Greetings,
My thoughts and prayers are with each of you working through and healing from difficult points in your marriage.
I've become familiar with this site during the last month or so, and it has truly helped to reduce my feelings of isolation.
Please pray for me and my family as I believe in God for a healing for my marriage. It's those moments when I become worn down from the rigors of daily life that I most need strength and endurance.
My situation is so complex--and I know I am not alone in that fact--that it is hard for me to detail the specifics. I've touched on bits and pieces in responding to the posts of others. We're dealing with the challenges of a blended family, a new baby together (6 mo. old), and my husband's numerous occasions of unfaithfulness.
Bottom line, my husband and I entered into a marriage without truly putting and KEEPING God at the forefront of our relationship and we are now reeling from the effects of that. I think that we both need to be more disciplined in our spiritual lives. We attend church regularly, but like many, we don't always apply what we learned during the remainder of the week. I try to initiate prayer and devotional time together, but my husband resists so often. I know that my husband is supposed to be the spiritual head of the household, but when left to him, we'll go weeks without doing anything spiritual outside of church and even begin to lag off on our curch attendance. I've taking to praying on my own for our marriage and family and found wonderful guidance in Stormie Omartian's "Power of a Praying Wife." Some of you may have seen my posts on the thread about her book.
While we were both raised in church, neither my husband or I truly gave our lives over to the Lord until after we found ourselves having children out of wedlock. Not with each other--we each became single parents before we met. For me this was especially painful, because I harbored a great deal of shame because my parents were never married. And, like my own father, my daughter's father abandoned me/us.
My husband's situation was different. He was raised in an intact family. But, his father was an abusive, alcoholic, adulterer during the early years of his marriage. I think the effects of those things still impact their family. My husband does not drink, can be verbally abusive though he has never hit me, yet followed in his father's footsteps with regard to the infidelity. His father is nothing like that now. He gave his life over to Christ 20+ years ago and truly became a new man. I have come to admire the bond that he and my mother-in-law have.
I think that last point is part of what gives me the hope to endure in this marriage even though the current realities are so painful. My husband has so many redeeming qualities--I wouldn't have married him otherwise. It's just that his "Taker" has been at center stage for several months now.
In addition to the pain of the infidelity, my husband honors and cherishes the child he had before we met more than me. He had to fight to remain a part of her life, so I understand and respect their bond. In fact, I have prayed to God to deliver from the jealousy I feel towards that bond, since it touches a nerve with the fact that my father never made any real effort to be a consistent part of my life.
(Someone on another thread mentioned Harville Hendrix' "Imago Theory" of marriage (that we subconciously choose our mates based on unresolved issues from our past and the marriage can help us heal those issues once and for all) and it definitely seems to apply to us).
I've read the posts here about the challenges of blended families and so many other resources. The challenge is that my husband is not receptive to those resources. He seems to think that we would not be having so many problems blending the family if things were "meant to be."
I could say so much more . . . .
I know that prayer works and thank you in advance for any prayers that are sent our way.
Funny thing, my husband always remarks that he was drawn to me because of my spirituality. While I know I have a great deal more spiritual and personal development yet to do in my life, I pray that a spirituality stronger than that which brought us together can be used to help save our marriage.
In Jesus' Name,
Prayer & Patience
