My wife has filed for divorce because she said she is tired of paying for her past affairs and wants peace in her life. She states that GOD wants this for her and she will not be commiting sin as long as she does not remarry.My wife has also told me that if I change my ways I would deserve someone better than her because she would not be able to meet my needs that would be rightly do to me. After 26 years of marrige I feel like I do not know her I am staying a catholic and I believe divorce is wrong but as a reborn she believes it is OK when the bible says different Why do so many people use religion as a weapon Am I wasting my time with someone who thinks GOD wants her to divorce?????

Big John,
Welcome to MB, sorry that circumstances have brought you here but its a great place for help. It s a pretty common fog talk theme about Dv or OP being what God wants. My WxW says that current OM is a gift from God. As for are you wasting your time, you'll have to decide that one for yourself. I'll leave that to the more experienced here to advise you. You will probably get more response in the GQII forum. They tend to be more geared toward saving M there.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by BIG JOHN:
<strong> Why do so many people use religion as a weapon

Am I wasting my time with someone who thinks GOD wants her to divorce????? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">In answer to question one, people do this because they are trying to make God into their own image. Period.

In answer to question two, only you can figure this our, as deafjeff said. She certainly is deluded in her thinking. Until that goes away, she doesn't sound too open to anything.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by BIG JOHN:
<strong> My wife has filed for divorce because she said she is tired of paying for her past affairs and wants peace in her life. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Big John, to be honest with you, this sentence bothers me. I need to know a few more details about your situation before I can even weigh in with an opinion, and here's why. The kind of sentence above sounds as if your W's past A's were "long ago" and you are still punishing her and making her pay.

On one hand, if she had A's more than two or three years ago, and you are still "making her pay"--then I might agree with her that God does not want her to be endlessly punished for a mistake she made and tried repent and repair.

On the other hand, if her A's were recent and she is just unwilling to take personal responsibility or have to face any of her natural consequences--then I would heartily DISAGREE with her that God does not want her to flee from her marriage. In that case, she would be like Jonah, trying to run away from God.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>She states that GOD wants this for her and she will not be commiting sin as long as she does not remarry. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So let me see if I get this straight. She is willing to live the rest of her life alone and unmarried (in order to not commit sin in the eyes of God) rather than stay with you, because the price she is paying for her past affairs is hurting her too much. Can you see why all the little hairs on the back of my neck are standing up? She would rather live in a nunnery than have to keep being punished for her affair. That sounds like the punishment has been pretty harsh, doesn't it?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"><strong>Am I wasting my time with someone who thinks GOD wants her to divorce????? </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Maybe what she REALLY thinks is that God recognizes she is valuable and lovable, and God does not want her to continue to live every moment of her life feeling lower than a worm. Maybe she believes that God would rather have her protected and unmarried, than unsafe and hurt and married. Maybe this is her way of saying she realizes she is too precious to God to continue to let herself be degraded or disrespected.

Now, Big John, I am not saying that "you are to blame" or "you are at fault"--I'm saying that this MAY be the way that she sees it or the way that she feels. Big John, King David was the apple of God's eye and was the dearly beloved of God...yet HE committed adultery and lusted for another. He made a serious, painful mistake. But when he truly repented and made the effort to repair things between him and God, and between those he had hurt here on earth--God FORGAVE him. Yes, King David continued to have the natural consequences of his A and his OC, but from the point of repentance on, David was DEARLY BELOVED again and experienced the love of God again.


CJ

In regaurds to your question my wife has become a radical reborn and uses religion when it works for her benifit. She went to her minister and told him how she felt and asked if she would be doing wrong by divorcing me on her feelings that I am verbaly abusive and selfish and that she does not like me as a person. {I am still catholic} the minister gave her the OK if she does not remarry mind it I was not there for this conversation nor can I ask him WHO gave him the right to OK that because he has left town and moved on to give someone more bad info.These so called ministers have no concern for people of other faith and believe they are above others.My wife also says that if I become a better person she will not be able to fullfil my needs as a wife should do maybe the guilt of the affairs is keeping her from that Who knows But she said she has burried the past and Is a new
person. I guess {For better or worse} has no meaninging her world I am not perfect all I want is to enjoy life with someone who doesnot think fun is for young people only.There must be someone that want that too.

Big John,

Speaking from a little experience here-when I became a "born again" Christian (about 11 years ago), I pushed away every one I knew in my past due to a "holier than thou" mindset-I felt I had to remove from my life ANYTHING that had caused me to grieve God/to sin (didn't Jesus hang out with sinners???). I married a woman in the same boat spiritually and collectively we pushed away both of our families and the majority of our friends with our mindset, even going so far as to buy Bibles for my family (they were unbelievers and needed Jesus was our mindset). This is new to your wife-expect to see a new mindset in which her trying to attain to a certain level of holiness pervades every area of her life-truth be known, it takes a LIFETIME to attain to ANY kind of level of Holiness and ONLY GOD can work that in an individual. This is common from what I've seen for newbies. I can even state that my wife has left me due to her new view on marriage/divorce and she's been "born again" as long as I have. She's not subject to the Laws of Marriage and Divorce(?). There are numerous excuses for our divorce-verbally abusive, not in love, blah blah blah. I'm not denying that I was verbally abusive, but I have an EXCUSE (said jokingly and sarcastically because I realize how WRONG I was in the way I dealt with my STBX)-I was in a situation where I was married to a woman who wasn't "in love" with me and I was trying to act like a married man with a woman who wouldn't have chose me on her own (we believed our marriage had been arranged by God and we believed God was a God who punished people if they didn't do what He said). Thus explaining my frustration all through our 5 year marriage and the verbal abuse (what do you do when you are in a marriage where it is CRYSTAL clear-stated to you by your spouse on a RECURRING basis-that you aren't what the other person wants and are CONSTANTLY compared to other guys/shortchanged on "needs" because you aren't attractive to the other person/they aren't "in love"/don't love you the way a wife should, etc and actually TOLD all this by your spouse?). What it boils down to, Big John, is this-your wife may not see the facts that God HONORS marriage and HATES divorce until many years down the line, if even then. Jeff-my STBX said the same thing regarding a guy she met after she left me (he was God's gift to her for being in/putting up with a marriage she didn't want to be in for 5 years)and it was a mess from the get go, though she didn't admit it till after it ended. He was so great and they were "in love" in the beginning, but then, looking back, she saw there were problems in paradise from the beginning (something about hindsight being 20/20 comes to mind). Big John-You have been with your wife for 26 years. If you don't pray for her, maybe now is a good time to start. This may take a while to work out in regards to her-meaning YEARS. In the mean time, maybe look at some ways to improve on yourself. For me, I did an honest inventory of myself and found that I WAS abusive verbally, I had a lot of unrealistic expectations, an anger problem, and just a LOT of stuff that I had to admit (grudgingly-looking in the mirror and admitting to ourselves and God that we have a LOT of bad regarding ourselves is P A I N F U L because we all want to believe the best about ourselves and in doing so feed our PRIDE) about myself to the LORD so He could start changing me. I'm still young, so with my upcoming divorce and STBX not in the same house with me, I'm going back to college and doing things I enjoy. It took me quite some time (about 8 months) to get to this point. Expect lots of emotional rollercoasters if your wife does actively pursue this. Divorce is pretty horrible and can be VERY MESSY and I'm saying that after only 5 years of marriage-I could only imagine how things would be after 25. Keep your head up, Big John-this too shall pass. Just a suggestion though-if you don't already have a good working relationship with God, now is the time to develop one. He's been an AWESOME source of strength for me through my mess and God is no respecter of persons-He doesn't love anyone anymore than another person. Just some thoughts...Take care.

Hi Big John, Im a former Catholic that was Born Again this year after God touched me earlier this year.

First off I would like to say please do not think all people that born again are like this. Your wife is using God as a weapon against you, neither I nor you can judge her or condemn her but I will leave what I said at that. The bible only gives 2 instances where you can biblically divorce-either with adultry or if your spouse is an unbeliever and wants to leave, though I havent heard many people use the 2nd reason. If your wife thinks that what she is doing is God's will for her life tell her to check out Mal 2:16, the simple version is God hates divorce, it was never really part of his plan but a man made law.

Also I am not knocking anyone that is divorced with this post, we cannot control another person and I know what happens in some marriages is beyond control. Just trying to help out John biblically

Big John,

Post is a few days old but it really caught my eye.

First, God never goes against His word. That would make Him a lair and we know from the word that God cannot lie. God's word says He hates divorce. So he would never tell anyone to divorce. If someone says God told them to divorce then they are not being truthful. It is not from God.

The word says for this reason God allowed divorce. If a nonbeliever wants to leave, let them. This is not God telling someone to divorce. He says let them go. Keep peace with one another.
God allowed divorce because our hearts had grown HARD. I for one don't want my heart to grow hard.
Some men had became so mean to their wife's that God allow divorce to save the women harm and the shame of living in adultery. You have to understand the time in which Jesus spoke the words about divorce. Jesus said it was not this way from the beginning. It was not God's plan.

Does God love divorced people? Yes, I divorced my first husband. I had to deal with that sin when my second husband left me. I had to confess my divorcing as sin and ask God which marriage He wanted restored. God wanted my current marriage restored and it was almost four years later.
Does God bless second marriages? Yes, mine is an example of that and there are other examples in the word. People will tell you, well, it depends on if you were saved at the time you married or not, and so on. I found God to be the ONLY one that can answer questions like this. I had to ask Him and then WAIT HIS answer.

So again, God will never tell us to do anything that goes against His word. He does allow us to sin and the blood of Jesus can cover any sin. It is a heart thing and it is between you and God.

Why is your wife saying God told her to divorce?


2Tim 4:3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

You will have to let God deal with your wife. I was just trying to answer your questions.

gentle