Divorce ... God's View?

I know that my God is a forgiving God. Yet the "sin of divorce" weighs heavily on my mind. I know that there is nothing quite like the human mind when it comes to justifying its own sins. I seek you, Lord, not with the intention of justifying my sin but trying to understand how I am to move beyond the hurts in the past, requesting your guidance to show me your beliefs regarding divorce and remarriage.

For so long, I have believed that divorce is a sin. That marriage is a God-ordained institution. And, that what God has joined together let no man put asunder. Yet, surely, I thought, a God who is as compassionate as the scriptures set forth would not want a partner in a marriage to suffer with a man who goes against everything that God teaches, would he?

The longer I stayed in the marriage the more my light for God was snuffed. My health suffered. My energy lagged. My individuality disappeared. I felt my life was not worth living. My spouse was, for all intents and purposes, smothering me. The only time I came alive was at work and he only wanted me to work so he could afford his hobbies. I hated that I had to justify my existence to him.

Divorce, for me, was one of the most indescribably difficult decisions that I have ever made. In fact, I sat here for about a minute pondering what adjective I could put in that sentence to summarize the amount of tears I shed, sometimes I felt as if my very soul was being ripped apart inside. It was as if my entire world was shaken by an earth splitting earthquake. Parts of me fell down in the abyss to never be seen again. There is no single descriptive single word that could be put into that sentence. It wasn't possible.

Knowing that I have sought the Lord's forgiveness repeatedly for this sin, I was led today to this scripture:

Deuteronomy 24
¹ When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.
² And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.

Followed by finding this website (Link). As I scrolled down the page, I learned that there is a distinction, even in the Bible of separation and divorce. The author of this website analyzes the verses, pointing out that many of the scriptures used to discuss remarriage are really, in fact, about separation. Explaining that God is against remarriage if the couple is SEPARATED (referred to as "putting away"). But that God has NEVER denied a remarriage if the first couple is DIVORCED. God does not like divorce, but is it not true that God is practical? Could it be possible that God understood the necessity of divorce in certain cases and set forth rules concerning the procedure?

It has always been important to me to know the rules and follow them. As a small child, I remember looking forward to the first day of school so that I could learn what was to be expected of me. The only time I got into trouble was when I didn't know something was expected or a misunderstanding had occurred of the expectation.

Dear Lord, did you show me these scriptures today so that I know your rules? So that I could move forward in my life? That perhaps the Biblical scholars of today are fuzzy in their distinction between separation and divorce? Are you telling me that you've forgiven me and to quit dwelling on it?