Not quite just another Monday, the kids have the week off of school.
I am still getting used to the fact that we didn't go to Florida for the break as had been our regular habit. Finances did not permit, and with my grandpa (our reason to go there in the first place) having recently passed away there wasn't a true need to go.
After all yesterday's hoopla about the flowers and corsage, H called last night to talk to the kids and didn't even ask to speak to me.
Oh well.
It may have just been a temporary fit of nice behavior, I may have been trying to attach a meaning to it that it didn't even have.
I made plans this am to go to Wisconsin from Thursday - Sat to visit an old college friend. She has 4 kids, a daughter that is the same age as S15 and triplets that are the same age as S12.
I am hoping that while we are there that S15 can also hook up with a friend of his that moved away last year, he lives about 20 minutes away from my friend.
I was finally able to put a name to what it was that I was feeling yesterday.
Hope.
Every time H acts like his old self and not the MLC version, I find it cropping up again. Hope. And I don't know if that is good or bad. I almost don't want to find myself having a false hope or getting my hopes crushed one more time, but that is what it is.
It was easier to live when I was detached and living w/o hope in regards to the sitch between H and I. Which is not to say that I now have any fantasy of it all working out. But alllowing or recognizing that I was feeling that tiny shred of hope made me feel very vulnerable and exposed.
Faith, hope and Love... thats your thread name, pam...!!... faith, hope and love in a better future... yes, you had thought for 2 or 3 days that future can be with h, and now you return to a future by your own, but with a lot of faith, hopes and love that everything will be ok and wondefull for you and your kids... They just put us on the same roller coaster they are, so... hang in there... relax, breath, there will be more ups and downs, but you are in a better position, more calm, in peace, knowing that you do the best...!!... Andrea
I am so glad you posted to me as I have been reading your recent threads and was trying to put on paper the words that I wanted to share with you cause I see lots of hope in your situation. So here goes…my circumstances are very much similar to yours, very similar!! My H’s ow has used every trick in the book, every freaking lousy trick in the BOOK!! Yet nothing has changed, she hasn’t succeeded, my H is still at home.
Quote: “Though they intend evil against Thee, and devise a plot, they will not succeed, for in their own snare their foot has been caught”
I’m learning to keep my eyes off from my circumstances, cause when I do look at them, I can’t believe I’m still hanging in trying to make our marriage work. To the world the marriage looks lost, but to me it is very much in the process of being restored. Yes my H lives at home, but doesn’t stop him from his R with the AW. Your husband is acting very much like my husband, the patterns are very similar. The being nice, the distance, the aloofness…the depression. Some days it seems likes nothing changed other days everything’s changed.
Pamila, do not give up if you truly want your marriage restored. It’s going to take time, your husband is blinded by Satan, he has a hold on him, just like he does on my husband. And there is nothing you can do but pray. Prayer is the answer and it’s working for me not quickly mind you, but slowly things are turning back to me. Your husband doesn’t want to make a decision, he involved someone else, he’s involved his emotions, his feelings, and also made another woman dependent on him and now he’s going to have to decide. It’s easier not to make a decision but to continue going back and forth, but it’s hard on them living their life like that as well, very hard on them. Your H cannot continue on this path. The Lord likes to give us lots of chances to repent, but eventually He will step in and do something! You can bet on it.
Everything that is happening to your husband is happening because of what it says in the bible about adultery. And the free will, well it was explained to me very well by a woman who’s marriage was restored. Yes we all have free will, but GOD can and does change the hearts of men. God can and will change the hearts of our husband’s. But, first we must change ourselves. Our husbands are not going to come back to something that hasn’t changed. God does work with us to change us and He will do that as well..he has changed me in ways I can't explain. Things I'm doing now, things that never came to me naturally are now natural and they are coming directly from my heart, no matter what my husband may think or say! And if the Lord turns our spouses hearts back to us and WE have not changed ourselves, then that is his free will--to leave. I hope I explained this properly.
Pamila, I would highly recommend you check out Restore Ministries and order the packet that is offered. The book that I received changed everything for me and let me look at my circumstances in a new light, or should I say took my eyes off of my circumstances and put them on the Lord. He is showing me the way! One word of caution, take what pertains to you from the information offered there and leave the rest.
Scriptures from the Bible:
Quote: “This is the way of an adulterous woman; she eats and wipes her mouth and says, ‘I have done no wrong.’ For the lips of an adulteress drip honey and smoother than oil is her speech; but in the end she is bitter as wormwood and sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death, she does not ponder the path of life; her ways are unstable, she does not know it.” From Proverbs 5.
Quote: “Do not let your heart turn aside to her ways, for the heart is like channels of water in the hand of the Lord; He turns it wherever He wishes. Do not stray into her paths. For many are the victims she has cast down, and numerous are all her slain. Her house is the way to Sheol, descending to the chambers of death. The mouth of an adulteress is a deep pit; he who is cursed of the Lord will fall into it. For a harlot is a deep pit, and an adulterous woman is a narrow well.” From Proverbs 7.
Quote: “The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it. Surely she lurks as a robber, and increases the faithless among men. Like a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man who wanders from his home.” From Proverbs 6, 27.
Quote: “Keep your way far from her, and do not go near to the door of her house, lest you give your vigor to others, lest strangers be filled with your strength, and your hard-earned goods go to the house of an alien; and you groan at your latter end. For on account of a harlot one is reduced to a loaf of bread, and an adulteress hunts for the precious life. He who keeps company with harlots wastes his wealth.” From Proverbs 5
Without Hope what’s left? We can never give up on Hope. Quite frankly, I don’t know what false hope is, don’t quite understand that concept. Maybe it’s seeing one or two days of goodness and thoughtfulness from our spouse and then nothing..why is that false hope? To me it means there is HOPE…there is always hope.
You’re headed to Wisconsin…well, well…I hope you enjoy your visit here!!
I am very touched by your lengthy and thoughtful post. Obviously you had been thinking about those things for some time.
I am glad that you shared. Sometimes it takes someone looking in from the outside when we just get weary and can't see the light or the hope anymore.
Speaking of hope, these verses from Romans chapter 8 spoke to me today regarding hope.
22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? 25But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
26In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
I subscribe the the Rejoice Ministries e mail, and I already got the intro packet and several of the books which I have read and re-read.
Several months ago we had some dear friends of ours visit, they were friends who moved out of the country over 2 years ago. The loss of the male 1/2 of that friendship was a huge blow to H, and the beginning of H's downward spiral. Both the male and female friend met briefly with H back in Feb, and observed him to be spiritually toxic. My friend even suggested to me that the level of spiritual warfare around H was so intense that I might need to let someone else handle praying for him while I sort of re-charged my own spiritual batteries.
And I am almost ashamed to admit it, but yesterday I came right out and told H, that I was giving consideration to D-ing him.
Probably not good dbing, but I had about had it with living in limbo land.
His initial response was to say that he was hurt, sad, frustrated, angry. He asked what would be the process/outcome in a D. He mentioned he might be more amenable to a legal separation. He admitted to putting me through hell.
I told him that all this had nothing to do with OW. That it was about he and I, and the fact that there was no effort on his part and that so many times he had said he was going to do something and then just not done it.
We did at least talk, which was good, we probably had not had a non-fighting convo in months.
I was not trying to threaten him or give him an ultimatum, but I wanted to let him know how weary I had become of living in limbo w/o having any sort of a R with him.
So there it is, all laid out on the table, and it ain't pretty.
thanks again for writing me, I am going to print off your response and study it.
I'm doing an online bible study with Beth Moore, it goes along with her book Believing God. And one of the assignments is to read Romans 4 twenty times in the next few weeks.!!
It is a tough road either way, they are so lost and confused. Right around Xmas time I was talking of D with my H and he came right and said go ahead, it's not going to make things any easier. And admitted that he didn't know what he wanted and something he said to me made me realize that ow isn't what he wants either. We've had the D talk many times, but nothing ever happens, neither of us pursue it.
This is the website I was referring to: RESTORE Ministries
If you have time check it out. God can work miracles, he can changes your cicumstances in the "twinkling of eye"
And what your friends said about your H being "spiritually toxic" there are days when I'm around my H and I begin to feel oppressed, tired, like he's draining me and we're just in the room together. So I understand what they are talking about and it's very real.
I printed off your response to me and spent some time going over it last night.
I realized when I was reading it that you had mentioned restore ministries, not rejoice as I had assumed. I was familiar with rejoice, but not restore, so I am going to check that one out as well.
All of those verses from Proverbs are familiar to me, and at one time H even quoted one back to me about the lips of an adulteress dripping honey. But that has been a while, a long while.
Do you know the book of Hosea? There is some great stuff in there too.
I guess that the biggest gift that you gave me was the reminder to take my eyes off of my circumstances and put them back on God. Thank you, I needed that reminder.
Yesterday afternoon H called from the airport to tell the boys goodbye before he left on his 10 day trip to Europe. They were not here though, so he had to talk to me.
When he asked me how I was, I said "I am fine H. How are you?" And he said "I am fine Pam. How are you?" He notices that I usu. call him by his first name now and not "honey."
He also asked me if there was anything that I needed him for before he left the country. I couldn't think of anything that would be, I have been managing by myself for over a year now.
But before we said goodbye I blew him a kiss. He sounded very surprised. And asked if that was what I had done. I said yes, so he blew one back and said "kisses to you, take care."
Well I am up and about early this morning, reading and getting ready for our trip to Wisconsin.
I was going over some old stuff that I had copied from the board at various times (like the 6 stages of MLC) as well as other materials.
I came across an article, I am not sure where I received it, but I would highly recommend it. Maybe it can be found online, maybe you would need to go to a library.
It is from Marriage & Family: A Christian Journal Volume 1, Issue 4 1998 pages 355-368 "Extramarital Affairs: Therapeutic Understanding and Clinical Interventions" by Douglas Rosenau
It is meant for a therapist, but I found it to be very helpful and is organized around 5 phases of an affair: inception prediscovery discovery recovery resolution
There is so much meat there that for me to try and even summarize would be doing it a disservice.
I am looking forward to getting away, the kids are less than excited owing to the fact that they haven't really seen these friends in many years. They have 3 daughters and a son, I have two sons. Hopefully it will all be ok, even though they are all older now.
No word yesterday from H, even though he said he would call from London. I am trying not to jump to conclusions and assume he is w/ OW, even if he is there ain't much I can do about it.
Well we are back from our trip to Wisconsin. It was good to get away and good to be home too.
We had a nice visit with our friends, the kids got reacquainted with each other and all the grown ups had a nice visit too. I have known this friend and her H since my sophomore year of college, hard to believe that we are all 40+ now.
I was very proud of my boys, they really had wonderful manners and behaved like gentlemen, that blessed my life. Everyone always says what great boys they are, and even H says that is all my doing, that I raised them by myself. That is not exactly true but I was always the parent who provided the structure for them.
Being home now I feel like I am back to the daily grind again.
We did go shopping on the way home and I bought myself a new spring coat, a very stylish and pretty one, using the $ I earned myself. That did feel rather empowering.
I already know that I am subbing tomorrow, so that is good. It is nice to know ahead of time rather than just getting called at the last minute.
The last time I spoke to H was last Tuesday, but he did call on Friday and leave a message saying he was safe and sound in Paris. If he had really wanted to speak to us he could have called on my cell phone, but he didn't so that is ok too.
I am trying not to jump to conclusions and assume he is w/ OW, even if he is there ain't much I can do about it.
)