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of course you're right. my bitterness is showing. I'm not like this most of the time, just got triggered by something you said. and then I hijacked your thread--sorry!!!


M60
H52
D20
M14 yrs
OW-old gf from 1986
bomb-5/18/08
H filed for D-9/10/08
D final 4/24/09
xH remarried (not OW) 2012
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(((HM)))

Not a hijack at all, my friend. This is precisely the topics we discuss here in these forums ... and is why we are here to try to support one another. You're just expressing exactly what so many of us have to go through or have already been through. I've felt the same way. My advice to you also serves as a mantra to myself, as these feelings will indeed surface from time to time. I just have to work through them and remember why it is that I persist.

I have felt some angst over the fact that xW can continue to carry on like Hosea's wife, the harlot, and sin all the rest of her days without repenting, but if she repents in even the last minutes before death, she will see Heaven. Part of me resents this, that the wicked can claim salvation if only they do so right before death. I know that in reality that is so extremely rare and unlikely, that if one carries on so heinously for so long that they are unlikely by their very nature to repent at the end -- it would likely never occur to them. But the fact that the "escape clause", so to speak, exists is troublesome to me at times.

And the fact that this would be troublesome to me at all is, in and of itself, troublesome. I have to adjust my thinking on this.

As if to underscore my own struggles with this seeming paradox, I just got back from church service where we had a sermon on Grace. The pastor reminded us of the parable about the man with the vineyard who upset his hardest laborers by paying an equal full-day's wage even to those who showed up late in the day and thus did not work the whole day as others had. It was unfair, yes. But the point of the story is that Grace is so much more than any of us deserve, no matter how hard we work or how soon we come to the foot of the cross.

So I have to console myself with the fact that I really do not want what is fair or just, even though I might think I do -- because all of us, myself included, fall far short of His mercy and deserve nothing more than death.

I will accept God's Grace and His mercy and relinquish my foolish claim for justice.


Me: 49
WAW: 47
S11, S7
Years Married/Together: 17/18
Bomb: 6/15/07
Separation: 7/6/07
D: 4/3/09

Real love is a decision.
Marriage is a commitment.
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Grace...ah, yes. struggling to accept it in other parts of my life. and puzzling that it's such a struggle! perhaps after years of not measuring up, being criticized for things such as how loudly I chew, how I sit down, how I hum without being aware--and then ultimately being rejected because I'm "cold and distant"--unconditional and undeserved love are even harder to grasp. Funny--in years of ministry I was pretty effective at making sure others felt loved by God, but it seems I was always feeling like the vessel and not the recipient.

It's not so much that I want to see xH suffer as much as we have suffered. It's just that thriving at our expense reinforces the denial of his responsibility, in fact reinforces that he is still a wonderful, warm, sensitieve, pastoral guy to so many people who have found it convenient to cut D and I out of their lives. It loops back into my grief about losing so much more than just my marriage--but also my family, most of my friends and my church community (concurrently, but not because of xH). It just seems that D and I have suffered all the consequences and I can't, for the life of me, figure out just what I did wrong. And I'm stuck there.


M60
H52
D20
M14 yrs
OW-old gf from 1986
bomb-5/18/08
H filed for D-9/10/08
D final 4/24/09
xH remarried (not OW) 2012
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HM,

I understand being stuck. Let us just trust that God knows when the time is to pause and when the time is to move onward again. To know when and how to become unstuck.

About your ex, while I haven't exactly run across the particular passages in scripture myself <note to self, here is an action item>, I have heard people say that God reserves special judgement against those who lead others astray, especially religious leaders. It is one thing to take actions that condemn one's own self to damnation, it's a whole other thing when you lead other souls off the straight and narrow.

I can say with certainty that during his ministry Jesus did take particular aim at the Pharisees, for their hypocrisy and their arrogance. And I can safely assume that their willful, unrepentant ways cost them eternity. (Nicodemus being one notable exception, it would seem.)

It sounds as if your ex is just like a Pharisee, especially in his self-righteousness and that he too tries to justify D and his own worldly prosperity. Those who follow him even knowing of his faults do so at their own risk. We should pity them.

It is indeed a struggle. And you should know as well as I that God does not lead us around adversity but through it. I can't say that I actually like this myself, but I have to accept it, for He knows best. I just wish my own life was just a tad less "interesting", if you know what I mean.


Me: 49
WAW: 47
S11, S7
Years Married/Together: 17/18
Bomb: 6/15/07
Separation: 7/6/07
D: 4/3/09

Real love is a decision.
Marriage is a commitment.
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Weird, but looking at my life the past 2 years--I feel like I'm a stronger person, more confidence, stronger faith. It's been in a weird way, a good experience. I know some others at my church have really grown through tough experiences too.

I really believe a lot of the anger/hatred that comes from your wife is prob. her own guilt and anger at herself kind of projected onto you. You can't be full of anger like that and be a happy person, so I think she's def. had consequences in that way. Karen


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Quote:
I just wish my own life was just a tad less "interesting", if you know what I mean.

Indeed I do know what you mean! I believe I've said that myself a time or two.


M60
H52
D20
M14 yrs
OW-old gf from 1986
bomb-5/18/08
H filed for D-9/10/08
D final 4/24/09
xH remarried (not OW) 2012
karen43 #1820018 08/16/09 09:50 PM
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Originally Posted By: karen43
Weird, but looking at my life the past 2 years--I feel like I'm a stronger person, more confidence, stronger faith. It's been in a weird way, a good experience. I know some others at my church have really grown through tough experiences too.

Karen

Yes, this is redemption. I don't believe that God causes these things to happen "for our own good" by any means, but that he can bring redemption out of them in spite of everything. Not sure I could go on if I didn't believe that!


M60
H52
D20
M14 yrs
OW-old gf from 1986
bomb-5/18/08
H filed for D-9/10/08
D final 4/24/09
xH remarried (not OW) 2012
karen43 #1820019 08/16/09 09:51 PM
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NC..

Sorry I have been MIA... Im so glad that everything went ok. I know you must feel some peace that most of it is over.

As for her finding out about the email... HA! She's just po-ed because you have yet found another sign of her infidelity and she will have a hard time putting a spin on it... but she already has by accusing you of violating her privacy... WTF?????? She is the one that cheated, has she forgotten that, this shows how truly sick she is... thank goodness you are rid of the person she has become.

I would also keep to things as simply as possible. Only make contact concerning the boys, that's it. And if she tries to pull you into to some other discussion, I would politely say to her " what is done is done" Our conversations can only be about our boys, and that is it, I have nothing else to say to you so please stop trying to drag me into something else.

Then maybe she will get the point.

Hope you are doing well otherwise, take care of yourself my friend.

smile


me: 37
H: 44
Married for 18 years this june
S7
S3
porn issues, and much more... since 7/06

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
karen43 #1820087 08/17/09 01:51 AM
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Quote:
I really believe a lot of the anger/hatred that comes from your wife is prob. her own guilt and anger at herself kind of projected onto you. You can't be full of anger like that and be a happy person, so I think she's def. had consequences in that way.


No, she definitely has some pent up anger and hatred in her. Her chief beef with me stems from her unreasonable expectations. All through the latter part of our M she had typical but excessive expectations for how she wanted me to think, behave and act, and how she wanted our lives to be led. She insisted that we buy a house and that we maintain it in just a certain way and who's roles were what. The general principles I could readily agree to -- I was actually happy to -- but the details and her attempts to micromanage them, I did not appreciate. These differences were very slight in the beginning, but by the time of the bomb that had grown to geometric proportions.

Unfortunately after the separation xW's expectations actually have gotten worse. They no longer involve me being a part of her present or future. No, I am now an obstacle that needs to be removed. And that presents a whole new level of aggravation for her over me. Now that we're divorced, she still has these impossible expectations -- she says a lot less, but I can tell it is eating her up inside because it comes out in other ways. And now she has tried using the threat of taking the kids away to gain leverage. It must anger her to no end to realize that a responsible, loving father just doesn't skulk quietly away from his children just because that is supposed to be according to her script.

So even if xW consciously realizes that she is still a very unhappy and often miserable person, she will still blame that entirely on the fact that her "evil" H didn't crawl off into a hole and die like she had intended but instead he had the audacity to actually try to be involved in her children's lives.

You see, I'm just so evil -- I only dare to be involved with my S's and to show my love to them just to piss her off. Oh! Can you believe it!?? The nerve!

<Bugs Bunny impersonation> Ain't I a stinker? </impersonation>


Me: 49
WAW: 47
S11, S7
Years Married/Together: 17/18
Bomb: 6/15/07
Separation: 7/6/07
D: 4/3/09

Real love is a decision.
Marriage is a commitment.
Joined: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,580
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Quote:
I don't believe that God causes these things to happen "for our own good" by any means, but that he can bring redemption out of them in spite of everything.


No, it was not God's original intent that we suffer the consequences of Man's sinful behaviors, the negative results of giving us free will. But He will use these trials and tribulations to help mold us, to use the flames of adversity to forge stronger metals and drive out the slag of impurities and to temper our steel. It is a strange irony that it takes stress to make us grow stronger.


Me: 49
WAW: 47
S11, S7
Years Married/Together: 17/18
Bomb: 6/15/07
Separation: 7/6/07
D: 4/3/09

Real love is a decision.
Marriage is a commitment.
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