Dear Dawn,
I had copied this quote to reply to, but I see that BrambleRose beat me too it......And said quite nicely what I was about to say.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I know that the Lord does not give us more then we can handle, and he does so with love. Instead of asking what God wants me to do next I was pitiful with asking why me?
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">God gives us free will. Some of us (your STBX, for example) use that free will to cause pain. God doesn't give us pain to test us. He is a God of grace and love standing by to prop us up when life knocks us down.
So let's look at your second sentence. What does God want of us in difficult situations? Faith, trust, optimism, confidence that we will heal eventually, and I think the plain old guts to stand up, dust ourselves off, and give life another try. God does not expect us not to hurt, not to be angry, not to be frightened, not to be bewildered. If we could conquer all that by ourselves, we wouldn't need Him. Well, we can't; so we do. Thank goodness, He's there!
I remember this time last summer when I was first learning of my DIL's affair and the depth of how she betrayed my son. I don't know how many hours I spent crying - just letting the tears flow and flow. I didn't even try to stop. I was a snivelling mess. The pain was almost more than I could stand, and I wondered, "Why? How could she be so evil? How could she hurt us so badly!" It truly was less painful to mourn the loss of my parents than to endure this betrayal.
Then it dawned on me. God knows exactly how we feel because He Himself has experienced the pain of losing a Beloved through betrayal! That made me feel selfish for my self-pity when I realized that God had suffered the ultimate betrayal because of the free will He gave us, that He has been in agony, too. He KNOWS what betrayal feels like. Then I thought, well, if even God is not exempt from the agony of betrayal, why should I expect to be spared?
Now this realization didn't stop the hurt. It didn't stop the anger. It didn't erase the dreams of what could have been. But it did shake me up and help me resolve to deal with this in the most Christian way I could. And I asked for a spiritual shove to help me along. I can't say that even now when S and DIL are negotiating their D, that I don't have relapses, but they are not as agonizing. I am healing.
Be gentle with yourself, Dawn. It's OK, expected even, for you to feel what you describe. I know how awful you feel, and I wish I could be there to give you a hug. In fact, however, none of those things you attribute to yourself is really true. You are a good mother, friend, wife, and Christian. How do I know? If you weren't, you wouldn't be bothered by this, and you are.
The situation you are in is lousy, no doubt about it. It's not fair, and you do not deserve this. But you will heal, slowly, baby steps. Days like this will come less often. When you feel like this, cry until the tears stop, acknowledge that the situation stinks (I screamed it sometimes.),
and then take a deep breath, square your shoulders, and get on with things. It also helped to understand that DIL (like your H) has BIG problems and that I'd rather be my S than to be her!!! He'll suffer for awhile, then eventually be OK. SHE may never be OK!
It will probably be morning before you read this. Sunday will probably be a better day. Don't feel bad about pity parties. My sister used to call me at all hours for a pity party when she was going through her D. Email if you want to. My address is on your other post. I'll give you my phone number if you want.
Hang in there.
Estes
