- Jul 6, 2010
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All I can tell you is keep drawing close to God, love your wife, and pray and wait till he moves.
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I think ultimately, offering advice on here over an issue such as this is going to be a non-starter. JF has his own view of the situation; his wife will have another. The son they share will have another again. The truth will be somewhere in between all three of those views.
I am not laying accusation at any one person's feet, here. I suspect that JF is a flawed person, as are we all, and there is something he's either not talking about, or genuinely not seeing in the situation. Therefore counselling would have been the best option, as a counsellor would be best-placed to evaluate the truth from all three participants.
Now, I haven't read all of this thread - I forwarded to the end to reply about 8 pages in - but I would still guess that suggesting counselling was the best thing he did. That said, as far as I am aware the wife refused this. I think this is the crux of the problem: that she does not feel the marriage is worth saving any more.
If she does not want to be part of the relationship, then surely she should be free to go?
The fact that there is a child in all of this complicates matters, as he also needs to be considered. But I hope that whatever happens, JF, Mrs. JF and their son manage to find a mutually amicable way forward.
From a daughter of a strained home to the father of one, JF: please do not try and force the marriage to work if you think for a moment that the son finds the atmosphere uncomfortable. My parents stayed together despite some blistering arguments and I spent much of my childhood laying low to avoid the next argument - and the arguments often went on for a week at a time. To say it was intimidating is an understatement.
Look towards taking the pressure off all three people in this situation.
Finally, I'll say this as an atheist: I am aware that your relationship with god complicates matters further, and some of the troubles you've mentioned here stem from the fact that your feelings of obligation to your god conflict with those that you feel to your wife and child. Please consider those who will be the most hurt by forcing the marriage to remain intact. If you must pursue your relationship with your god above all else, then that is what you must do, and it may be that you have to do it alone. But please do not force others to do it with you. In that direction lies further unhappiness.
Good luck, whatever you decide to do.
Regarding children of divorce, its easy to say one way of the other based only on our own experience....we can say Oh I wish they would have split, or the converse. However....its a GUESS, we havent the other experience with which to compare it.
So, its useful to look to the statistics, which overwhelmingly support staying together even in moderate conflict marriages as best for the kids.
God being glorified through our lives is more important than my wife or my children.
Hopefully, they will also learn to trust in Christ through this.
Depending on me is not what God desires... I do have God given responsibilities to care for my family
Trouble is, she is not feeling provided for, certainly not emotionally, and I think she needs that. Hence the unhappiness between the two of you, and the reason you created this thread.
Or could they learn that religion can take all of a person's attention and leave nothing for the people around him, and that it's best avoided? Whatever you want them to learn from this experience may not be what they actually learn from it.
These two sentences appear to contradict each other.
This is not just about how she looks, although I feel she harbors a lot of anger, hate and bitterness towards me.
She is still hurt about my past comments about her weight issues. I could really use some help there.
Please tell me how I can encourage her w/o hurting her
I just wanted to tell you that our marriage is getting back on track, not perfect, but the ashes are beginning to reignite.
I took my marriage to my wife for granted.
if she is not willing to do anything to save the marriage, what am I left to do, other than pray?
I would like to point out that it is the wife who is considering leaving, first of all. Second, the 2/3 of divorces that are prompted by wives are not prompted necessarily because the man is unwilling to help create a happier marriage but most often because the women have simply given up on being interested, for whatever reason. There are lots of supposed reasons, but to assume it is because the man is not interested in trying is not really fair. The problem is that it is a two way street. I am not unsympathetic with either point of view, but when the woman has been largely silent or unproductive herself about her concerns over the years and then gets fed up, how is that entirely the man's fault? surely marriage is a two way street in that both should be trying to cooperatively find ways to compromise and help life be good together.