The right time to leave
Here’s my February column for my hometown newspaper, the Holland Sentinel…
When is the right time to leave a relationship, a job, or a church?
I’ve thought about that question often over the years, but I thought about it most recently during the last days of the Trump administration. Several cabinet members and high-level officials decided, after the November 3 election, that they had had enough and announced their decision to leave.
One of those who resigned was Betsy DeVos, who had been secretary of education for most of Trump’s four years as president. In her letter dated January 7, the day after the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, she called the events of that day “the inflection point for me.”
I’m curious to know if there were other points in her four years of service when she considered resignation but decided that whatever happened on those occasions did not rise to the level of an “inflection point.” Often divorces, resignations, and departures are not the result of a single incident, but rather a whole string of them. We wait and wait until we can’t take it anymore.
Clearly there was something different about January 6, however, and DeVos chose the next day to leave.
I’m one of those people who is reluctant to leave anything. I’ve never left a job without having another to go to. I’ve been married to the same person for more than 40 years. And I am a member of a denomination that many others over the years could no longer, in good conscience, continue to support.
Why is that? Well, as with so much in our lives, part of the answer can be found in the way I was raised. My father worked for the same company for more than 40 years. He was there so long that he eventually owned the place. He and my mother nearly made it to their 70th wedding anniversary, an indicator of constancy if there ever was one. And my family never seemed to leave a church, no matter how much we disagreed with its direction.
Constancy, loyalty, persistence—call it whatever you want—it’s in my blood. And mostly, I like to think, it’s a good thing.
But there’s more to it than that. I was trained to think theologically, and on a topic like this I can’t help myself. What comes immediately to mind is covenant, a critically important theological term. It’s a term that helps define nearly all of the relationships in my life. You can find the word 30 times in the New Testament (and nearly 300 times in the Old). It would be impossible to define the term precisely here, but covenant implies a strong, enduring bond and often has a “no matter what” quality to it. I entered nearly every relationship in my life thinking that it would be binding at a deep, spiritual level.
And yet, not every relationship can or should last forever. Sadly, people break covenants all the time. Some behaviors, for example, should not be ignored. Partners in an abusive relationship, I believe, should leave—for their own physical and emotional health. (I have heard stories about broken relationships that found healing, but in cases of abuse leaving should come first. Healing, if it ever comes, will have to happen later.)
A broken relationship is always a source of pain and grief, of course, but it can also signal something else. It can signal, for example, a realization that I don’t deserve to be taken for granted or treated badly. I’m a child of God and deserve to be treated that way in all of my relationships. My worth as a human being means that I can and should protect myself and look out for my own welfare.
How long to stay, though, is one of the most difficult and complicated issues of life. Leaving a job often means the loss not only of income but also medical insurance. Some of us simply can’t afford to leave, no matter how justified. And yet, if we witness something illegal or unethical in our work environment, isn’t there a moral requirement to leave? Not saying anything, not taking action, makes us complicit.
A marriage is just as complicated, maybe more so. I’ve heard people say that higher divorce rates mean that people take marriage less seriously today, but I don’t believe it. In my work I never met anyone who walked away from a marriage lightly, just as I’ve never met anyone who left a job or a church lightly. These separations are nearly always painful, even when accompanied by relief, at finally having made the decision to go.
What I find myself thinking most of the time is, “What took you so long?”