We have been married 3 years since March 12. This is both our 2nd marriage. We have 2 children each from our 1st marriage, ages 7-12. During these years I have done bad things to hurt us: lying, manipulation, unfaithfulness, passive-aggressive behavior, but the worst thing I did in my mind was taking a passive non-involving role in our marriage. I never had sex with, lunches with, or meetings with any other women. I do have hard limits on this type of hurt. I knew that the way I was treating her was not right but I could not seem to change. Because I choose not to take things seriously. In February I decided that we should separate so I could seriously work on my issues. She agreed. A few days after I moved out she called me and said she was filing for divorce that I was never there for her. She tried multiple times over the years to tell me there were problems and they needed action. She even posted to this site in January under the name betrayed_deborah. However, my passive behavior choose not to take action. When she said she was going to divorce me, I felt my whole world shattered. I love my wife and value what we have. We have overcome many obstacles over the years. I feel in every persons life, there comes a time in a person’s life where they look deep into there character and their mistakes in the past and decide to take a stand to turn their life around at all cost. I have made this choice. I can not change the past but I am in charge of my future and I am responsible for the decisions I make. I have made a choice that I will NEVER take such a non-loving role in my marriage or hurt anybody like I did my wife. For the first time in my life I feel such strong conviction and commitment to cast out negatives in my life, put away childish things, take responsibility for my actions, and refuse to feel like a victim. The more I learn from reading book by Harley and others; I see what a special person I have as my wife and do not want to lose her.

On the negatives: she is running personal ads and is actively dating. Needless to say seeing a personal ad with my wife’s picture drives a stake right through my heart. Everything I say to her she perceives as a lie and when I try to talk heart to heart to her she rolls her eyes at me and walks away.
On the positives: Although she has told me on several occasions she was filing the papers “this week” she has not yet done so and considers herself separated and dating. She has not asked for my key to our house. The week I was going to sign a 13month apt lease she called me and ask me “what if in 6 months I want to revisit our relationship and you are in a long term lease” I took that to heart, changed my plans and am getting a 6 month lease. We talked a few weeks ago and she told me that she was so mad at me for doing this to her and that she hates the dating process that she just wants to be a wife and do wife things that it will take years to get back to the level she needs. I still make sure the utilities are paid and do small jobs around the house for her.


The advice I am seeking is how I make deposits to an overdrawn love bank at a distance. I want to show her that I am committed to our marriage but I do not want to push her emotionally as that will make the situation worse. How can I remotely rebuild her feelings of trust, love and desire for me I keep prayerful faith that this will make our marriage stronger and that it will last forever…..if we can recover.

Well after having read your story, and being that I know how your wife feels, I thought that I could give you an insight of how our hearts really do feel and not what the devil is saying through us~

I am not one to I guess say much being that I am only 18 year old, but one thing I can say is that I have been through enough~ I was on my own from 15 on out and I met my now husband of almost a year and married him at 17~ He was 21 at the time so we are a good 4 years apart~ I was looking for love in all the wrong ways~ I even slept with more than 2 other men while dating Robert (My now Husband)~ He was almost like a father more than a lover~ We met when I was almost 17 and we started to fall in love~ He fell hard for me and me being so hurt and lost from my past, I knew love was there but to understand and respect it, I had no idea what I had~ I took for granted this wonderful man who swept me off my feet~ He saw me for so much more than I even knew I was~ He loved me and for that, what I have done to him even though not married at the time I sinned, I now pay dearly~

He has been deployed twice since we have been together and soon to be a third~ June 1st, 2004 ...my husband and I were married and not more than a week later, God called him to Iraq~ Having done what I had done on his last deployment when I cheated and lied to him, he was hesitant on leaving me for he was still very hurt and had a lot of resentment he never showed but felt~ I was starting to grow and understand but yet still blind, I found myself eager to strive to learn how to become a godly wife~ Having been in the past a born again Christian, I married Robert unequally yoked for he was raised Roman Catholic~ I still went and purchased Christian books on being the best wife I could be~ I went and bought window (red, white, and blue) chalk and wrote all over my car, "Support our Troops....and....Just married, I love you~" Although he was gone and I was left behind, I felt so strongly on being there for him 150% this time~ Well you would think since I started to work so hard to change, things would for us as well~ That’s when it began all over again~ Someone had called the Air Force and said I was cheating on him as well as doing drugs and much more~ All of this was not true and it hurt me very much to get phone calls from his and my parents asking me why I would do these things and how much they resented me for them~ I pleaded with them to listen to me and understand that whoever called and said those things was lying and I was sorry for anything that was misunderstood~ That's when Robert called me one night a few days later almost in tears asking me if I was cheating on him and doing this all over again~ I was so angry at all of it so I told him of coarse I wasn't cheating on him and how could he accuse me of all of those horrible lies~ I snapped and told him that if he wanted to believe all of those lies then I wanted a break/separation so he could realize the truth and so I could regroup with myself~ I told him I wasn't sure I loved him~ BIG MISTAKE because I did~ This crushed him more than I will ever know and they took his gun away from him because he was in such a bad emotional state~ He wanted to just die he told me and cried asking and begging me to reconsider~ He said over and over how much I meant to him and how he did not want to loose me~ Well all I could think about was getting as far away from him and the world as I could~ And the truth was that all I really wanted was to hold him in my arms and fall asleep together once again~ But I took my car and drove for two days down to California~ I lived with my cousin for a month until Robert came home~ Through that long month, I felt free, happy and then it hit me like a ton of bricks~ I'm not a young girl anymore in high school~ I was a married woman who loved her husband for the first time in her life~ I felt so lost but then found~ But still the truth remained that I may have felt like it was time to start our marriage when Robert had broke down to the bottom of the cliff and was so hurt and devastated that he no longer wanted to fight to save our marriage~ I at the time did not realize what damage I had done and figured he would always be there~ Well I arrived a day later from when Robert returned home off a plane, I walked off to find my husband standing there whom I did not know anymore~ I was glowing from having my final break before I settled into being a wife~ He saw the outer beauty but his heart saw inner betrayal~ Now 7 months later, here I stand 6 months pregnant and broken hearted~ The man I love more than anything has now lied and betrayed me~ There is a difference between cheating on him before we were married and him cheating on me and committing adultery after we had been married but still I do not blame him for what he has done~ My heart is torn to pieces for now I love a man who no longer can find the love he once felt for me~ He looks at me now and I do not know this man~ I do not know the father of my child and every night and day, the memories of the hurt and pain I caused him cut like a knife in my heart~ I Pray to God for forgiveness but for what I have done to this once full of life and wonderful man, I can never forgive myself~ I can only leave God to that~ As I speak, my husband wants a separation and eventually a divorce yet he feels still a love for me that his heart does not trust nor could for a long time until he can learn to forgive me and heal from what I have done~ I myself will be alone to have our baby girl for he will be deployed once again~ I think he is using this as the final test and still is not sure even if I am there for him 150%, if the pain will ease and he could find the love that I stole from him~ I am young, but I hurt more and more knowing that I placed this all on myself~ And no matter if he cheated on me after I had finally committed to loving him, for the rest of my life and after marriage, I will love him and take the blame for what has happened~ I pushed away the man I loved and will love forever~ The man I will never get over until I die~ And I feel hurt and crushed by what he has done, yes, but I am more hurt on the memories of him on his knee's in tears in front of me~ From this day forward, for the rest of my life....I will be committed to him and if not him, then after divorce whoever God sends into my daughters and my life, I will love, honor, and obey~ As God for my father and my first love in my life, he will forgive me and give me the strength to move on and become the best mother I can be with or without Robert~
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Wow I really wish my wife could show emotion like that. Parts of your story reimnd me of mine (only from the male side). I was 19 and had never been in love, she was 15 and getting over a "boy" that had really let her down. Here I am 8 years later married to my first love and in the process of getting divorced. I do not want it to happen untill I know that we have done everything we can to save us. You love him dearly as I hope my wife loves me. Despite her affairs and lies I have found it in my heart to forgive. If I can find that Your husband can to. I hope everything works out for you and good luck.