is what you were. Overjoyed that your son had left his family (his wife and children) to come back to you. Overjoyed.
Sure, you also said that your desire and prayer would be for reconciliation with Michawn...for both Joel and you. But, 1) you didn't say ANYTHING about being willing to let Joel go in order for that to happen (because you have NEVER been willing to do that, no matter what you've done to me and the distance from you all I've needed in order to heal...you just don't care about that because what you want and what is comfortable for you takes precedent), and 2) you also said lots more things in that email that I will get to eventually.
So...all of this to say...
This is the truth about you, the Ebersole family. This is the truth about what has happened here.
Joel started seeing me as against him and as an enemy (for literally zero reasons...there was no reason whatsoever for him to see me as such) way back at the beginning of 2012. I was in major need of being taken care of and needed some rest and recovery time in a major way. He didn't like that and wanted to just keep doing whatever he wanted, living life as usual. Instead of counseling him to stop and take care of his wife who already needed help and rest and love and healing, instead of helping him to see his need to sacrifice and love and submit and lay down his wants to the needs of our union and family...you chose to join him in thinking of me as the enemy.
And you all made up your minds to keep yourselves in that line of thinking, even when evidence was given to you (and continues to be given to Joel non-stop) that your thoughts and beliefs about me were/are wrong and so very damaging.
Our family has been destroyed. Because you refused to open your eyes and hearts to truth. You refused to live in truth.
What can you do now? What can possibly be done now?
Well, the truth is always worth opening your eyes and hearts for. Even if it is just for truth's sake...open your eyes and hearts. And live in the truth. Start there. And then maybe your son/brother will follow.
Live in the truth.
I will never give up. I will never give up fighting for and hoping for truth to win out here.
So...what are the answers to those questions? What made it possible, in your hearts and minds, for you to continue to do what you have done over the course of all these years?
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