I was able to talk with him and he said he has "checked out" and that he doesn't want to have sex with me, hang out with me, and can even start to picture me being happy with someone else and isn't jealous. I asked him if he pictures himself being happier with someone else and he said no, that he doesn't picture himself being married at all or having a relationship at all.
Some men are kind of logical in the way they think, and if he's sort of depressed or apathetic, logic may be the way to relate to him. I don't know if you'd want to talk like this, but if I were in your shoes, I might answer like this. If he says he is checked out and doesn't want to have sex with you, I'd tell him he needs to repent. The Bible tells him to love his wife like Christ loved the church. So he needs to repent for not loving you. He doesn't want to have sex with you. The Bible commands the husband to let his wife's breasts always satisfy him and to every be enraptured with her love. Even in the Old Testament, a husband had a duty to provide his wife with food, clothing, and sex.
He may want you to be happy with someone else, but Jesus said in Matthew 5:32, "That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." He wants you to be happy with someone else, but he's trying to get you to stumble into an adulterous situation, and Jesus said that if a man caused one of these little ones to stumble, it would be better for him for a millstone to be tied around his neck, and for him to be thrown into the depth of the sea. Paul says that he who causes his brother, for whom Christ died, to stumble sins against Christ.
You can tell him it's too late for all these things he is talking about. When you married him, you gave up your options to be happy with someone else. You have to be with him.
If he says he wants a divorce, you can tell him you aren't giving him a divorce. He's going through some kind of emotional funk. Part of it is he needs to repent of wrong attitudes and wrong thinking. He needs to bring every thought captive unto the obedience of Christ. You could also tell him you will be patient with him to work through these emotional issues, and you expect him to work and provide you with food, clothing, and sex until he works through them. In the future you expect to have a loving, happy marriage, and you will be patient with him until this works out.
He's focusing too much on his feelings, making decisions based on his feelings. I know talking about how he is required by the Bible to give you sex may feel unromantic and may even feel a little humiliating to some women, depending on their mindset. The point isn't necessarily to get him to have sex with you (unless you want that), but to address his wrong thinking. II Corinthians 10 talks about the weapons of warfare which are not carnal, but mighty through God to the bringing down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That's what you are warring against.
I suspect that sometimes people think thoughts like your husband is thinking because demons are trying to deceive them. It's like the devil is throwing flaming arrows, and the person is not using his faith to fight back. When a demon puts a thought into his mind, he doesn't bring it captive to the obedience of Christ. He doesn't think, "no that goes against what Jesus said." Instead he accepts it, and begins to think more and more about it. It may hurt and feel depressing to think about it. But it's addictive, and he thinks more and more about it. The more he thinks, the more he hurts, and his thinking gets warped. It's really bad when both husband and wife are going through this. I believe the devil likes to break up homes.
So when he says things like this, you counter what he says with things in the Bible. He may realize his thinking was wrong. He may not realize it at first, but you've poked holes in what he thought.
You also can't back down.
My wife and I had a big argument one time. She's a sweet woman, a great wife, but she has had some mood swings at times, often associated with pregnancy, or post parum blues. Occasionally, she'll get whopper PMS and get moody. I didn't make the connection at the time, but the first couple of times she had PMS after stopping breastfeeding, it really effected her moods. I didn't realize she was in a mood and I was in the kitchen with her, and we disagreed about something. To me, it seemed like no big deal. We disagreed about an idea, but we weren't arguing. Then, out of the blue, she threatened divorce. She knows better. She'd done that a few other times over the years when she was really emotional during a hormonal mood swing and we'd argued. For some reason that day, I blew my top and started yelling at her, "how dare you!" I was upset that she would threaten me with divorce, and over nothing at that. I normally don't do that.
She wasn't used to me losing my cool like that, and it really freaked her out. I felt really bad about it after I'd yelled at her. But she acted really scared of me. We sat and talked. She said she'd divorce me. I told her no she wouldn't because she knew the Lord didn't want her to. She said she wouldn't divorce me, but she would never be intimate with me again. I told her she wouldn't do that because she knew that it wasn't right to defraud her spouse. I told her we'd be okay with each other again and have a good marriage, or something along those lines. She was so freaked out, I took her to a pastor for marital counseling that one time. I felt really ashamed because I'd yelled at her like that, and she was so freaked out.
In a couple of days, she read something nice I had written about her online before our argument and her heart melted. She posted something nice about me. The pastor who did the counseling read it and felt relieved for us. We were back to normal in a few days. My point in bringing it up is to show that I just held my ground. I'm not going to acquiesce to the idea of a divorce. Some married people, if that word comes up will say, "Okay, I'll call my lawyer." Personally, I don't like that. I think there is power in my words, at least in her thinking. If I make room for the idea of divorce to 'call her bluff' I'm putting divorce on the table as an option. I lose the power to point out to her that it was wrong for her to suggest that because she got emotional about something. If someone threatens divorce over some little argument or over being in a foul mood, that person should feel like he/she has done wrong for threatening divorce.
What I'd like to point out is that when I talked with her about this, I stood my ground. She mentioned divorce a few times in our marriage when she was upset. I never agreed with her or budged a little on that. She knows she's not supposed to do it, and she wouldn't have had she not been really emotional anyway. But I just maintain that no, we won't divorce. You know that's not right. You shouldn't say things like that. My wife has told me that she really appreciates my commitment to our marriage and she also appreciates my not budging on the divorce issue when she brings it up. She's told me I have something I can share with other married couples because I am so committed to our marriage.
I don't think you should give ground when talking to him about any of these issues. If he says God told him to divorce you, I think you should point out how bad it is to prophesy falsely in the name of the Lord and tell Him what Jesus said in passages like Matthew 5, Matthew 19, and I Corinthians 7. He gives you flaky ideas. You give him the word of God.
As a husband, I've come to realize that sometimes when my wife says something, she's not telling me what she is really going to do, she is just expressing her feelings. She knows not to threaten divorce, but the times she did, she was telling me she was frustrated with me (which in some cases was her being stressed partly by hormonal issues). She wasn't really going to get a divorce. She might have thought it at the time. But by my not accepting that as a possibility, she was able to drop it quickly. I also think my not accepting or agreeing with ideas like this, I create a sense of safety for her.
With your husband, you can tell him you know he feels like he wants a divorce, but you both made a lifetime commitment, and you'll wait for him to get past his feelings, support him, and help him. If he keeps talking about it, you can also reason with him like this. If he were to divorce you, he might have to get a roommate anyway, one that won't do his dishes like you do, wash his laundry like you do. And isn't it nice to have sex every so often, even if he feels a little emotionally disconnected with you. What good would it do him in his every day life to get divorced? If he did leave you, not only would you take half of what he gets, but whoever your lawyer is would certainly try to bleed him dry financially, which would be for the rest of his life since you don't plan on ever remarrying. So he might as well stay married to you. Again-- it's apathetic logic for a man who seems kind of apathetic. In the meantime, tell him you will be supportive and help him get past this emotional apathy he's going through until his passion for you, and for life, gets reignited. And you'll help him do that.
If he talks about divorce, your position is no you aren't getting a divorce. And you can try not to take it too seriously, like what he is saying doesn't end the marriage, without being disrespectful to him by the way you act. In your mindset, his talking about it is expressing thoughts and feelings, not ending the marriage. If he senses you aren't going along with it, that might make things feel kind of safe for him, like the relationship isn't going anywhere. You don't have to keep him up in the middle of the night talking about these things. You shouldn't 'pester' him with these topics. But if he engages you in conversation about it, address his wrong thinking.
I know I've been through dry patches with my wife emotionally. She's told me before that she didn't have the feelings she had for me that when we married. It was like she had no feelings for me. If I hear that, I know I need to invest more into the relationship, and pray for her and us. A few months later, she was hugging me, telling me how much she loved me, and crying over saying things like that about me. Our emotions can go all over the place during our lives. Sometimes getting them back on track means repenting. We let our thoughts stray in the wrong direction. But we shouldn't make decisions that end a marriage over a temporary emotional problem.
I don't know how a woman would feel about doing this, but when my wife seemed a luke warm toward me emotionally, but willing to give me 'duty sex', I'd take it. One reason is, of course, my own desires. I also know that going without too long could open up the door for temptation like I Corinthians 7 warns. But I also think it is good for the relationship to keep the physical intimacy going. On a biological level, toward the end of our time together, my wife is going to get an explosion of oxytocin, a bonding hormone. Biologically and psychologically, it is an act that binds us together. It's an act of being one flesh. We are spending close, intimate time doing something good for each other. The idea of 'duty sex' is kind of a drag, and it can be frustrating, but I think it's better than getting into a rut of no sexual contact. I'm sharing that for you to think about if he decides to stick around but isn't emotionally invested. No matter what his emotions toward you are, you are married, and it's okay to act married and do married stuff. I also suspect keeping up a regular sex life is a positive thing if the issue is depression as well.
On the spiritual side of things, if he's a believer, you can see if he would agree to pray with you and read the Bible with you every night. You can pray about some of these things, and pray for yourselves. I've read that fare less than 1% of couples who pray regularly together divorce.
He has low self esteem and he switches jobs ever 3-4 months. He hasn't completed school and doesn't have a driver's license. He struggles with himself. I even suspect he has started smoking or drinking (we hate both of those habits so this is worrying).
It could be that he rationalizes all this to himself thinking you would be better with someone else. That's not Biblical moral reasoning, but it's the way some people these days thing, that's it's okay to divorce if it is better for the other person.
You could point out to him that you being happy with someone else doesn't make it right. He is supposed to follow the example of Christ who gave His life and sanctified her with the washing of water of the word. He should be concerned with your sanctification and your relationship with God even more than he is with your happiness. If you are happy, but your new marriage he imagines is adulterous in God's eyes, what good is that? If he loves you, he should want you to have a good relationship with the Lord, not just be 'happy.' These are some ideas you could share with him.
And if his justifying divorce in his own mind is very much dependent on justifying to himself that it is somehow better for you (that you will be happier with a man who has a stable job) then if you just don't accept the whole idea of divorce or his arguments for it, you might just destroy this argument in his mind that he is relying on. If you point out he should be concerned with your sanctification much more than your happiness, that might help him change the direction of his thinking.
I told him we still need to file taxes and that we would get more money filing jointly and he said no... that he is going to file separately. He just really wants nothing to do with me.
Did you say, "Well, how about letting me file the taxes and I can do them jointly." If he agrees, ask for support in putting together the documentation.
