cannot find a clear direction

I am in the situation, that I have 10 years ago divorced the mother of my only son. I am at the moment going through a period of worrying deeply about my sin, I guess that is the grief that produces repentance, spoken in e.g. 2cor7.

The mother of my son is in an abusive church. Actually, it was the pastor who put me together with her, after her first husband had left her 6 months before. She also had a son with her first husband. She and her first husband were in the leadership together.

Since I was the one deciding for the divorce, I feel quite heavy about it.

Sometimes I feel angry that the pastor put me in this squeezing situation. Anger is also a sin.

I feel i have been through all the possibilities. I did study many views on marriage and divorce, and adultery (that a 2nd marriage could be considered). But at the bottomline is, that I fear that I have the obligation to go back to this woman, and even go back to that abusive church. I did the sin of divorce. If I repent of that sin, does it not mean to go back to the marriage?

I know what my feelings want, but if God considers that (2nd) marriage a valid one, do I not have to go back to her?

Hi,
thank you for all your thoughts. I will meditate on it.

I do not see a healthy way to continue the relation to my son's mother.

But I know that anything is possible for God.

I did start another relation, but this was based on feelings and not led by God. It became sinful, so I stopped it about 2 years ago. My son even met this woman, and she was nice to him. But in the end, it did not work out, and instead came the repentance process.

best regards, Peter

Yah,
I waited for 10 years, probably because this is how long it took me to get myself out of the church, build friendships for my son, lose my job, be unemployed for 2 years, get a new job, find new friends, and finally find a woman, who really was everything I was looking for - nice, considerate, respectful, and ... difficult in a funny way. But since we fell in sin, and at one point I simply felt that I had to get her completely out of my life. I was hoping that she will come back one day, if God gives a green light, but many times when she contacts me I feel a burning in my stomach, which reminds me of the scripture:
Can a man carry fire in his bosom and not be burnt (proverbs 6:27).
I simply believe, the Holy Spirit is not giving me a green light. Rather, that would be a red light.

For many years I felt angry, really angry with the church and with my son's mother, because I felt they had decieved and betrayed me. The history of the marriage in short is, that my son's mother was my mentor in that church. One summer day in 2002 I voiced some critique of the pastors son to my cell group leader. He took the critique to the pastor. She arranged a meeting 4 days later, actually without notifying me. I was just told "we have a little meeting now", and I was led to this meeting with the pastor and 2 others of the leadership (among those my son's mother). The pastor opened in an angry voice, that she wanted to expulse me from the church. She was very angry, and it was a quite an abstract situation to be in. However, I knew that it would be deadly for me to be ejected from the church, since I was living in their house, and had not any friends outside. And, I noticed, none of the other reacted even though they heard these deadly threats. Even the mother of my son was just sitting there (like a zombie, I felt). I made a "confession" and a prayer, during which I grabbed the hand of the mother of my son. This way i apparently avoided immediate disaster, but I knew that from now on I had to get myself out.

3 days later, the pastor came and suggested that I married this woman. I considered, that if I went into the engagement, then I would have time to get myself straightened up and arrange things to get out, and be more safe that I would not be harassed by the pastor again. A wedding date within a years time would give me ample time to fix the matters. It was not good to abuse a woman in this situation, but, I rationalised, since she had not spoken out against the threats from the pastor, she was not really a totally human being.

The show went on just fine. We did the engagement, and there was not much contact, since she was always busy. So the acting was easy. But at some point she wanted to rush the marriage, and I protested a bit, but dared not protest a lot, because that would attract a bad attention from the leaders. So the wedding date was progressed, and I could only pray to God that He would create a way out. He did not, so we got married, and then I felt bound by the marriage.

But it was hard to be married, and I struggled. I could not twist my heart, and so I never really felt married. Only I felt bound. In the end I started feeling suicidal, and with the usual hard comments from my wife, I had not a lot of options. In this situation, a divorce was the better choice.

I understand, you will say, now this person is really a bad person. I understand, that I have acted, while being a christian, very despicable, and very destructively. I could try to point the guilt at someone else, but in the end, I will be judged based on my actions, not the excuses I can present. So I try to repent, but then how to repent in this situation.

I am scared of hell, I am scared of Jesus returning before I had a chance to know exactly how to repent. I want to go to heaven, but I am not sure how to repent. This is my struggle.

Thanks for any prayer that is offered on my behalf.