MelodyLane, I have only posted here a little, but come to this message board to pray over the hurting souls here. It breaks my heart to see the hurt and devastation that is caused by infidelity and divorce having experienced more than you could ever imagine. I feel a deep empathy for those in this situation.

Before this evening I have never read posts from LivinNJesus. I assure you we are not the same person... if you are concerned contact the moderator. I agree with this person's thoughts that he or she has expressed to Confused and I also have followed the principles outlined on restorem.org. Each person's situation is different, and God will answer us and direct us in what is best for our situation and He will never direct us contrary to His word.

I feel the Lord led me to the board tonight to pray for Confused. In my heart I feel that one should put complete trust in the Lord Jesus, for He will direct us in the path we should take.

Confused if you would like prayer I will pray for you.

Tonight, though, I will spend the rest of my evening praying for you, MelodyLane. May God speak to your heart and pour out His spirit on you. Father, I ask for Your blessings upon Melody Lane, let her life be filled with love, peace and the joy of the Lord. Thank You, Jesus.

Melody, Confused and Through,

I'm glad we are able to discuss this openly.

I am glad to meet you through. I would love to hear your testimony too.

At restore ministries in all the marriages that they have dealt with everyone had a restored marriage that followed the Biblical principles and the book I read "How God can and will restore your marriage" is very Biblical. I have tried to disagree with it, disprove it because I did everything backwards. And as of now, I do not have a restored marriage, but a divorce. I am not dating, he is dating (by letters and her visiting him) although he is in a detention center.

The advice I give to Confused is based on my mistakes and hoping she does not make them. After reading the posts on Through, it appears she really applied the Biblical way and God restored.

Both me and Through have said that we "found" out about the other woman. My way I helped God along, even though I was praying for exposure. I still asked questions, went to the buddies, did what it took to find out. I confronted my husband, again I say it did not stop the affair. What good did it do me to confront him and be lied to and still things go on like I have no right, and we were separated.

When the exposure came and I was able to confront and meet the other woman that was so WELL hid from me or right in front of my eyes but not allowed to be shown, if that made sense..for example I go to the home I lived in with my husband to collect child support and the other woman's car is parked down at the neighbors house, I see it tell my husband it's there and to let me past him to the room to meet her and he would not let me past him and kept denying!!! Now I'm not no stick your head in the sand woman...I started hollering..."Why have you not divorced me?" I made sure the other woman would hear the TRUTH no matter what he was telling her and denying to me. His excuse was he had no money to divorce me. Then I hollered, "Everyone says you have had the money to divorce me, do you LOVE her?" LOL...he said "I don't love no one but _______ (our daughter) my youngest." Now the other woman heard, I knew she was there, but he did not allow us to LOOK at each other!! (well she got to peek and look at me cause I didn't know where she was hiding exactly) But I knew she was there! Then I had to walk on out of the house with my child support and not a thing CHANGED! Other than I got to put doubt in the other woman's mind, I got to expose his tricks. But again, what good did it do? She still stayed with him.

Then comes the exposure. I get to meet her. I didn't beat her up, I showed her respect. But I asked ALOT of questions. We had many get togethers. Everyone thought I was insane and had lost my mind, including my husband. She told me all the low down dirty stuff she could tell me too. Good friends said, "Leah your going to get bit in the butt!!"

I did.

The restore ministries principles also warned against talking to the other woman because of how satan uses her as a tool. I didn't heed, I didn't care I wanted truth and I had the "right" to have it.

She tricked me into divorce by making my husband out to be a pervert. Trying to get me to believe he inappropriately spoke of my oldest daughter (look at her on my homepage, she's beautiful). I could NOT take a chance in this kind of talk. She made out that a lot of people saw the attraction he had for her. I acted and then asked questions. After I filed, even believing my daughter that my husband never acted out of line with her or gave her indication of uneasiness, nothing. My daughter respected him and liked him. But I fell in to the other woman's trick and did not come to my senses till the divorce papers were signed. My ex-husband dispised me for believing the other woman. A love buster!!

Here I am regretful that I did not listen to truth, truth that is Biblical. Truth is never never ever popular of fashionable.

Now I plead with God to give me a second chance. Because I believe and have faith that God is able to restore after all this MESS!! He's had to bring me through forgiveness in many and deeper ways I never could have imagined. I prayed to hate my husband. I wanted to hate him so I could get over it and move on and forget him for all he's done. I also found out in my snooping that he cheated all through our relationship and marriage. But God won't let me hate him. God keeps giving me an unconditional love for him and God won't let me forget all the prayers I prayed all through the years, prayers as a wife that did not know he was cheating but praying that he would be a man of God. And here I am today, with a ex-husband in jail because of his "exposure" with the other woman, seeing God work in my ex and bring him into a relationship with Him. I knew I could never ever have my ex back or want him back until he's healed and delivered in Jesus.

I'm questioning God everyday, what to do. Do I hold on for restoration, or just say what the heck, he's a jerk he will never change, he never loved me and he will always cheat on me.

In the meantime of my questions and waiting on God, I know I have things to change and work on, I know I made mistakes in the marriage. Even if we never get back together there is still things that I need to change. My focus in now on living more for God, He's been my provider (no child support since ex is in jail). I am blessed with good friends. I am not ready for another relationship, I don't want one. When my ex is released, then it will be time to see if he can live the life for God that he says he's living. I'm hoping prayer is really being answered here and he is getting right with God.

ThroughHisEyes please tell us about your restoration though. Look how I messed up!! Do you believe like I do that God can still restore my marriage after all my mistakes and divorcing? Or is my head in the sand?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by LivinNJesus:
[QB]
Both me and Through have said that we "found" out about the other woman. My way I helped God along, even though I was praying for exposure. I still asked questions, went to the buddies, did what it took to find out. I confronted my husband, again I say it did not stop the affair. What good did it do me to confront him and be lied to and still things go on like I have no right, and we were separated.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">LivinJesus, no one ever said that confrontation would "stop the affair." It doesn't and no one has claimed such a thing. However, when your spouse is engaging in sinful behavior, it is your obligation to address the spouse, this is a BIBLICAL PRINCIPLE. Opening up a dialogue is the only way to eventual reconciliation. To NOT confront the spouse with it only faciliates evil and works against you.

It is the same with exposure. Exposure is a tried and true method that has very often led to the end of the affair. We see it here every day. It is a Marriage Builders principle that is in no way in contradiction of the Bible.

And it's usually is not smart to confront the OW, except in certain circumstances, so I am not sure why you did that. As you discovered, it got you nowhere.

All in all, the Marriage Builders program is a very successful one, LivinJesus, and I suspect that folks who come here, come to find out about it's principles. But please don't try and mislead new folks into thinking that MB is somehow "unbiblical," that is a false accusation.

oh I hope I did not imply that marriage builders principles are not Biblical. I haven't seen where any principles have implied that. I have not seen anyone on these boards advocate divorce and most on here are compassionate.

I just didn't want confused to feel that she had to confront the other woman, and also I have seen on other posts that another woman has been advised to go where her husband is staying with the other woman and go into her house and talk, etc.

I just wanted to give the example from experience how confronting the other woman is a bad thing and it does not end an affair. Exposure does not always end an affair. I've seen affairs ended when the betrayed spouse stands back, prays and leaves them alone and lets the affair play out with the end result being many consequences like Proverbs 5 and 6 say will happen.

Somehow we have a misunderstanding and I'm not getting it? I apologize. I love these forums. I wish I knew about this place while I was separated and investigating the other woman, etc. I probably would have gotten a lot of feed back from people that can identify. People in person here in my town have not helped much cause It seems I'm the only one in this situation in my community of people I know and go to church with.

Confused I do hope you will study 1 Peter 3 and really try to have that kind of behavior when you do get to see your husband, when he comes around. And let us know if you have checked out the restore ministry website and I do recommend the book "God Can and Will Restore Your Marriage" by Erin Thiele. You will learn how, with God's help, how to have a restored marriage. It will give you a lot of help. And I think ThroughHisEyes would be a good help for you since this person has a restored marraige.

I hope I'm helping and not hurting. Please forgive me if I am.

Love in Jesus,
Leah

PS I do pray for all of us on these forums with hurting marriages, that God will restore for all of us.

Leah, thanks for your post. We had a pretty in depth discussion recently about the value of confronting the OW. We pretty much agreed that it depends on the situation. In some cases it is a harmful waste of time, however, there are often cases where it is so beneficial that it actually helps to end the affair.

Mine was one of those cases. Contacting the OW effectively ended the affair THAT DAY. She had been told he was separated and the knowledge that he wasn't, caused her to end the affair THAT DAY. Harley often counsels folks to confront the OP, with good results. Sure, there are cases where it will backfire, but that is a chance one must take in certain cases.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/forum/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=37;t=034022#000006

<small>[ November 21, 2004, 07:39 PM: Message edited by: MelodyLane ]</small>

Melody, I checked out the other forum on the Other Person, very interesting reading and I think I will join in over there and I encourge Confused to go and read...

Thanks and see you there....

Melody, I checked out the other forum on the Other Person, very interesting reading and I think I will join in over there and I encourge Confused to go and read...

Thanks and see you there....

Melody, I checked out the other forum on the Other Person, very interesting reading and I think I will join in over there and I encourge Confused to go and read...

Thanks and see you there....