I go about my business, waiting patiently for God to reveal to me what the future holds and how I should deal with it.

I find it intersting that at this time when the love of my life has rejected me for another man, when my heart has been broken like it has never been broken before.... I turn on the radio and one of the most popular songs is a remake of the old BG's hit "How Do You Mend a Broken Heart".

This week my WW dropped over the house and picked up a few more of her things while I was working. She has rerouted all her mail to her new apartment. My attempts to talk about reconciliation have been met with polite comments that say absolutely nothing.

So now I wait for God to show me the person who will mend my broken heart. Will it be a reborn wife? Or someone else? I must be patient.

Yes, Justin, you must be patient. Time will heal your broken heart, one way or the other.

Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, I think that in a year from now, everything will be better. At least then I will know what I want and what path I am on.

My WH went to Korea for a year when he was in the Army, and our boys were 4 months and 16 months old (12 months and 12 days apart!).

That was the most challenging time of my life, up until now. And sometimes, the only thing that got me through was to realize that in 5 or 10 years from then, it was going to be a distant memory.

I cannot imagine this memory ever becoming distant, but it will be a time in your life, a turning point that you remember. And it will seem much clearer in a year than it does now.

So, use your time wisely. Improve yourself. Educate yourself about relationships and marriage, and what you can do to improve both.

And post post post!

SS

One of the first bunch of verses I came across while reading the bible after WW moved into her apt. was Psalms 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

At that day and that time when I read it I was feeling as you are. It hit me square in the blood pumper and I actually cried. I don't have a history of expressing emotion well. I bottle everything up. I am learning to release. One of the many positives that I see coming out of this tragedy.

Look it up if you can. Moving to see it in print, bound in the pages that it is in.

(((Justin)))
God will let you know when it is time. I know, we all want it in our time, but for whatever reason, it doesn't work (for me anyway) that quickly.
Give your wife to God, that's what I have had to do today. Pretty much every day for a while now. I found out, and have proof of his affair. No denying it!
God bless you Justin! Thank God for this website.

Vivian

Thanks to all for the support and advice.

I will try to be patient. At times life gets so lonely when one is used to always have a partner at home.

God Bless.

Psalms 24:18-20

When the just cry out, the Lord hears and rescues them from all distress. The Lord is close to the broken-hearted, saves those whose spirit is crushed. Many are the troubles of the just, but the Lord delivers them from all.

~ Snow

I am reading a great book right now called "God will make a way. What to do when you don't know what to do," by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend. It is a really great read for me right now. It is funny how God will give you exactly the right resources you need right when you need them (my WH had bought me a gift certificate to the Christian bookstore for my b-day, so I was there, praying that God would provide something that could help heal my broken heart, and I saw this book and it seemed to be exactly what I needed...because I had no idea what to do anymore, and was confident that God would make a way out, so I had to have this book)!

I am in Plan B, my WH recently moved out, and this was my first weekend alone (the kids were at his place for the weekend). I live in FL, so I decided to go to the beach, read this book, and try not to feel so lonely and hurt today (it was a beautiful day, so, why not rejoice and be glad in it?).

I was reading the chapter on pain, and some things really spoke to me...and maybe it will help you too.

The authors talk about how we must move THROUGH pain, with the final destination being the other side (and they classified people into two categories...those who stop at the problem, and those who move through it).

WELLLLLLL.. I was instantly intrigued. I am no quitter, so this MUST apply to me. I must be the type of person, for better or worse, that just conjers up the courage I need to move through it. That is just how God made me. I will move through it. Even though I can't see how, I feel broken, and I am not sure what my next step is, I will have to trust God to help me move through it. Then they made the point that God is less concerned with your comfort in life, than with you learning the lessons and having the victories that He wants you to have. And a lot of times, that is going to mean moving THROUGH the pain of life's problems. So, God uses pain to shape us, and even though we hate every minute of it, He knows that is what is best for us sometimes (and I knew that had to be true for me...GOD knows how stubborn I can be, how much I want to do things on my own, so He had no other choice but to bring me to my knees in this way). They also referenced that God means for us to look upward (seek Him) AND inward (ask Him to show us what needs to change, what we can learn about ourselves, or what baggage we may have inside that needs to be addressed).

But my favorite part of the whole chapter, especially as a Christian, was this...pain makes us more like Christ. In what way, you may ask?? Well, we can always reference that amazing sacrifice of Christ on the cross, that betrayal, suffering, and the incredibly loving, self-less act that Christ performed for us by dying for our sins on the Cross. And if we are standing tall after our marital betrayal, trying to forgive, and trying to love unconditionally, that makes us more like Him.

But more than that, I realized, was that God has pain on a daily basis. The authors pointed out that God feels very deeply about His children. I mean, He aches when we are not following His will (and anyone with children can identify with that pain they feel in their hearts when their children stray from the path of God, seem lost in the world, etc). They said it best, so I will quote from the book:

"Most of us forget that God has a heart. He feels things very deeply. Our stance toward Him can hurt Him. When His people lost their love for Him, His response was "My heart churns within me," (Hosea 11:8)...God's response to His problem [with mankind] is to face it and take responsibility for doing something about it. He does not avoid, deny, misunderstand the meaning of the problem. Even still, He suffers during the process. While He is redeeming, forgiving, repairing, and healing us, He suffers from what we have put Him through...Often, people who have been down this path [of coping with major pain in their life] will report that whatever the problem was that started the process ultimately was not nearly as important as what they learned about suffering God's way."

Man. That was big to me. You mean, our God is such an awesome, amazing, loving, grace-filled God that He can take this nasty, evil, worldly thing like an A in my marriage, and use it to teach me to be more like Him?

All I can say to that is...well...oddly enough...Thank You, God. No matter what, it was worth it. So, while I was sitting on the beach, watching the waves lap up on the white sand, seeing the other seemingly happy families play together with their brightly colored beach balls or with their plastic pails and shovels, I was happily missing desperately the H I used to know, and my whole, unbroken family. In that instant, I closed my eyes, felt the warm breeze sweep over my skin like a gentle hug from God, and I felt such a peace. I finally truly knew what it meant, both intellectually and spiritually, to rejoice in the Lord for all things...even this mess...because if it turns out that I am even one millionth more like Him when it is over, than HALLELUJAH!!!!!

Thank you Christy, That is truly an inspiring message.

I am also going to get the book you recommended.

I am a bit farther along the curve that you are. My wife moved out about two months ago, and I have recently come to realize that she made the decision to move out about four months ago. And it is now obvious to me that the A went on much longer than I ever suspected. In other words, for the last four and maybe as much as eight years (how it hurts just to write this!) I have not had a faithful wife who was fully committed to our marriage. On an emotional basis I have not had a true wife for many years.

I will read the book you recommended and wait for God to act. Thank you again.

Justin,

I agree...I am probably in no position to really give wise counsel (in the whole grand scheme of things, my situation is REALLY new, our recovery is non-existent, and I have probably just scratched the surface on the pain and trials this marriage is going to cause me and my children long term). Who knows what else I will discover about my WH in the coming months. I just know as a fellow Child of God that He has got our backs...we just have to keep looking upward.

I am truly sorry for the sorrow you are feeling. But we can see first hand the attacks that are being made on marriage and the family (I would always hear about it on Sunday at church, but never thought I would have to live through it..if only I had been ready, armed and waiting for it when the onslaught first began).

And you know...sometimes I am really sad because I know that God tried to warn me, tried to prepare me, tried to give me an another path...but in my ignorance of believing that my life was unshakable, that I was handling it just fine, I was mowed over, broken, betrayed and now here I am. Fortunately, our God is such a loving God, that He will bail us out even when we are partly responsible for getting into the mess in the first place.

Let's promise to pray for each other!

Christy,

You can certainly continue to offer your thoughts to me. You seem to have a good handle on things.

God bless you.

JE

Christy,

Your posts show have some amazing insights in them. I do believe God is working this all for my good, even though I hate how it feels right now. I just wish I could stop fighting it. And I did pray before this happened, that God would work in my H's heart, because I feared for his eternal future. I am so afraid each day that something will happen to my WH before he gets himself turned back to God. I know it's out of my hands, but that may be one of the most painful things about this whole A--seeing my WH spiral downward. And I realize that it may get really ugly if God is working in his heart and he is fighting it. I just have to be patient (something that God is probably working on with me).

Your "God will make a way" statement reminds me of the praise song I sing, usually fairly silently to myself, when things are really going bad and I'm feeling like cracking:

God will make a way
where there seems to be no way.
He works in ways we cannot see.
He will make a way for me.
He will be my guide--
hold me closely to his side.
With love and strength for each new day
He will make a way. He will make a way.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> All I can say to that is...well...oddly enough...Thank You, God. No matter what, it was worth it </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I pray that I am able to look back on this in a year and say that very thing.

LL