Some of you will have intuited that given the amount of time I have spent living in Budapest this past year, things have not been well for me at home. You were right. I received an email from Julie last Saturday, the day before I left for Jerusalem, giving me some news — news that occasions this statement, the text of which has been approved by my wife:

It pains me more than I can say to announce that my wife recently filed a petition of divorce, and I have agreed unreservedly to her request for a mutual, and amicable, parting. While this will come as a great shock to my readers, it will not surprise those who know us best. We are both exhausted from nine years of excruciating struggle to save this marriage. I can safely say that I have learned through bitter experience the truth of the saying that nobody knows what really goes on in a marriage.

We have agreed that I won’t be talking in public about the circumstances leading up to the divorce. That would be unfair to her, because she has no platform, and cruel to our children, who remain our greatest concern. I can say (and she has approved everything in this statement) that infidelity was never, ever an issue, on either side. There is plenty of blame on both sides. We will have the rest of our lives to think about that.

That’s it. That’s all we feel comfortable with me saying. Please pray for us, and for our children. As I mentioned, this news came to me just before I left to spend Orthodox Holy Week in Jerusalem, worshiping and doing research for my next book. You can now understand why I have been posting so little since the weekend, and spending so much time this week praying at the actual hill of Golgotha, inside the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. It feels like to me that evil has won. I must believe — I must believe — that there will be resurrection.

I will continue posting close to normal, even thought it’s going to seem jarring to you, with me blogging about news events and cultural trends after disclosing this crisis. I ask you to withhold judgment. Remember that writing is how I deal with pain. When I travel, sometimes I meet people who tell me that they can’t understand how I write so much. This torment for my wife and me has been going on since 2013. Let the reader understand.

You will not be surprised to learn that I have turned off comments on this thread. I know there will be countless people who will be delighted to learn of my suffering. I can’t do anything about that, and besides, nothing they say can be worse than the fact of all this. All I can do is pray that they never have to endure what my wife and I have endured, and are enduring. Honest to God, I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.