I’ve been asked why she left.
While I don’t have all the answers for my divorce, I do have one response: I am not the same man that I was.
I am a storyteller; here, I hope to accurately and truly convey mine.
A Man’s Dream
In 2021, I moved to Charleston with the hope of a dream. Perhaps life would be better here; perhaps we would find that dream home and neighborhood and everything would be happy. The pandemic had shaken the foundations of my life. My community–gone. Friendships–none. I felt so alone. I had often numbed out from the reality of all of this through endless youtube and news scrolling that left me detached and absent emotionally.
Things did not improve here. My first job in Charleston was not what it was supposed to be. I quickly discovered the company was floundering. My work dried up, and I was beyond stressed trying to figure out how I would sustain our family, all while trying to find our dream home. This was turning into a massive challenge and a hidden financial stressor for me. I was struggling to find community, and had no friends. My marriage was unraveling, our connection getting more strained each day. My faith was dry and God was distant.
I was a miserable man.
A Man Alone
I kept all of this in.
Even my wife did not know what I was experiencing and feeling. I thought I could handle it. I thought I was supposed to handle it on my own–but nothing was working. I kept trying to figure everything out, alone. In the spring of 2022, I entered the darkest season of my life. I was majorly depressed and didn’t know it. The pain, the loneliness, the irritation, the stress seemed too much to bear.
“You need friends.”
The words she spoke to me at the time revealed how alone and miserable I was. This was the truth–I did need friends. She encouraged me to go to a men’s retreat. Although I did not realize it at the time, as I look back, this was the start of the turn towards a different way of life for me.
Can I explain to you how miserable it is as a man to feel alone? To feel like everything you face–every challenge and stress–has to be faced and “handled” solely by you–worrying that you might weigh someone else down by sharing? The feeling that because you are a man, you should be able to handle it all and figure it out on your own? Through this dark season, I slowly began to understand that there was another way to live.
I was not living.
The Encounter
There have been many small, incremental turning points in my journey over the past 3 years. And several big ones–separation and divorce, grief, and loss among those. I tried so hard to figure out–on my own–how to face and manage these. All of it–everything I tried to fight so hard to control–seemed to slip away and through my fingers. I tried to change myself. I tried to be a different man. I tried to be happier and more whole. I tried my hardest to live.
It took the most profound moment of my life, a night in October of 2023, to change my perspective and my life. For months, I had been crying out, “God, if you are real, help me. Give me clarity.” And there, laying alone in my bed that night, I saw my life and who I was as a man appear before my eyes. I felt my heart opened up by two invisible hands, and everything inside was revealed to me–ALL of it. The deepest, darkest corners of my heart were illuminated. It was too much to bear! And there, in that moment, I felt a voice saying “I love you”.
My journey from there began to change significantly. The pain did not go away completely; the hopelessness still felt overpowering; the sense of failure and shame was often too much to carry–these led me to face the end of myself and almost my life. But today, I am here. I am alive! And it is not because of me, or anything that I did.
My Hope
This is what I want you to hear: it is not because of me, or anything that I did.
I did not, on my own efforts, accomplish or work out who I am or where I am today. This change–this understanding, was given to me, through the fullest experience of love I have ever encountered.
It was revealed to me, small at times, and overwhelmingly huge at others. I was incapable on my own of fully seeing who I was inside and knowing how to truly be alive. I know now there is only one thing that could have opened my heart and my eyes to see, and to Him I give this story and my life.
I was a miserable man–but no more!
I have felt the crushing weight of the chains of performance, the misery of guilt and shame, driving decisions and scarring relationships. Now, I have been experiencing a new way of living–a new life. One that is not marked by my failures and mistakes, but which is based on the hope and love that I have found in God alone.
He did this!
It was all through Him and by Him, and my life and my work now is for Him. For me, this is the truth I have found and the hope I am eager to share with you.
You may question this, or be intrigued. Perhaps you are spiritual–or not. No matter where you are, if you know me or don’t, I hope you will ask, “how did this miserable man get to where he is now? How did his life change?”. And my answer is simply and profoundly–God’s love.
The Friend
I found a friend who never leaves me. A friend who is always with me; who has been with me through the hardest and darkest seasons of my life, and is in all of the joy and gladness and beauty I now experience. He is my greatest friend.
I am not alone.
If you would like to learn or hear more, please reach out!
Alex Gerber
803-237-0628
Moving Forward 
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