Eviscerate

This word has been on my mind a lot lately. I think I read it in the book Wild at Heart by John Eldredge (a good book, by the way). The word literally means to remove the entrails. Picture a hunter who has caught his prey, he removes the entrials to prevent them from infecting the good meat. You gut a fish before you catch it. Same thing.

But my mind hasn't been on hunting. Instead it's been on a friend of mine who has been eviscerated. Those who know some scorned or vengeful women may have an image of how an man can be eviscerated. In this case, that image doesn't fit exactly, but leave that image in your mind.

The friend has been told by many of those around him that he's not a man. He grew up in an abusive home (I'm assuming "mild" physical abuse - if there is such a thing) with an alcoholic parent. His parents divorced and the alcoholic hasn't remarried. The other spouse remarried and ignored my friend. (I think the remarriage and ignorance happend after my friend became an adult - not while he was still a child).

Now, his marriage is on the rocks. He wants to be a good husband, he wants to be a good father. They've been to counseling, but it didn't help. Certainly some (most?) of the blame for the failure of their relationship falls on his shoulders. He admits this as fact. That doesn't make it any easier to resolve things.

When I look into my very cloudy crystal ball, I see them headed for more problems. I wish I knew an easy way to un-viscerate him and convince her that they can recover. There may already be too much water under the bridge.