Thank you, but I am not sure of the new attitude, though I keep working on it. Act as if, right?

I tried to get my children into counseling and they wouldn't go. Advice..... Follow your heart and give it to G-d.

My friend who just lost her son received a card that talked about the ocean and waves and how all those emotions just come like waves and the thing to do it just ride it out. I guess that's what I did. I honored their feelings because they had every right to them. I held them accountable to their actions and gave consequences when needed, because life went on. I relied on them and that helped them feel useful.

I tried to keep our life as normal as possible. I showed them how hard things were for me and that I was hurting, and that even though they were mad at their dad, I loved him, made a commitment to him and wanted him to come home. No matter what.

I kept asking them to let me know if there was something that I could for them. I left it in their hands to come to me.

And when they were obnoxious, I told them that I didn't find their behavior acceptable and walked away. If it was over the top, they would get a consequence, and when I really couldn't handle it, I walked away and gave them to G-d. One thing my old sponsor tells me, G-d doesn't have grandchildren and I would pray and ask G-d to help them walk through the lessons they had to learn. I had to truly learn I couldn't fix this for them and I had to also realize that maybe they were handling it better than me and I had to honor what they told me.

Wow, I hadn't realized all of that until just now. Thank you for asking.

I can look back on it today and realize how much tighter and closer I am with my children, all of them. I have held my head up high because I am fighting for their father and regardless of the outcome, I walked through this with feelings, dire emotions, dignity and grace as well as showing them to take responsibility when warranted and feel the pain because it HURTS.

They didn't always want to hear it and get mad at me sometimes, but I am modeling behavior I want them to have and that's the only way I know how.

SMB, I hope you are right.

I am so happy for you and tst. You are my hope that my WW will come home one day. I can just feel the love you have for your FWH and can imagine the depths of hurt you experienced. I really appreciate the time and patience you give me. I'm really trying to be strong. It's just so hard somedays.

Plan B letter will be delivered as soon as A says the paperwork is filed and WH can't mess with my money. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Today is fortunately a good day and I am grateful....

Oh goodness,

I just got asked to write the obituary for the young man who died this week. What an amazing honor for me.

Of course you were. I hope that this kind of honor lets you see what we do.

You are a GODDESS.

BTW - That was my SIL, but is the closest thing I have to a sister. She has really been there for me.

Dude,

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It helps me to feel useful and that I can get outside of my world and help someone else during their sorrow and pain.

Are you being still?

Naw, not being still at all... I'm wooping my ODD's Friend's [censored] on guitar hero, and you can't play that without dancing around.. it's just wrong.

LOL....

You know what I mean....

Yes, I'm still that way. Mark was about to fly out to kick my sorry Canadian [censored].

GOOD.....

I'm so happy for you, but so jealous. WH has NOTHING to do with me what so ever....:(

Queenie, I am so proud of you for being the kind of friend who would OF COURSE be chosen to write the obituary.

You are being way too kind....

Mark,

I am finding that I see the words on paper, but I get lost. How do you go about reading scripture. Do you say a prayer, do you have things that you specifically look for.

I'm trying too hard to get to the message, what could you suggest to relax and just be still with the pages?

That may seem stupid, but I run into it a lot. And I would love to learn to work through this...

Shabbat Shalom,

I really don't know what to tell you Queenie. Maybe it's just that I've been studying the scriptures for so long (over 40 years!) and have been teaching them for a long time as well. I just look for object lessons and analogies in every day life and then think of it in regard to scripture.

Did you read what I wrote about this passage in my Musings thread?

Surely you got some perspective from the story itself. What did you get from what you read. Don't try to make it super verbose or anything, just tell me what you got from it.

Shalom Alaichem.

Mark

Hey Queenie, before you start reading ask God to give you understanding.

When I started reading the Bible about 4 years ago I didn't know how..but keep reading and you'll know how to apply it.

In addition to reading, I also read a lot of Christian Living literature and follow along w/my Bible. I also listen to sermons on TV, Dr. Charles Stanley would be a great start. Of course I go to church and Bible study and take classes during the weekends that help me understand the word. Right now I'm taking a personal ministry class...all that helps me to apply the word to my life.

I think you are doing so great. You're an inspiration.

Hi Queenie- As a high school teacher from the same fine state that you are from, I can say that I understand what an amazing accomplishment your son's portfolio score was. Congratulate him for me!

I also understand how it is to look back and realize that the struggle we (BS) have gone through has made us (we and our kids) a family without the WS. In spite of our struggle and pain, we have given our children a place of refuge.

Hang in there.

Are we going to get together next week-end? I have Fri and Mon off. OS is coming home from college if he isn't snowed in. They closed his school for 2 days for the first time in 20 years due to the snow. Also, YS has a drill meet on Sat. Let me know.

Love ya'

Hi JT, next weekend or the 15th? Yes, we are going to get together.

Mark and My1st, I need to come back to your comments. My brain is totally fuzzy. I tossed and turned all night AGAIN. I think this week I have had about 8 hours sleep. I'm exhausted.

I had ANOTHER dream with him it. This was was longer and so realistic. We were at our newly remodeled house, though it didn't look like it, but our neighbor/contractor was there with his wife and some other neighbors to enjoy the celebration of the house. We were sitting around a circle, where I thanked the neighbors for what they had done. When it got to WH and he just became selfish and bragging about the effort he put into the remodeling of the house and should be recognized for that.

We were all in shock in the intensity of his anger. I remember our boys being there and everyone got up and left us alone or we left the room to a part of the house where I was crying and trying to reach him. Talk to him, get my H to come back. He kept resisting, and then finally he walked over to this cabinet against a wall that he pushed up against and the wall took him around. After two times, I could see that my H was peeking through and I grabbed my chance. I could tell because he knew how ridiculous he was looking, how ridiculous this whole situation and yet he wouldn't give in. It was like his hand was in the cookie jar, he was busted but wouldn't admit anything.

My passion took over and I kept trying to reach him, he kept pushing me away until suddenly he told me that he loved me, he wasn't ready to come home. And then I asked him to help me understand what was going on inside of him. I didn't want to fix it, just understand. What is the TRUTH?

He started to soften, it was in his eyes, he grabbed me to him and held me like my H and told me he loved me. And started to talk, but I woke up.

After all this time, why am I dreaming of him NOW like this when all the other dreams very clearly had the WH absolutely in control and wasn't coming home.

I'm confused, could this be a sign from G-d to just keep doing what I am doing and there is hope on the horizon. A message that my H still loves me deep down inside, but he just isn't ready to come home? And it's only a matter of time that happens.

I'm not changing my plans of going dark or building a new life, I just am confused why so close to each other I am experiencing my H in two dreams. I have asked G-d for some signs lately Can he speak to me in dreams? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Hi there Queenie.

Hope you're having a joyous Shabbat.

I've had dreams that seemed so real that I wondered what they meant. I could just never figure out if they meant I was to change what I was doing or keep along the same path.

Or maybe they meant I should have stopped before that last slice of pizza.

Can God speak to you in dreams? It's one of the ways He has spoken to people throughout the centuries, so I'd say He can and might.

The secret to understanding what He's telling you is that it must be in agreement with what He's already said. Because God does not contradict what He has already commanded. So anything we think He is saying must be in agreement with what is already found in scripture.

But it is often hard to tell what the scriptures say about our every day life circumstances because seldom does God specifically address our individual trials. But He very often does address our trials by principle. What God says about things in the scriptures as to how He feels or commands in certain cases that He has seen to make available to us for our own enlightenment can shed light and hope on what we experience by inference.

This is why it becomes so important to understand the whole of scripture rather than just dwelling on a single part or passage. Because I might be able to take a single passage and twist it to mean something that God did not intend within context. So what we think God is telling us must not only be something we can make a case for from a single reference, but it must be in line with scripture in its entirety.

But of course that isn't really what you are asking, is it?

What you want to know is if God is telling you that you are going the right way or if you need to change your plans in order to make something specific come about.

Sometimes the best way to determine if what we are doing is supposed to be different is to determine if God says anything in his scriptures that tells us that what we are doing is wrong. And I think you have done all that God requires you to do and now wants you to just let Him take care of the whole situation, not only your WH, but you as well.

God doesn't expect us to suffer in order to show that we love Him and are willing to obey His law and commands. So what we have been discussing here for a few weeks now is to give your WH to God and stop worrying about whether or not there is something more YOU should be doing.

You need peace in your life Queenie, and that is what Plan B is about, you finding peace and stability.

Will he eventually come home? Maybe. Rest assured that when he does, if he does, that he will be a totally broken and self loathing human being who will require your help in order to function. If he ever wakes up from his dream, Queenie, he will need you to be strong again for him in order to recover. So no matter what he does, you need to gather strength and be ready, either to move on without him, or to help him return.

Throughout the history of Israel, God chastises the nation for being stiff necked. That means that they were not humble before Him. They held too high of opinion of themselves and therefore saw their success as their own doing. The trouble with that thinking is that when we see ourselves as our source of success, we have a hard time of accepting that we must also be the reason for our failures. So we begin to blame others, sometimes including God for our failures. But as soon as all is going well, we think it was all our doing.

In order to come to a place of understanding that everything we are and have comes from God and is simply a gift to us because He loves us, God sometimes has to let us play that out to the end. Until we change our thinking we are stuck in a place where we are blaming others for our failures and being prideful over what we think is success.

Until your WH comes to the end of his own pride and can humble himself before God, he is not likely to humble himself before you in order to reconcile. And that is what God wants from him more than He wants you to be married... He wants your husband to be humble before God...

To that end, God will allow your WH to have things his own way and see where it leads him, because it will surely lead him to being broken, and then once he is broken, God can restore him and lead him...maybe even lead him back to you, but that isn't the most important part of it to God. And God might eventually use you moving on without him to bring your WH to the end of his own selfishness...

Can't say for sure what God will do, but I don't think you need to scramble to make things different because you are missing something crucial that can make everything turn around in one fell swoop. That isn't how God works very often.

When the Red Sea parted, it was easy to see the miracle. When you drive through an intersection and a car runs the light and you barely avoid death, a miracle seems obvious, but what about those millions of times per day when people drive through and intersection and what happens is...

...nothing much, they just get to the other side without incident.

To me, that is truly a miracle.

And the miracle that God wants for you is for you to follow Him and love Him and trust in Him. He wants the same miracle for your WH. Perhaps, when all is said and done, you can experience that miracle together, but don't miss the one while trying to force the other.

Mark

Mark, You are absolutely right of course. So much wisdom. I need to print this out and put in in my heart.

I KNOW I have done all I can do. I KNOW that G-d needs to take care of this whole situation. I can truly give my WH to G-d.

What I don't know how to do is let G-d take care of me. Something is stopping me from accepting all the goodness and light he wants to give me. In tellectually I know it, and I TRULY UNDERSTAND, it's what he wants, but what is stopping it.

Somehow I have to find the courage to believe I am worth it and stop thinkin I am not. I thought I had gotten rid of it, but I can't think of any other reason why I am being stopped.

Mark, I appreciate your guidance on this. Truly. You have a comforting spirit that comes across the screen and somehow touches my G-d spirit inside of me. Thank you.

I called a friend and she is coming to get me, I think we are going to go out and laugh. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> It would be good for me.

Go have some fun Queenie.

When you get home get some rest.

You have earned both...

Mark

HI Queenie-

It's the week-end of the 15th that we were going to meet...somehow I jumped ahead a week in my brain. Oh well.

Gotta go. YS is going to the winter dance with his GF. He was nervous about giving her a corsage, even though it was a wrist one.... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Mimi,

Question. You have hit home that only watch WS actions. What if there actions are nothing, they don't call me - he calls the kids to come over once. He ignores me, etc.

Does this mean he is completely done with me and I should just go to Plan D?

I'm just wondering when it really is hopeless and keep planning and preparing for B?