When Jay and David Chong were divorced, Jay remembers that she and her son “moved out of the house. We never explained to our son Marc why, and he never asked”.

Marc Chong was 12 when his parents’ marriage fell apart. Now 39, with three children of his own, he spoke to viewers at the inaugural episode of Salt&Light Family Night what it was like for him behind his home’s closed doors as a child of divorce. 

It was the first time the introvert was revealing his thoughts on the matter in public.

Cool front

In a frank sharing on Salt&Light Family Night on August 4, the Chongs opened up on Zoom about their journey of divorce, its consequences and considerations. They remarried each other after three years when Marc was 15.

At the time when his mother moved out of the home, Marc said he “didn’t know if they were separated or divorced. I only remember going with my mum to live with my maternal grandmother”.

An introvert by nature, Marc withdrew even more into himself.

“As an only child, I had always found ways to play on my own. Because of the divorce, they had their own issues to settle.

“So, I was left to my own devices. I ended up playing a lot of video games. I could play all day.”

Jay recalled: “Marc never mixed with bad company, but he showed no interest in other things and activities. Whenever I asked him for his opinion, his answer would always be, ‘I don’t know’.

“He was very quiet and didn’t have much confidence.”

Marc said he didn’t ever cry.

But pent-up anger was brewing beneath the cool front he put up.

“When you go through something like that, there is a lot of frustration. I couldn’t really process it at the time and I had no one to talk to.”

Reunited but not restored

A turning point came when his mother, Jay, re-committed her life to Christ. It transformed her from a tough-as-nails “diva” into a woman softened by grace.

On weekends when she brought Marc to his father David’s apartment, she would clean her ex-husband’s home. It was totally out of character and Marc saw it.

“God really changed my mum. She is a very strong career woman but she would regularly clean my dad’s place. He didn’t even say ‘thank you’,” Marc said.

“I would go back with her in the car and she would cry on the way home. That was one of the things that made me accept Christ. I thought, ‘This is God, whoever it is who is causing this change in her. God is real’.”

His conversion to the faith became a turning point for his dad who was a backslidden believer at that time.

“Dad had to go with me to church on weekends and God started to do a work in his life.”

David ended up returning to God as well. Some six months after that, he and Jay decided to remarry.  

“God made a change in them first before he mended their relationship. That’s how God works. He works with us first,” said Marc.

While the family was reunited, the hurt Marc felt from the years the family was apart was not healed.

Said Jay: “After David and I re-married, I remembered very clearly once Marc had an argument with David and shouted, ‘I hate you, Dad!’”  

David had to work hard to rebuild the bond they once had.

Before the divorce, “I was actually closer to my dad”, Marc said. “As a child, he was the one who played with me while mum was the disciplinarian. He would take me cycling.”

The shadow of silence

Eventually the genuine transformation in his parents’ lives thawed Marc’s heart.

“They became very different people. I could see how the love of God changed their lives. They were genuinely happier to be together.

“Even now, seeing my parents, they are even more loving than I have ever seen them before.”

Having experienced the effects of his parents’ divorce, Marc knew how broken marriages “can affect children”.

“I don’t want to put my children through it.”

But he also wanted more than just the fear of divorce to hold his own marriage together.

“Some people stay in a marriage for the kids’ sake. I don’t think that’s what God intended marriage to be.”

Yet, seven years and three kids into his marriage to Michelle, 36, Marc admitted that “there are times it’s tough”.

When Marc was unhappy in his marriage, he found himself withdrawing into computer games, just as he did when his parents divorced. Now, he exchanges computer games for board games with his wife Michelle. (L-R) Micah, Marc, Michelle, baby Maia and Miko. Photo courtesy of Marc Chong.

Withdrawal, once his defence mechanism against hurts, was starting to hurt his marriage.

“My wife likes to talk. I don’t talk much, I just absorb. So, she feels like I don’t share. When we fight, I keep quiet.

“We didn’t resolve the problems in the marriage. We didn’t focus on each other.”

When he was stressed, he turned to playing computer games for “a long period of time, probably because there was no intervention when I was a kid”.

“It came to a point where whenever things were tough, I escaped. And that overflowed into my adult life.”

Over time, Marc began to realise that he wasn’t happy in his marriage. “It wasn’t so bad that we wanted a divorce but it wasn’t as wonderful as it should be.”

Michelle felt the same way.  

The book of love

But the God who had worked on his parents’ marriage began to work in his too.

One day, towards the end of last year, Michelle went to Marc with a book that she had been reading. She wanted him to read it, too.

“She expected me to brush it off. But I read it instead. God was already doing something in my life,” said Marc.

“When I started reading the book, I was laughing like crazy. The book was spot on. I could really relate. It started us on the journey of recovery that we are on now.”

One of the exercises in The Four Season of Marriage by Gary Chapman that the couple did together was particularly transformative.  

“We had to think of how we had failed the other person in the marriage. Then, we had to write it down so the other person could read it.

“It struck me very hard because it’s easy to pinpoint how she had failed. But the exercise made me realise that I hadn’t done much either. It changed my whole perspective.”

That led them to read more books to learn how to relate to each other in marriage.

Another Gary Chapman book The Five Languages of Love made them realise the need to fill each other’s love tank with the right language of love – words of affirmation and physical touch for Marc, quality time for Michelle.

“Now, I give her my undivided attention when she is talking to me instead of watching television or playing computer games.

“And she learnt not to say certain things because I need affirming words.”

Marc has exchanged computer games with board games with Michelle.

“It was wisdom from God,” Marc confessed. “It was a combination of the Circuit Breaker and wanting to spend more time together. We bought a board game to try to play at home. And we both liked it.

“It’s a nice middle ground. I also don’t want my kids to see me play computer games.”

“For a marriage to work, we have to work at it. It was such a revelation that God could use things like games to turn us around.”

Jay sees the change in her son, too.

“We are thankful to Michelle who played a significant role in instilling confidence and sharing her life with Marc. We saw how he drew close to God, reading His Word and depending on Him daily.”

Agreed Marc: “When God is in the centre, He is the one who keeps two people in the marriage together.”

Join us for the next Salt&Light Family Night chat show on Zoom (Tuesday, August 18, 8.30-10pm) as we take on another topic close to the heart of families: How can we help our children cope with school stress? Pre-registration is required.

When God joined them as man and wife … twice

When God joined them as man and wife … twice