Virginia Hart Tiffan: Marriage Years (24-45)

Pre-Script:  There are many photo milestones missed in the following post due to a condo fire in 1994, when I lost almost everything I owned, including all the photo albums I took with me after our divorce.  Thankfully, loose photos were in shoe boxes in my storage unit in another building.

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Following on the heels of my last post, I really did leave Peru and my Wycliffe Bible Translators stint to come home and marry Bill Tiffan, from U. of Michigan days.  We had met each other in our Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship group on campus.  I was a year ahead of him and was very aware when he joined the group.  But throughout our dating years, I was very muddled about my emotions and made the decision to pursue my Wycliffe goal...with the understanding that if I ever "changed my mind," I'd let Bill know.  It took only 6 months.

I arrived home in early July, 1969.  Our wedding day was 6 September 1969.

In those two months I made the 6 bridesmaid's dresses and got ready.
Sister Nancy begged me to wear her wedding dress, changing the accent color from pink to yellow.

We were married by my dad in his Baptist church in Grand Ledge, MI.

Sadly, no pics of the wedding party, but this is my honeymoon outfit made by sister Nancy.

We lived in Ann Arbor, MI, our first year, the city of the U. of Michigan where we were students.

I was a desk clerk and a nursing aid at the Mercywood [psychiatric] Hospital that year.
Bill worked as a civil engineer with a man from our former Inter-Varsity days.

 My family of origin now included Bill.

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A year later we moved to Columbia, SC, where Bill took a year of Theology

at Columbia Bible College (CBC), now Columbia Int'l University.

Our plan was to join Wycliffe Bible Translators (WBT) as a married couple.

While Bill was at CBC, I was a zip-cataloguer of rare books at the McKissick Library

(now a museum) at the University of South Carolina.

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But instead of returning to WBT, we joined Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF),

an interdenominational ministry to college/university students worldwide.

Bill began campus staff in the Fall of 1971, assigned to college campuses in San Diego, CA.

As his wife, I could choose outside employment but chose freedom to join him in special activities.

 Both of our children were born in San Diego (the La Mesa suburb, to be exact).

I was pregnant in 1972, left, with Amy, and right, with Mark, in 1975.

Amy Ruth Tiffan was born on 30 September 1972,

weighing 6lbs. 15oz, after 13 hours of false labor followed by inducement.

She was an absolute charm in every way!

Being a mother was one of the best things I ever did in those early years.

 Unbeknownst to us, this was the beginning of a million-dollar family.

And once again, my family of origin grew!

What is it about school pictures (in this case, Kindergarten to tenth grade)!

Amy's senior year at Norcross High School, 1989-90.

And Glamour Shots to boot, in 1992, 2 years after my divorce.
In 1994 she graduated from Flagler College in St. Augustine, FL,
with a degree in Psychology.

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 Due on Amy's 3rd birthday, Mark Daniel Tiffan arrived 6 days later, on 6 October 1975,
weighing 8lbs. 10oz, ready to birth before I had finished signing the paperwork.

  He, too, was a charmer!
When I cut his hair after he turned one, I finally had my own hair cut, too,
in the Dorthy Hamill wedge haircut famous at that time.
From that point on, my hair got shorter and shorter.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our first of 3 marriage-counseling series.
It was becoming an issue that I kept falling in love with women.
I don't remember anything about the counseling, other than that "You can't be gay and Christian."
So what was wrong with me?

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 After seven years in San Diego, we moved to Pasadena, CA,
because Bill had become IVCF's Area Director of Southern California.

While in Pasadena, we enjoyed the company of sister Ruth's family part of the time,
while they prepared for their own ministry in Turkey.
Here Ruth's youngest, Peter, enjoyed a good joke on Mark.

Amy and Mark had so many fabulous experiences because of Bill's work in IVCF.
Every year we went to college camps as a family in Michigan's Upper Penninsula,
Colorado's Bear Trap Ranch, and/or Campus by the Sea on Catalina Island.

 How could I not love them to death!

By now, we were a real million-dollar family!
And I had started to hang wallpaper professionally on the side.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our second of 3 marriage-counseling series.
No matter where we lived, I kept falling in love with women.
The new therapist agreed with the first, that "You can't be gay and Christian."
But this time he had my mom join us from Michigan, to get more insight.
The "problem" with me was somehow connected to her, he was sure of it.

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 After 5 years in Pasadena, Bill was promoted to IVCF's Campus Director of the entire USA,
which made moving to the Madison, WI, headquarters a necessity.
I continued my side business of hanging wallpaper,
even at the IVCF headquarters.

Mark was coming into his own....

until our divorce, starting his 10th year of high school, in 1990.

Mark's senior year at Norcross High School, 1992-93.

 In 1997 he graduated from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA,

with a degree in Computer Science.

At some point during this time, Bill and I had our third of 3 marriage-counseling series.
I was still falling in love with women.
This time, however, the therapist said to Bill, in front of me:  

"Ginnie gets her warmth, fulfillment and satisfaction from women.

What are you going to go about it?"

(Interestingly, the question was never posed to me.)

 Bill made the decision that he still wanted to stay married but with the "ultimatum"

that I would never fall in love with another woman again.

It was his call.  It never occurred to me that I also had a voice.

And thus began a 9-month suicidal mission I didn't know how to shake.

Every night I'd walk Vester the dog and try to figure out how I'd "do it."

I was crying off-and-on for days at a time.

Nobody knew.

During this time Bill also made the decision to leave ministry, after 3 years in Madison.

He found a job in Atlanta, GA, through a friend.

 After finding a church in Atlanta, I immediately fell in love with our church's choir director.

But we lived together as a family for three years before we both realized "it" was never going away.

I still remember walking the neighborhood, hand-in-hand, talking about our inevitable divorce.

This time, I was not suicidal.  The handwriting was on the wall and it was finally okay.

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Now I look back on those years at all our family photos:

1977:  Amy 4, Mark 1

1979:  Amy 6, Mark 3

1980:  Amy 7, Mark 4

1981:  Amy 8, Mark 5

1985:  Amy 13, Mark 10

1988:  Amy 16, Mark 13

I look at the last 2 photos above and see the sadness, especially on Bill's face.

I cry anew as I write this, with the memories washing back over me.

Amy, too, knew.  She "knew" since she was 12 that something was different about me.

But Bill and I both decided to wait till she went to college before making our move.

I think we both would do it earlier if we had the chance again, because of her.
Mark had no clue what was going on and was totally blindsided.

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I do NOT want to end on a sad note with the above family photos.

So I leave you with the photos that are the most soulful of this "middle" stint of my life:

At the end of 1975, shortly after Mark was born.

For me, this says it all:  a tear and a smile.

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Post-Script:  While many pages are left out of this synthesis, this is the only story I can tell.  Bill, Amy and Mark are witness to the same history, but each with their separate versions.  

This is MY Story.

It's a story of tortured sorrow, guilt and shame, even though I know it's not Bill's fault or my own.  It's a cross I still bear to this day, not because of the divorce from a man I loved and respected as much as the break-up of my/our family.

Why I was born and lived in one time and place rather than another (when perhaps damage control might have been possible?), I will never know.  Was it my destiny?  It was as it was.

In the end, these 25 years later, as I turn 70, it is a Cross and a Crown.  A tear and a smile.  I don't know any other way to see it.  In spite of or because of (?) immense sorrow, the Joy overcomes it all.  And I can now say it is as it is.  I can be at peace with the pain and loss...because Love really does win in the end.

 

(to be continued....)