Time, faith and attorney bring couple back together

Article from the Times Daily about a couple's journey back from the brink of divorce, which began when a divorce lawyer -- now a judge -- encouraged his client to take some time to think about it and to explore counseling before proceeding with divorce.

By Michelle Rupe Eubanks
Staff Writer

Published: January 21. 2007 3:30AM
Posted at
http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070121/NEWS/701210344/1011

Almost 20 years after it happened, Stan and Stacey Pruitt still find it hard to talk about how their marriage almost ended.

"There will always be part of the story that is between me and Stan," Stacey Pruitt said. "But if we can help one person with it, then what we've been through has been worth it."

With the benefit of hindsight and years of counseling, both say it was the baggage they brought to the relationship that crippled their marriage from the start.

"I was coming from a place where, if you got into a situation you didn't like, you just quit," Stan Pruitt said.

Growing up with an alcoholic father, Stan said his home life was chaotic, a cycle he learned to live with, and that became a part of his marriage to Stacey.

"We were always in survival mode, and that was how we learned to handle anger, because we lived in an angry world," Stan Pruitt said.

Stacey came into the relationship watching her parents grow and develop their marriage, a standard she expected for herself.

"I always wanted to be married, and divorce was never an option," she said. "But we brought all of that into our marriage, and it became a cycle of his anger and my reaction to that anger."

The day-to-day reality of their marriage came to be characterized by these manic highs and lows, causing their relationship to feel like a pressure cooker rather than a partnership.

It reached a boiling point when talk arose concerning children.

"The only image I had of a father was my own, and I didn't want to bring a child into that," Stan Pruitt said. "When you don't know how to take care of yourself and your marriage, why would you bring someone else into that?"

Pretty soon, Stacey had moved back into her parents' house, while Stan settled into the couple's home.

Distraught, she sought legal counsel with then-attorney Jimmy Sandlin.

Unwilling to take the proceedings forward that day, Sandlin advised her to wait, seek counseling and prepare herself for the future.

"I was a wreck," Stacey said. "I could hardly function. Life, in my mind, had taken a turn that I wanted no part of."

During this time, Stan spent the better part of his days and nights in the home he had shared with Stacey doing a lot of thinking, he said, and "facing his demons."

"It came to me then that I couldn't go through life quitting, that I had to face this reality," he said. "God began to speak to me, telling me this was a make-or-break time. I didn't want to be alone, and I didn't want to fail again."

Slowly, Stan and Stacey came together to mend the marriage that stood on the brink of divorce but was talked down from the ledge.

Both credit their faith in God as well as Jimmy Sandlin, now a circuit court judge in Lauderdale County, for helping them through one of the most difficult times in their lives.

"Since the day we got back together, it's been a learning experience," Stan Pruitt said. "You don't overcome, in a matter of years, the hurt you experienced as a child, and that's something I had to come to grips with."

Not long after their reconciliation, Stacey became pregnant with the couple's first child, Greer, who is now 18 and a student at Ole Miss.

Their youngest, Bryant, 14, is a student at Shoals Christian School.

"We've talked about how -- or if -- we'll tell them our story," Stacey Pruitt said. "They know some of it, but we'll wait until the time is right for them, so they can hear how God healed us."

Michelle Rupe Eubanks can be reached at 740-5745 or michelle.eubanks@timesdaily.com.