Grieving loss of mother when agreed to marry and when married, now I regret it... please help!!!

[HaileyMadeNew]

Hi, I married not even three months ago after we had been together only 8 months. He was not a total stranger to me when we got together as he was three years older than me in our tiny high school growing up, but I had never talked to him then and moved away when I was 15 and it wasn't until I moved back at age 30 last year that we got connected. Anyway, it's a tiny community and everyone knows him to be a good man.
So here's the thing, he proposed one or two days after I found out my mother, who I was very close to, was diagnosed with late-stage terminal cancer. Then I married him three weeks later just before she died because I wanted her to be present at the wedding. He is a very easy-going and would-do-anything-for-me kind of person anyway, but he was particularly great during her death. I spent her last three weeks with her which was 5 hours away from our town and he would come up every weekend to be with me and his family pretty much put the whole beautiful wedding together for us in only one week. I was grieving when I made both the decision to become engaged and to marry and now I regret it. Again, he’s a really good guy, one of those super-duper “nice guys”, which I thought was good for me as he's very helpful and I had been a single mom since my 5-year-old daughter was conceived. But I was never in love with him and I've rarely been attracted to him. At the time I didn't think that was an important element to long-lasting marriage. The other big piece is that I was in the process of becoming a Christian when we got engaged and when we were married, but my faith wasn't there yet. He has a catholic background and is a "believer", but now that I have committed my life to Jesus and have a strong desire to follow him every day, I see that my husband is only an institutional Christian. He has no passion or desire to follow Jesus, just to somewhat follow the rules. This is the first time he's even read his bible outside of church and it is only because I expressed how important it is for me that he be a strong leader in Christ for our family. He's not a good leader at all, in anything that has to do with me and my daughter. Turns out the flipside to easy-going is a pushover, sorry to say. That is very hard for me as I firmly believe the man should lead. I should also mention that he was essentially a virgin when we got together (he's 34) and had not been in a relationship since high school and because we waited to sleep together until we were married, I had no idea he had ED. It's been a huge problem along with the rest. He feels very happily married by the way. He was about to give up on ever finding someone ever again before I came into his life and he's very content with me. I've expressed pretty much all this to him and he says he wants to change and be better, but so far I don't see him doing anything different. I know it's still so early. On top of everything, I'm 10 weeks pregnant. I feel so very stuck and helpless. I do pray about it and I've had some hopeful feelings about it, but for the most part I feel trapped. I understand that I made choices to get myself here, but I also see now that I had a grieving brain and heart at the time of commitment. Any light on this situation would be soooo helpful right now. Thank you!

 

[tturt]

Sorry that you are in this situation. Praying for you and your family.

Encourage you and your husband to watch "Marriage Today."

Their website marriagetoday.com/category/tv-episodes/ has probably 60 free episodes including "What a man really needs" and 'What a woman really needs" by Jimmy Evan's ministries. All teachings are Biblically based. Plus there's books, videos, etc. He was recently interviewed on Joni: Table Table for 4 eqisodes about his book "The Four Laws of Love." Think those can still be viewed.

There's hundreds on youtube.

 

[SCarneal]

That is a lot to unpack.
So I will not assume anything, because I was not there and do not know the step by step in the emotional and spiritual process that led to this point other than what you have said here.
I can say that you are like I was: self focused. I am not saying you are in a bad way like I was, because believe me I was. You are simply struggling in a very understandable way. So you are identifying him as an institutional Christian. That is a start. There is a foundation. Remember Paul pointed out that people were preaching because they were jealous of him and they were doing it for the wrong reasons, but that he was okay because people were still hearing about Christ.
My point is, even if it is not where you think he should be, he is at least doing something even if it is for the wrong reasons at the moment. You have the opportunity to have God use you to bring him closer to him, and by extension he will be closer to you and visa versa. This is where I encourage you to work on you and stop thinking about him. This sounds like the Lord has you in a place to show you personal growth. You know, the whole remove the plank in your own eye thing? This is where you grow in him and find a way to accept your husband for who he is because without addressing you first with the Lord, how can you model the faith for him and your kids the best way possible?
True love means acceptance. Jesus accepted people where they were at and loved them. We are not him, but he shows that you can have that concern for someone you married and fell from love, or did not love but married for other reasons. That love can still grow under the attention of God.
This is not going to be easy, but look inward with prayer. I did, and I asked a friend to be an accountability partner since I screwed up my marriage to the point that I was allowed last Friday to come home (home finally after 18 months) for practical reasons but she still wants to go through with the separation in prep for divorce. Inward work, prayer, and an accountability partner has helped a lot and none of the lessons I have learned have anything to do with her and where she is at. It is all focused on me. All the lessons are breaking me down and making me see me in a different way, pulling me closer to him, and changing me.
You may get to the point that the hurt and anxieties are so great that you feel it is too much. I did, and last night got so weary I gave up. I gave up all control and gave up my life, my wife, my four kids, and my marriage to him because I can no longer press on with the burden of her not wanting to reconcile while we live together and are good friends. It hurts so bad, but the burden finally lightened. Not gone, just much lighter because I cannot control my wife, no more than you can control your husband.
Only you can control you, but we are weak so you might want to seek God's help, not your husband's. God can work through you to work in him. You don't change others like God does.
So while this is me encouraging you to let your husband be as he is because he is not in the worst spot you can be in, and turn to God to work on you. He is not trying to leave you and you have an amazing opportunity to grow in your faith without losing your marriage and keeping the family whole.
Please, I am begging you to turn to the Lord to guide you and don't look to your husband to change for you. Let God make that change as a result of your faith and changes under God's guidance. I wholly regret my hardened heart and not coming back to him sooner, and I am in deep pain living here with my family thinking that in a few weeks they may be moving without me, when we had talked about possibly moving back in together a few months ago. Do not make the same mistake as I did and focus on the wrong things, or think that divorce is the right answer. What good will it do anyway? Will it actually make you happy to leave a good man who is the father of one of your children? Will it please God and increase your faith to leave your husband, or will it pain him that he placed you right where you need to be, even if you cannot see why right now, and you walked away from God's will?
I know this is hard. I am in it with you in a fight for a marriage that my spouse says she is not in a place to just 180 and let the last 18 months go, or that she said right now it is a yes to coming home but not a yes to working to reconciliation, and that she did not change her mind about going forward with the separation even thought I am coming home to help until they move.
I am praying and changing me, and begging in tears to God to work in her and grant this miracle for her to see my changes so the walls she built to protect her from hurt come down so we can reconcile. I do not want you to get to the point I am at, where I followed my own thoughts and emotions, not God's will. You are in a good place for things to massively improve with your faith and marriage. Do not give up! You're looking for changes in him, when you should be working on changes in your walk with the Lord. You don't control your husband and I'd encourage you not to place all your hope and joy in life on him and changes you want. Put your hope and joy in God. Your husband is human like you, so if you place your hope in him you will be disappointed.
Read #5 in this (I mean the whole thing is great and eye opening) because they really put it in perspective here:
Restore Your Marriage: 10 Life Changing Tips

You can do this. None of us ever want to be Job but we also know that Job was rewarded 10 times over for his faith in the Lord no matter how bad it got. I will pray that you find the peace and the Lord guides you through your struggle.