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Wow, Myst, not trying to be mean, but you are really blind. More than you even know. You say you are jealous of marriages with infidelity because at least it's something tangible, meanwhile you're giving reason after tangible reason as to why things are going this way.
Then you go on to say women want to carry the load in the relationship. WRONG. A relationship is a shared idea, not a one does it while the other sits around and watches idea. If you have this wrong belief that women want to shoulder the load then there is just one more tangible reason things aren't working. If men aren't doing their part then the woman feels unloved and neglected. She feels she is with a man that isn't really interested in her, which seems to be how you treated her, according to your own implications.
And never argue? You do realize that that's usually not a good sign, right? It's natural for people to at least occasionally have disputes. If you're never arguing all that means is you probably aren't communicating, not working things out and resentments and other issues are just building and building rather than being resolved.
In reality i see many reasons, tangible reasons why your wife is happy to be away. You haven't treated her like a wife you love, but rather someone you expected to be there. Soon as your relationship begins turning to 'i expect' you are going the wrong way. Read your own posts, all the tangible reasons you need are right there, and probably more you haven't said, and that she hasn't said, since you guys aren't hashing things out.
I don't mean this as an insult but an honest telling of things.
Then you go on to say women want to carry the load in the relationship. WRONG. A relationship is a shared idea, not a one does it while the other sits around and watches idea. If you have this wrong belief that women want to shoulder the load then there is just one more tangible reason things aren't working. If men aren't doing their part then the woman feels unloved and neglected. She feels she is with a man that isn't really interested in her, which seems to be how you treated her, according to your own implications.
And never argue? You do realize that that's usually not a good sign, right? It's natural for people to at least occasionally have disputes. If you're never arguing all that means is you probably aren't communicating, not working things out and resentments and other issues are just building and building rather than being resolved.
In reality i see many reasons, tangible reasons why your wife is happy to be away. You haven't treated her like a wife you love, but rather someone you expected to be there. Soon as your relationship begins turning to 'i expect' you are going the wrong way. Read your own posts, all the tangible reasons you need are right there, and probably more you haven't said, and that she hasn't said, since you guys aren't hashing things out.
I don't mean this as an insult but an honest telling of things.
S
I certainly understand my mistakes, and i do not want to be that person anymore, I know it is time for me to change, all these things i know and i can do something about it. Saving the marriage on the other hand is a bit more complicated!
M
Well....when I was in the throws of my separation I understood very little and was really confused. All I knew was that it was just me and Jesus and even that felt tenuous.
I found this link online, it is very good at helping understand how my wife is feeling;
Why Some Spouses Give Up - Marriage Missions International : Marriage Missions International
M
There is good news to report as well,
Just yesterday when i was going through all the negative things in my mind, "she is destroying our home" she is destroying our marriage" and even wondering if she had someone else, then God spoke to me, he said "love thy enemy" And God did not mean my wife is my enemy, i immediately understood what the meaning was.... If i am too love my enemy, then how much easier should it be to love anyone who harms me when they are not my enemy! WoW, and then suddenly all the negative thoughts became kind of irrelevant, true or not. love thy enemy is indeed one of the greatest forces for utterly defeating evil.
Just yesterday when i was going through all the negative things in my mind, "she is destroying our home" she is destroying our marriage" and even wondering if she had someone else, then God spoke to me, he said "love thy enemy" And God did not mean my wife is my enemy, i immediately understood what the meaning was.... If i am too love my enemy, then how much easier should it be to love anyone who harms me when they are not my enemy! WoW, and then suddenly all the negative thoughts became kind of irrelevant, true or not. love thy enemy is indeed one of the greatest forces for utterly defeating evil.
My wife wants a divorce
She informed me of her decision on 11/01/2015 and since then i have tried very hard to convince her we can work it out. But this has only caused more grief for her and i cannot bear to hurt her anymore so i have agreed to accept it is over.
She informed me of her decision on 11/01/2015 and since then i have tried very hard to convince her we can work it out. But this has only caused more grief for her and i cannot bear to hurt her anymore so i have agreed to accept it is over.
If she wanted a divorce and wouldn't try to work it out, I'd be suspicious of an affair. If she's cheating, she may feel like she's cheating on her boyfriend by being with you. If she's excited about leaving, she may have something she's excited about leaving you for.
Sometimes, even when you love someone so much, the best thing you can do is let them go.
If you divorce your wife and marry another, you commit, too. Read Matthew 19.
I'm assuming you are a Christian here from what you have said. As a husband, you should be a lot more concerned with your wife's holiness than her happiness. And you should seek to please your wife of course, but not if that means sinning. If she cried, whined, and pleaded to get you to do something else sinful with her, like rob a liquor store, get drunk, or do some 'swinging' with the couple next door, I hope you would refuse. Why should divorce be any different? If she's sad because you won't sin, let her be sad. Try to keep her from being sad, but don't go along with her sin over it.
What if your wife cried and cried to get you to chop off your daughter's big toe. She told about how it hurt her for you not to do it, but she needed you to agree to it and chop it off. Are you going to chop off your daughters toe? Of course not. Why not? Because it's stupid to do that, and hurtful to your daughter. Divorce is harmful to the children, too. So don't along with it.
Remember Eli, the priest in the Old Testament with the wild sons who slept with women who came to the tabernacle and were disrespectful with the meat and fat from the Lord's offerings. Eli rebuked them. But there was this prophecy against him and his whole household because of what he let his sons get away with. He didn't do enough as leader by just rebuking them. He should have taken a tougher stand in leading his household.
If I were in a marriage like that and my wife wanted to divorce me over just emotional reasons, assuming she professed faith in Christ, I'd point out that the Bible nowhere authorizes wives to divorce their husbands. Even with a certificate, an invalid divorce and remarriage is still adultery. I'd tell her if she divorced me and married someone else, not to think that isn't adultery. I wouldn't sign anything. I'm not going along with that.
The Christian way is to fight to save the marriage, but how can i do that when it hurts her for me to try?
I'm also wondering if you capitulated to her being unreasonable on other things throughout the marriage. Some women test their husbands, without realizing that they are doing it, by being unreasonable. If her husband caves, she looses some respect for him, and then becomes less attracted to him. If he's strong and resolute and she senses a boundary there, she may respect that about him. If you have been a wishy-washy husband about matters of principle or morality, that could also lead her to be discontent with the marriage.
Edit: what is also very saddening about this is that we have a wonderful 3 year old daughter
Is there some big thing you haven't told us? You haven't had an affair or anything like that have you? Is it really just a bunch of female emotional gobbledygook she tells you about there being a 'wall' between her and her being hurt for some reason you can't put your finger on? Then you talk about it, and she says a bunch of emotional stuff that doesn't really hit home as a concrete reason for her having a problem?
If I were you, I'd tell her I was wrong for agreeing to the divorce, and apologize for agreeing. I'd say that my responsibility as a husband is to be like Christ who washed his bride in the water of the word. I'd have some verses of scripture on my mind to quote to her without looking up, like the one about God hating divorce, Jesus teaching about divorce and adultery, and the commandments of the Lord in I Corinthians 7 about divorce.
I'd remind her of our daughter, and I might a few statistics about more teen pregnancies, lower grades, etc. if a girl isn't raised with both parents.
You might also mention that it's selfish to blow up a family and hurt her husband and kids, and herself, for the sake of the feeling of freedom---or is it for a boyfriend on the side? There is a verse in Malachi about husbands being treacherous by putting away their wives. Jeremiah mentions a wife treacherously departing from her husband, too. It's not a good thing. You could point out that she needs to learn to be faithful and have commitment. If she doesn't love you anymore and wants a divorce, she needs to repent, she doesn't need to divorce over wanting to be free.
Then I'd confess any shortcomings I could think of as a leader in the home.
I've read that the numbers of professing evangelicals who divorce is roughly similar to the secular world in the US. But regular church attendance drops the chances of divorce significantly. I'm thinking it was 20%. I've also read that far less than 1% of married couples who pray together regularly divorce.
Less than 1%.
So if I were you, I'd be asking my wife to pray with her every day. If she doesn't want to do it, insist on it. If she doesn't participate, you pray for her with her right there in the bed or wherever you are together where she doesn't go away. Then say you want to have family devotions, and just read and discuss a passage of scripture every night, and read a Bible story to your daughter. They have children's books for that. If you aren't taking the family to church, take them. If she won't cooperate, then take it as far as you can, and be as firm as you reasonably can in insisting on these things.
This is a simple way to show some real leadership.
For some reason, your wife was attracted to you when you met. There have probably been certain things she hasn't liked. Women are attracted to different things about men. Looks is one thing. They may like kindness, good conversation, making them feel comfortable. But they marry you and see things lacking they don't like. Maybe the conversation dies, or maybe they want a man who is decisive, strong, resolute, good with his hands, or whatever. If you are capitulating to her when she is dead wrong, maybe there has been a pattern of it, and she would have respected (and been attracted to you more) if you hadn't given to her in the past. I know, it's messed up. But I really think some women are that way. You can also get yourself into a lot of trouble by capitulating to a woman when she cries or throws tantrums to get you to agree to do something bad. Take a look at the Samson story for an example.
This is our marriage. Don't give up on it so easily. But don't sit around begging for her to love you. You could tell her you were wrong to agree to the divorce. You have a child together, and you need to be good parents. You can say you will give her some time to get over whatever she's going through emotionally. If she insists on divorcing fast, ask her what her boyfriend's name is and why she's in such a hurry. If she starts giving you 'trickle truth', that she doesn't have a boyfriend, but mentions a good friend at work. Then the next time she mentions it, they kissed. Then they slow danced. And then it turns out the story was a whole lot more-- be on the lookout for those clues. Can you get into her phone? If you are on the same plan, you may be able to order records of phone calls from your cell phone company and see if there is a number she keeps calling.
Of course, pray for her, and pray with her.
Something else to keep in mind, is that as a husband, your words have power. She might be a raving feminist, and not realize it, but she's a woman, and you are her husband, and your words have some power, and you need to believe that.
My wife is godly woman, but at certain times in our marriage, she's gotten really stressed out. Sometimes, she's gotten really upset during post-partum blues or a bad case of PMS when she was coming off of nursing the baby and her hormones were out of whack. And she has brought up divorce a few times. She was upset with me one time and said that, and I just told her, no we weren't getting a divorce, because that's a sin. Then she was like... okay... but I'll never do such and such. I said, yes you well, and she capitulates again. She knew she was wrong. It was emotions talking. Your wife's case is a bit different since she's really made up her mind, and it isn't just that temporary rush of emotion talking.
But even so, if you say, no there will be no divorce, you definitely have the moral authority to say such a think if she just wants to divorce to be free of you.
There are men who will say "Fine, if you want a divorce, go ahead.' Sometimes the women realize what they have said and shut up, but sometimes, they go out and file paperwork. As the husband, I think it's important to never agree with it and just to maintain a stance that it's wrong to bring it up in a fight. It can really damage the relationship if you feel like you are in a sinking ship, walking on eggshells, afraid you will step on the land mine of divorce and your partner will go out the door. It's just a bad thing overall.
Ultimately, it sounds like your wife needs to repent and put God's kingdom first. That's an area you can focus on with her, whether all her decisions and motives are putting God first. You could ask her if she believes God wants her to divorce. If she says she believes God will forgive her, you can look up the verse in Galatians that says God is not mocked, verses about high handed/wilfull sins. That's a dangerous game to play with the Allmighty.
My wife is godly woman, but at certain times in our marriage, she's gotten really stressed out. Sometimes, she's gotten really upset during post-partum blues or a bad case of PMS when she was coming off of nursing the baby and her hormones were out of whack. And she has brought up divorce a few times. She was upset with me one time and said that, and I just told her, no we weren't getting a divorce, because that's a sin. Then she was like... okay... but I'll never do such and such. I said, yes you well, and she capitulates again. She knew she was wrong. It was emotions talking. Your wife's case is a bit different since she's really made up her mind, and it isn't just that temporary rush of emotion talking.
But even so, if you say, no there will be no divorce, you definitely have the moral authority to say such a think if she just wants to divorce to be free of you.
There are men who will say "Fine, if you want a divorce, go ahead.' Sometimes the women realize what they have said and shut up, but sometimes, they go out and file paperwork. As the husband, I think it's important to never agree with it and just to maintain a stance that it's wrong to bring it up in a fight. It can really damage the relationship if you feel like you are in a sinking ship, walking on eggshells, afraid you will step on the land mine of divorce and your partner will go out the door. It's just a bad thing overall.
Ultimately, it sounds like your wife needs to repent and put God's kingdom first. That's an area you can focus on with her, whether all her decisions and motives are putting God first. You could ask her if she believes God wants her to divorce. If she says she believes God will forgive her, you can look up the verse in Galatians that says God is not mocked, verses about high handed/wilfull sins. That's a dangerous game to play with the Allmighty.
M
K
My wife wants a divorce
She informed me of her decision on 11/01/2015 and since then i have tried very hard to convince her we can work it out. But this has only caused more grief for her and i cannot bear to hurt her anymore so i have agreed to accept it is over.
After i accepted it is over, all of a sudden she is just so happy and friendly with me and looking forward to the future without me!
We have both had our issues creating unhappiness in this relationship and slowly the wall between us grew, but we have never talked about separating before.
I knew things needed to change but i never thought it would come to this, i never thought it would come to the point where it would be impossible to work it out. Nor do i understand why that is the case, but i do not need to understand it, i only need to see her tears and believe it. Sometimes, even when you love someone so much, the best thing you can do is let them go.
Our love was once the stuff of legends, in my memory where the light shines brightest, the time i walked with an angel at my side and i did not know what i had until she's gone.
The Christian way is to fight to save the marriage, but how can i do that when it hurts her for me to try?
Edit: what is also very saddening about this is that we have a wonderful 3 year old daughter
She informed me of her decision on 11/01/2015 and since then i have tried very hard to convince her we can work it out. But this has only caused more grief for her and i cannot bear to hurt her anymore so i have agreed to accept it is over.
After i accepted it is over, all of a sudden she is just so happy and friendly with me and looking forward to the future without me!
We have both had our issues creating unhappiness in this relationship and slowly the wall between us grew, but we have never talked about separating before.
I knew things needed to change but i never thought it would come to this, i never thought it would come to the point where it would be impossible to work it out. Nor do i understand why that is the case, but i do not need to understand it, i only need to see her tears and believe it. Sometimes, even when you love someone so much, the best thing you can do is let them go.
Our love was once the stuff of legends, in my memory where the light shines brightest, the time i walked with an angel at my side and i did not know what i had until she's gone.
The Christian way is to fight to save the marriage, but how can i do that when it hurts her for me to try?
Edit: what is also very saddening about this is that we have a wonderful 3 year old daughter