An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

An Assessment of the Article “Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness” – Christian Author is Indirectly Promoting Codependency, Which is Harmful

A link to this article, from a site and Twitter account called “Truth Over Tribe,” came through my Twitter feed today.

I don’t think I am following these guys; this was a suggestion by Twitter that appeared in my timeline. The “Truth Over Tribe” site says on their site that they are “too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals.”

Okay… I’m somewhat in the same place. I’m a conservative who occasionally disagrees with other conservatives, but I sure don’t agree with many positions of progressives.

After having skimmed over some articles on this site – the site owner and author seems to be a Patrick Miller – he seems to lean left of center.

I can tell he’s left of center from some of the commentary and language he’s used – for one, in the article below, he puts his Intersectional Feminism (a left wing concept) on full display by talking about how “self care” was really started by black people, white women love it, and these days, only white woman can (financially) afford it. (Though I didn’t quote those portions of his article below, but they are over on his site.)

(Does Miller realize that left wing darling BLM (Black Lives Matter) is misleading people financially or that they spend more on transgenderism than on race related issues?)

At any rate, let’s get on to the article on this site that alarmed me, and I will provide a few excerpts, and then I will comment on them to explain why I feel this piece goes horribly wrong:

(Link):  Why the Religion of Self-Care is Really Sanctified Selfishness

Excerpts:

by Patrick Miller

“To be happy, you need to leave toxic people behind.” The preaching Peloton instructor continued, “I’m talking about people who take more than they give. People who don’t care about your dreams. People whose selfishness impedes your ability to do what you want to do.”

 Oh crap. She just described my two-year-old. I guess it’s time to cut him off.

This is the gospel of self-care. The notion that the most important person in my life is me, and anyone who impedes my happiness is an existential threat to my emotional and physical well-being. …

… What’s the Religion of Self Care?

What do Female Incels Really Want? By Kaitlyn Tiffany

What do Female Incels Really Want? By Kaitlyn Tiffany

(Link): What do Female Incels Really Want?

Excerpts:

By Kaitlyn Tiffany
May 12, 2022

“We were all ugly,” Amanda, a 22-year-old student from Florida told me, recalling the online community she found when she was 18. “Men didn’t like us, guys didn’t want to be with us, and it was fine to acknowledge it.”

This Reddit forum was called r/Trufemcels, and she commented there under the username “strangeanduglygrl.” Amanda didn’t post very often, but she checked in every day on the community of self-identified “femcels,” or involuntarily celibate women. (I agreed to refer to her by her first name only, to separate her current life from her former internet identity.)

They came to complain about the superficiality of men and the privilege of pretty women, and to share their experiences moving through the world in an unattractive body, which therefore disadvantaged them romantically, socially, and economically.

They were finding the modern dating landscape—the image-based apps, the commodified dating “market,” the illusory “freedom” to be found in hookup culture—to be unnavigable, and they talked about taking a “pink pill,” and opening their eyes to the reality that society was misogynistic and “lookist.”

I Married My Cat To Get Around My Landlord’s Pet Restrictions by Hannah Sparks

I Married My Cat To Get Around My Landlord’s Pet Restrictions by Hannah Sparks

(Link):  ‘I Am Her Universe’: Woman Marries Her Five-Year-Old Cat 

April 27, 2022

A 49-year-old woman in London has tied the knot with … her cat.

Deborah Hodge has been forced to give up three pets — two Huskies and one cat — and she is refusing to do it again, according to the New York Post. To circumvent her landlord’s no-pet policy, the British woman has elevated her cat India from pet to spouse.

(Link): I married my cat to get around my landlord’s pet restrictions

By Hannah Sparks
April 25, 2022

It was an un-fur-gettable occasion.

Deborah Hodge recently married her cat, India, in a loophole scheme to avoid rental restrictions, which have barred Hodge from bringing animals into the unit.

Fed up, the 49-year-old woman from London devised a plan to marry her cat after already having rehomed three previous pets due to landlords who rejected pet owners from their properties. The single mom of two (humans) now hopes her show of commitment will prove to property owners that India is more than just an animal.

“She is fundamentally the most important thing in my life after my children,” she told South West News Service.

Mischaracterizing or Misunderstanding Codependency (Re: Sexual Betrayal, and Julie Roys Book) – Christian Abuse Survivor Community On A Witch Hunt – Introduction

Mischaracterizing or Misunderstanding Codependency (Re: Sexual Betrayal, and Julie Roys Book) – Christian Abuse Survivor Community On A Witch Hunt – Introduction

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Work on this post first began in April 2022, or maybe early May 2022. As I wrap this up, today’s date is May 24, 2022.

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Introduction

Ever since Christian journalist Julie Roys began publishing reportage of domestic abuse cover ups, or child sex abuse cover ups, by John MacArthur and his church (such as this one), various JMac (John MacArthur) defenders have come out of the wood-work to dig up any dirt on Julie Roys that they can (these people are supposed to be Christians but behave as though they’re in a JMac cult, where JMac is their cult leader).

As for me, JMac is one of those Christian guys whose opinions I occasionally agree with, but I sometimes disagree with him, depending on the topic.

Based on a few of the tweets I’ve seen by Roys over the past couple of years, I don’t think she and I share the same political views – well, I suspect that is so, at least. I’m not 100% sure.

When I politely tweeted minor disagreements with Roys in the past on political related topics, Roys did not block or mute me.

It does look to me as though JMac (John MacArthur) and his church have grossly mishandled or covered up abuse in the church going back decades, which is wrong – his Fan Boys need to recognize that, own up to it, and stop defending JMac on these points and stop harassing Julie Roys, or whomever else, for merely reporting on these things.

At any rate, Julie Roys has a site where she sometimes publishes articles about church- or Christian- related topics. Some of them involve coverage of church sex abuse scandals and so forth, and I’ve followed her Twitter account for months to keep up with church related news stories.

Beyond that, I am not familiar with Roys, I’ve never met her in real life or spoken to her by DM or by phone.(*)

The fact that Roys reports on church scandals gets some Christians very upset and angry with her, and they harass her online.

It looks like Roys wrote a book, with another woman named Kay Arthur, entitled “Redeeming the Feminine Soul: God’s Surprising Vision for Womanhood,” and it was published in 2017. 

Digging Up Dirt

People who are upset with Roys for exposing JMac’s disgusting sexism and incompetence at dealing with abusers at his church caused these wacked-out, enraged, JMac Fan Boys (and maybe some James MacDonald fan boys) to dig up any perceived dirt on Roys that they could to try to demonize or discount her so the public will disregard anything she publishes about MacArthur.

(The JMac Fans are too dumb to realize pointing out any flaws with Roys still doesn’t invalidate her reports of JMac – her reporting on JMac can remain true even if one can discover something supposedly unsavory about her or her past behavior).

So the JMac Fan Club came across this “Redeeming the Feminine Soul”  book Roys wrote years ago, and they began sharing excerpts of it on Twitter about a month ago.

At the time, I read excepts from that Roys book that some of these Fan Boys had scanned and posted to Twitter.

How creepy is it, by the way, that these church boys are such ass-kissers of a pastor that they felt the urge to go combing through anything Julie Roys has ever said, published, or done, all so they could find something – anything – to pounce on her with – and the abuse survivor community ate it up, too. Also weird and disturbing.

(This is also what the woke left usually does, goes digging around for ten or twenty year old tweets or articles to use to harass someone today.)

So desperate are the fan boys of some of the churches or pastors that the Roys site has published exposes on, one of them seems to have fabricated some more accusations against Roys, posted it to You Tube, where it was then picked up and shared by Roys haters and over-zealous “abuse survivor advocates” (but then, I repeat myself) on Twitter.

Roys later released a rebuttal to the video, which you can read here:

(Link): Opinion: Former Harvest Volunteer Publishes Falsehoods; People Quick to Retweet

From that page:
(and this is the first time I’ve read past the first fourth of the page when I first glanced it over weeks ago, so… wow – Amy Smith’s, Ashley Easter’s, and their ‘abuse victim advocates’ pals’ obsession with, and vendetta against, Roys is worse than I first realized – I have more to say about this below):

Survivor advocates spread unsubstantiated rumors
(by Julie Roys – excerpts)

… But what’s most disheartening about Engleman’s video isn’t the video itself. Engleman has been producing angry, misleading videos for some time. Most people familiar with what happened at Harvest know to disregard them.

What’s disheartening is how a new audience is eagerly spreading Engleman’s rumors without verifying what he says. And people you’d expect to be wary of deceptive troll accounts are instead retweeting them.

For example, Amy Smith, an abuse survivor advocate, on Wednesday retweeted a tweet from an account titled “NOT Julie Roys.” The retweet advertised a “bombshell torching of Julie Roys” and linked to Engleman’s video.

[Roys includes screen shots on the page]

This is the same troll account that attacked me relentlessly for reporting child abuse coverup by John MacArthur and Grace Community Church.

 [More embedded tweets on the page by Roys haters]

The account also has labeled the survivor community “#VictimhoodCulture” and attacked Lori Anne Thompson with names I won’t repeat. This seems a strange bedfellow for an abuse survivor advocate.

Yet Smith has also been retweeting Protestia and David Morrill tweets, which is bizarre given those accounts’ track record for misogyny, sensationalism, and half-truths.
Morrill has similarly ridiculed the survivor community with the “VictimhoodCulture” hashtag, and does disgusting things like mock a racial trauma counselor for his lisp.

Smith’s embrace of these fringe and hateful voices is concerning.

Smith also published a blog Friday with Engleman’s video and leading questions.

Similarly, Ashley Easter, another victim advocate, retweeted Engleman’s allegations Wednesday night.

In response to Easter’s tweet, I tweeted information showing that Engleman’s allegations had been debunked by Rob Williams and Ryan Mahoney. I also offered to provide Easter with Williams’ email so she could talk to him herself.

Easter never asked for Williams’ email, but instead defended her right to “post opinions I think are interesting.”
— end excerpts from Roy’s page —

Some of the scanned material from Roy’s book that JMac fans posted involved Roys’ discussion of how, when she was in her early 30s and was a youth ministry leader at her church, she attempted to help a 17 or 18 year old troubled teen in her church class whom she calls “Sarah” in the book.

(I assume that “Sarah” is a fabricated name. Roys does not list a last name in the excerpts I saw. In other words, and I could be mistaken – but it looks like Roys kept “Sarah” anonymous,
so why some of Roys critics online said it was wrong for Roys to divulge some of Sarah’s personal details in this book was strange to me.
Nobody outside of Roys and Sarah herself, (if Sarah even reads the book), and possibly Sarah’s mother, will ever know who “Sarah” really is, so what huge difference does it make if Roys shared some personal details about Sarah in this book?
I personally have no idea who Sarah is, as the author did not give out Sarah’s last name, and I don’t think “Sarah” is even her true first name but is a pseudonym.)

So, this all begins with outraged Fan Boys of preacher JMac (John MacArthur) bringing this book up to attack Roys over, to attack Roys with, since they are angry with her for exposing JMac for the (Link): sexist, (Link): abuser-coddling hack he is.

And soon enough, if my understanding of events is correct and in proper chronological order, the usual “abuse survivor advocates” I have seen on Twitter for years (among these, I would include Ashley Easter and Amy Smith of the “Watchkeep” blog) – and others  – jumped in to the fray to essentially start hinting or depicting Roys as a groomer who (sexually, or spiritually) intentionally, maliciously, preys on 17 year old teen girls.

I think is a very, very uncharitable and inaccurate way of filtering the whole thing.

Let me pause here to say that while I have generally supported and agreed with a lot of the work the abuse survivor advocates have done in years past, I at times, on occasion, do disagree with them on some topics.

Furthermore, I think they sometimes have over-reacted and have gone over-board – in regards to things and persons such as, but not limited to, Anna Duggar (married to pedophile Josh), ex-Christian Joshua Harris, and others – in how they react to or treat people they suspect of protecting or enabling abusers.

I’ve never been comfortable with their behavior in those areas, at times, and I think in regards to Julie Roys, they’re doing the same thing to Roys.

Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor

Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor

This news story is 50 levels of gross and terrible.

If you’ve visited this blog before, you should know the drill:

Being married and/or a parent, contrary to what many churches and socially conservative think tanks teach, is NOT a guarantee of making a person loving, ethical, godly, or responsible.

(Not that marriage or parenthood are horrible or wrong, but neither life station necessarily produces upstanding, loving, ethical citizens, either.)

Self professing Christian men fail so often, and sexually exploit so often, that churches need to start re-evaluating their “male headship” and “complementarian” teachings, because obviously, men are not fit to lead, and, the “Equally Yoked” rule is a waste of time (and quite possibly a misapplication of a Bible verse).

If you’re a single Christian woman who was raised (as I was) to believe in “Equally Yoked” (Christians should only marry other Christians), and that church would be a good, safe place to meet “Mr. Right,” this goes to show that you’d be better off chucking those teachings to the curb.

The professing Christian man you meet at your corner church is not necessarily going to be any more stand-up than the non-Christian Joe Blow you meet on Tinder or Match.

This pastor, or his church, mischaracterized statutory rape as being “adultery.” Churches really need to get on the ball about this – stop depicting statutory rape as being “adultery.” This was not a case of “adultery.”

I think the pastor in this story was or has been married for years – this goes to show that the standard Christian advice to singles I used to see all the time that says you, the single, have to obtain some level of perfection or spirituality before God will permit you to have a spouse is false.

If God allows deviants like this pastor to get married, rest assured, He is probably not with-holding one from you because you don’t read the Bible often enough, or whatever.

(Link): Pastor Who Resigned Over Adultery Accused of Taking Virginity of Purity Ring Wearing Teen Girl on His Office Floor.

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Features Reporter

May 23, 2022

A Warsaw, Indiana, pastor who drew a standing ovation from his congregation after telling them he was stepping down because he committed adultery with one person at least two decades ago drew their wrath minutes later after a woman tearfully alleged she was only 16 when the pastor took her virginity on his office floor while she sported a purity ring.

Pastor John Lowe II told his congregation at New Life Christian Church and World Outreach on Sunday that he needed to make the confession because it was the “biblical” thing to do, according to a (Link): Facebook Live broadcast shared by Maisey Cook.

[The pastor – Lowe – stood before his church during a service and confessed he had committed adultery years prior.]

…  He [Lowe] painted himself as a hypocrite who applied discipline to others for sexual failure while hiding his own.

He asked the church for their forgiveness and announced that he would step aside and face discipline from the church.

…Soon after he stepped down from the pulpit, a woman and her husband went to the pulpit to address the congregation. The woman said that what Lowe did was not just adultery but a crime because she was only 16 when he took her virginity in his office 27 years ago.

While the age of consent in Indiana is 16, a person who is at least the age of 18 in a position of supervision or trust that engages in any sexual activity with a child over the age of 16 but under the age of 18 commits child seduction, according to state law. …

Having 3 or More Children Negatively Impacts Late-Life Cognition: Study – by L. Blair

Having 3 or More Children Negatively Impacts Late-Life Cognition: Study – by L. Blair

(Link): Family size may influence cognitive functioning in later life

May 12, 2022

A new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and the Robert Butler Columbia Aging Center and Université Paris-Dauphine — PSL, found that having three or more versus two children has a negative effect on late-life cognition.

The results further indicated that this effect was strongest in Northern Europe, where higher fertility decreases financial resources but does not improve social resources in this region. This is the first to study the causal effect of high fertility on late-life cognition.

(Link): Having 3 or more children negatively impacts late-life cognition: study

Excerpts:

May 2022

While recent research has warned of the potential drawbacks of America’s declining fertility rate, a new study has found that having three or more children negatively affects late-life cognition.

“To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to demonstrate a causal effect of higher fertility on late-life cognition,” researchers Eric Bonsang and Vegard Skirbekk explain in their paper “Does Childbearing Affect Cognitive Health in Later Life? Evidence From an Instrumental Variable Approach” published in Demography, the flagship journal of the Population Association of America.

Christian Gender Complementarians and Far Left Woke Progressives and Transactivists – What They Have in Common

Christian Gender Complementarians and Far Left Woke Progressives and Transactivists – What They Have in Common

There are a few things Christian gender complementarians have in common with the following: the woke; progressives; social justice warriors; anti-Trumpers; exvangelicals (ex evangelicals); transactivists; critical theory advocates; BLM; Antifa, and anti-racists.

I don’t want to get into all the similarities I see among these seemingly- at- first- glance- totally- in- opposition groups, but one or two I did want to mention for now:

Both the Christian complementarians and the Progressives participate in “identity politics.” You’re not allowed to be an individual.

Complementarians divide people into the groups of “men” and “women,” and then ascribe gender stereotypes to both groups. They believe that all women are, or should be, passive, non-confrontational, and docile and enjoy crocheting tea cozies, for example.

If you’re a woman who is not passive, docile, or who does not enjoy knitting tea cozies and has no desire to do so, they either ignore you, or other types of complementarians may insult you or question your fealty to Jesus, the Bible, and the nuclear family.

The progressives, of course, put everybody into groups and then in sub-groups; the progressives will not only divide people up by biological sex, for instance, but if you are a “person of color” AND a woman, you’re now in a sub-group.

The progressives will then try to determine, via “intersectionality,” which group or sub-group is the “most” oppressed, and which ever group is deemed most victimized gets all the cookies (devotion, protection, attention, energy).

Members of these groups, who are declared to be most marginalized, are given carte blanche permission by woke liberals to treat other groups terribly, and to stomp all over other groups’ needs, rights, and concerns (one example of this on my blog).

Women Are Not Allowed to Have Their Own Opinions On Either Side, Christian Complementarian OR Progressive

Christian gender complementarians and woke, far left liberals (including transactivists, BLM supporters, and even a lot of progressive Exvangelical, anti-Trump persons, and some abuse survivor advocates) all have the distasteful, unfortunate habit of pressuring women to think a certain way.

All those groups also tend to guilt trip women or shame them when they won’t cave in to the pressure, and they also advise – more like command and dictate! – women to “let this group do your thinking for you. You are not allowed to question the group or its assumptions or opinions. You are not allowed to have or hold a dissenting view from that of the group.”

Women Who Disagree With Christian Gender Complementarianism

If you’re a woman who doesn’t agree with Christian gender complementarianism (or Christian patriarchy, which is essentially the same thing as complementarianism, but usually more severe),
complementarian men (and some of the women) in those belief sets will accuse you of being a liberal, a feminist, and/or a Democrat and will sometimes also accuse you of hating babies, men, meritocracy, due process, or the nuclear family.

The more crude, overtly sexist ones will also suggest on occasion you are “trying to be like a man,” you are “too old, past your expiration date,” you own 47 pet cats, and you never shave your legs.

Women Who Disagree With Progressives or Any Progressive View or Behavior

If you’re a woman who doesn’t agree with progressives on, well, any of their socio-political views (CRT, pro-choice, BLM, transactivism, etc), they will accuse you of being bigoted, racist, homophobic, transphobic, and/or of possessing “Internalized Misogyny,” and they’re rarely civil in how they express those views.
(This is, laughably and remarkably, after they stress repeatedly, especially in their online communities, how, unlike Trump voters and evangelical Christians, how tolerant and loving they are.)

Indian Couple Sue Son and His Wife, Demanding Grandchildren

Indian Couple Sue Son and His Wife, Demanding Grandchildren

What a couple of narcissists – the parents, not the adult children who don’t seem to want to have children ever, or not now.

We don’t always get what we want in life.

(Link): Indian Couple Sue Son and His Wife, Demanding Grandchildren

“We want a grandson or a granddaughter within a year or compensation, because I have spent my life’s earnings on my son’s education,” Sanjeev Ranjan Prasad said.

May 14, 2022

NEW DELHI — A retired Indian couple is suing their son and daughter-in-law, demanding that they produce a grandchild within a year or pay them 50 million rupees ($675,000).

Sanjeev Ranjan Prasad, a 61-year-old retired government officer, said it was an emotional and sensitive issue for him and his wife, Sadhana Prasad, and they cannot wait any longer. His son, a pilot, was married six years ago.

“We want a grandson or a granddaughter within a year or compensation, because I have spent my life’s earnings on my son’s education,” Prasad told reporters on Thursday.

It’s Only A Culture War When the Right Does It by Matt Purple

It’s Only A Culture War When the Right Does It by M. Purple

(Link): It’s Only A Culture War When the Right Does It

Examples:

The New York Times says America’s battles are spreading to other countries

May 18, 2022
by Matt Purple

[The piece opens by discussing the polarization of the topic of transgenderism in Australia; the American paper The New York Times is upset that a Liberal (right of center) Aussie party member has spoken out against things like biological men being on women’s sports teams, etc.

American leftists, like those at The Times, like to believe that squabbling over social issues is unique to conservative Americans only, that social justice issues are of little to no concern to other nation’s conservative groups.]

…In the end, the left sighs, all it wants is for its cultural revolution to be accepted wholesale and for all opposition to be silenced.

The problem is that, first of all, none of this is true. … [The author cites how other nations have elected their own populist versions of Donald Trump, or have had similar protests in other nations that are similar to ones put forward by American conservatives in the United States.]

… Can it even be that some foreigners care as much about culture as we do and would like to have their democratic say?

Run with this stuff long enough and it starts to sound like an American chauvinism all its own. We are not the only country that has ever arched an eyebrow at a trans flag.

UK Pedophile Who Raped Baby and Took Nude Photos of Another Child Jailed For Life

UK Pedophile Who Raped Baby and Took Nude Photos of Another Child Jailed For Life

(Link): Paedophile, 43, who raped baby and took naked pictures of another child is jailed for life after ‘horrendous’ abuse was uncovered when he posted vile images online

May 11, 2022
By Isabella Nikolic

A paedophile who raped and abused a baby for his own sexual gratification has been jailed for life.

Gareth Davis, from Runcorn, Cheshire, must serve a minimum term of 27 years after he admitted to his vile crimes at Chester Crown Court on Monday.

The 43-year-old was arrested in October last year after a National Crime Agency investigation discovered that he had posted a number of indecent images of children online.

Some of these showed him raping and sexually assaulting a baby, whilst he had also taken naked pictures of another young child.

Tucker Carlson Tried to Use Hunter Biden to Get His Son Into Georgetown

Tucker Carlson Tried to Use Hunter Biden to Get His Son Into Georgetown

Tucker Carlson is one of those conservatives who I occasionally agree with, but sometimes no. I do think Carlson gravely misunderstands sexism and feminism, for one.

I don’t identify as a feminist myself, and I am not a progressive or a liberal, but I do recognize that American culture – like many around the world – largely favors men and not women, contrary to what the cry-baby “Men’s Rights Activists,” anti-feminist conservatives and Johnny Depp fans online insist.

(Speaking of which, and this is a point I may make in the future, if I do a post on the Johnny Depp – Amber Heard trial – Johnny Depp is the Hunter Biden of Hollywood. I may make that point again going forward in another post.)

I am not a Democrat, I think that President Joe Biden has dementia and is un-fit for office, and I think that Joe’s son Hunter is a drug-addicted, pathetic, lost soul.

So I am by no means in support of how big tech silenced the New York Post’s story about Hunter Biden’s lap top (I was actually suspended by Twitter for a good long time over having tweeted about Hunter Biden’s “Lap Top From Hell”).

According to the article below (from the Guardian), Tucker and his wife named one of their sons “Buckley.”

“Buckley”-??

I notice that Carlson didn’t host his own show tonight (May 20, 2022) but had a guest-host fill in for him, and this story was published today:

(Link): Tucker Carlson tried to use Hunter Biden to get his son into Georgetown

Emails reveal the ‘extent’ which Carlson was willing to turn on Biden’s son since the 2020 election, Washington Post says

May 20, 2022
by Martin Pengelly

As Tucker Carlson asked Hunter Biden for help getting his son into an elite Washington university in 2014, the Fox News host’s wife, Susie, reportedly wrote in an email: “Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!”

Since the 2020 election, however, Carlson has fueled rightwing attacks on Joe Biden’s son, particularly over business affairs in which he allegedly benefited from his father’s position.

A New Start After Age 60: ‘Alone for the First Time in My Life, I Learned How To Be Happy’ (A Woman’s Husband Divorces Her After 40 Years of Marriage)

A New Start After Age 60: ‘Alone for the First Time in My Life, I Learned How To Be Happy’ (A Woman’s Husband Divorces Her After 40 Years of Marriage) by Paula Cocozza

In the article below, the woman (who is in the UK) also mentions that when she was younger, her father died, which had a big impact on her and her mental health.

(Link): A new start after 60: ‘Alone for the first time in my life, I learned how to be happy’

Excerpts:

by Paula Cocozza

Marian Elliott was devastated when her husband left her after almost 40 years together. New friends have helped her rebuild her confidence – and enjoy her freedom

May 16, 2022

Marian Elliott was 22 when she left the family home to be with her husband-to-be. So when he left her nearly 40 years later – shortly after her 60th birthday – she found herself living entirely alone for the first time.

Elliott had thought she could picture the next stage in her life. She and her ex had worked hard to pay off their mortgage.

“We were about to enjoy our retirement together,” she says with a heavy sigh. Now there was nothing but uncertainty. “I felt such pain, I didn’t know what to do with it,” she says.