Love is Unconditional

[missmyfriend]

I guess I would be considered an old timer around here. I have read "Divorce Remedy" and I agree with Michele. My situation is basically the same as anyone else with a spouse that has gone through a MLC with just the details being different. I have to admit that the phases of MLC that I have seen here and elsewhere are pretty accurate, with the timeline depending upon what caused the MLC and how our spouse's are dealing with it.

My topic "Love is Unconditional" is a huge one and not something I would put on anyone else. I am focusing on myself and, in my heart, I still love my wife regardless of our marital status. I have gone through some serious depression for what seems like decades even though it has been almost four years.

Four years...

Wow, that seems like a long time. It is but it isn't. I was legally married for 18 years (this would have been our 20th) and we were together for 16 years. 16 years sounds like a long time but believe me, it isn't. The time flew. Absolutely flew.

So is four years a long time? It depends on the person and the emotions. In some ways I have really good memories over the past four years, even after she left. I have been blessed with my children, blessed to have my job still, blessed with the friends I have (with one very close friend passing away two years ago), and, even blessed that I still have "her" in my life.

I have known some very wonderful women who have wanted to be in a relationship with me but I have no regrets that I didn't pursue a relationship. I know many people think I am foolish standing for a marriage that my wife wanted out of so badly that she said hurtful things. Did it hurt to hear her say the things she said to me, committed hurtful acts to me and our children, carried on so differently than her personality prior to her deciding she was done with "us"? Yes, it did but it wasn't like I hadn't read what she could do or say in Michele's books or other sites that believe in standing for your marriage. In fact, I used to think my situation was so unusual and no one has had to go through what I have endured.

As time has passed, I know that my situation is typical. The details may be slightly different but it is amazing how much of what has happened and what she has said is almost out of a script. Even for those that waited to see their marriage restored apparently experienced much, if not all, of the things I have gone through. Only the names and minor details have changed.

So, will my marriage be restored? It isn't up to me. It really isn't up to her. While I know we have free will, I know that we can either choose to listen or ignore what we are told.

When I was a child, I could "choose" to listen to my parents, when they instructed me to either clean my room or be punished. I could have exerted my free will, not cleaned the room and experienced the end results whether it be corporal punishment or grounding or having something taken away that was important to me. I could also choose to exercise my free will and clean my room to avoid the results of disobeying my parents.

Over the past several years, I have tried to use my free will to do what is right and not what is easy or temporarily pleasurable. At times, I wondered if I made the right choice but inside, I knew that I did. So I still have free will but my Father has guided me to continue loving her but placing Him first in all areas of my life. I thought I had been putting Him first nearly this whole time but I began to realize I hadn't. I was sad most of the time because of "losing" her. I know I appeared sad around my kids and friends because I was. I allowed myself to be reminded of what I had lost and the fear of never having her again in my life.

With that realization, I am starting to understand that I was not putting Him first. I was still making the same spiritual mistake I have made my entire life and that was putting others first, then Him. I was still putting my wife first before God. No wonder I never felt happy.

Am I happy now? I am getting there. I have to say that I do trust Him (with the occasional slip ups) with everything in my life whether it be my marriage, my children, friends, finances (and my job), etc. And as I lean on Him first, I feel much more free and depression episodes are much less frequent.

I could not understand what people meant when they said to put God first, before anything else. I mean, I understood it in my head but apparently I didn't understand it in my heart.

It was Paul who wrote that God will take care of everything for you and that we need to be content with everything in our lives, even when we were lacking money, food or other things.

We all want to believe that we can love someone unconditionally but without Him it is impossible. As He is becoming first in my life, I feel much more compassion for my wife, the "other person", and others that appear to be my enemy.

Do we love our spouses unconditionally? It is more of a heart question.