As you are aware, my niece left her husband and three little kids last week to meet with her "spiritual soul mate" in another state. After four or five days she returned home. But she is not committed to the marriage. The problem is a spiritual one... she was raised in a fairly fundamentalist Christian home and her husband is the pastor of a Christian church in the fundamentalist blend.

I think she may just be realizing that she is not a fundamentalist at heart and to be who she is meant to be means leaving everything and everyone behind so she can "find herself." She has been very depressed for a long time.... been on meds. It's not helping apparently.

The OM is part of the Unity church (which many people think is no church at all, particularly not Christian). My niece wants to join that church, and feels that she married her husband 10 years ago for all of the wrong reasons. Yeah, I know, heard it all before. Standard WS fog-speak.

She would go to marriage counseling, but not a Christian counselor. And they have ZERO money because the church her husband pastors is a start-up church and he works a second job on the side.

Does anyone know a solid, MB-based counselor in the Atlanta, GA, area who might have compassion on this couple and charge them very little to counsel?

I am just sick to my stomach over this. It brings back so many bad memories. My nephew-in-law (NIL) has decided to love his wife unconditionally (sounds like a Plan A to me).... but they have to get outside help. And soon.

Any and all advice is greatly appreciated. And for prayer warriors of any faith out there: PLEASE PRAY!

~ Snow

Snow-

Tell her to fix one problem at a time. It's taken a long time to let things get as bad as they are right now, and there is no 'quick fix' for any of this. Running to the OM won't solve any of the issues, won't make her happy and no longer depressed...because in truth, the 'problem' is inside of her, and that goes with her when she leaves. It will still be with her no matter where she goes. So her only solution is to fix the problem, THEN decide about leaving or not.

I had this exact same conversation with my wife almost a year ago today...about OUR situation.

Right now, she needs to start the first steps in the MB plan...NO CONTACT. She needs to be convinced that the only way she can focus on making the changes in her life that she needs to make is with NO outside influences...that especially means the OM!!

I told my wife that if after we've taken all the steps we need to make to fix and work on things, and she's given it her best effort, and she STILL has to be with the OM, then I'd give up and end our marriage. Guess what...we're still together. Once she finally got out of the fog, and the withdrawl, there was no need for the OM.

She needs to get to counseling, for her depression at least. She should be evalutated by her doctor, and he should determine if a change in her meds may be needed. Even if she wasn't depressed before, she will be NOW after all that has gone on!

Have her work out the issues with her family first. And then work and look at the issues with her faith...if they still exist. And have her start talking with her H about what has been lacking in the M all these years, what lead up to this.

Once the withdrawl has started to fade out, THEN they should start looking at MC. It won't do much good at this point, as she'll not be willing to see her part in things until after that's started to clear out.

Hang in there!

Thanks, Owl. You are right... until the fog lifts MC won't do much good. I'll try to get a message to her about working on the marriage first, then spiritual things secondly. But in her mind it is all reversed. She has to get out of the marriage in order to get set straight spiritually (I know, how twisted!!!) And she doesn't want to talk to either me or my FWH right now because she knows we are pro-marriage (which is interpreted in her mind right now as being against her and biased toward Christianity.)

She was seeing a psychologist just before she left. Fooled him into thinking she was all better and the depression was gone and she didn't need to come anymore. I doubt she ever told him about her "soul mate." I still suspect she might be bi-polar (runs in our family) but that would be just another layer on top of all of this. That would explain a lot of the going between two extremes so rapidly (I can't believe I did this... I have to leave ... I can't believe I thought that ... I have to leave). It seems more extreme to me than the usual withdrawal. Of course, she is probably still in contact so withdrawal might not even have begun.

~ Snow

Snowbelle,

You are out here somewhere on MB and the people who really need the help - your Nephew-in-law and niece are not here.

We are pulling on some long strings - without seeing where they go.

With that in mind, here are my "observations".

If she was brought up in a very religious family, then her husband would certainly be regarded by her as "an authority figure", because he is a pastor. But meanwhile, he still has to be a husband - and I suspect they have been not singing from the same songbook for a long time - because she cannot challenge him. He, meanwhile, is busy trying to play the role of pastor - forgetting his humility and humanity - leading to him being perhaps not a very attentive or aware or sensitive husband. Maybe the Catholics are right - and pastors shouldn't be married.

If her husband is to have any chance, he's got to take off his pastor hat and put on his humble husband hat - and listen to her - without judgement. I'm not sure what his particular denomination teaches, but just in case it's heavy on judgment and light on mercy, that would be a problem. If he cannot listen to her - really listen to her - without saying, "but the Bible sez so-and-so" in the middle of her every sentence, then he will lose this battle. She knows what the Bible says. She needs a husband who is attentive to her real needs - to her as a real person - not a stereotyped "good Christian woman".

BTW. I was brought up in a good Christian home - and am very grateful for it. I'm all for building Christian families. But I also see that some people get out of control when they start speaking for God. Let God speak for himself. As I read it, the message is Mercy, Grace, Forgiveness - and even a "man of God" must put on humility first.

It may be best for him to find a fill-in pastor for awhile, give up his role as pastor - and just focus on working his other job and taking care of his family. I'm sure your neice doesn't need the bright lights and attention and gossip of the church right now. She needs genuine friends who care about her.

-AD

I ran into the same problem with my wife when she was still in the A, Snow. She refused to listen to anything that the kids or I had to say about the whole situation...I had THOUGHT that she might listen to her sister, so I actually called the OM and got him to ask her to talk with her sis...wife got mad at me because her sister "has always been jealous of our marriage"...ROFL...talk about an alienism!!!

All you can really do at this point is to fight to end the contact...that and prayer are the first two steps. End the contact, let her go through the withdrawl, and Plan A....I didn't know about MB, or any of this last year, but it's really what I did to save my marriage. Don't even bother trying to talk to her about 'issues' right now...do that once the withdrawl starts to clear.

AD,

Thanks for your observations... they match up pretty closely with my own. I just don't know what to do with them and I am not much at being an observer.

I think her husband is doing all he can do and has made great efforts to change the way he treated her.... paying more attention to her needs, helping more with the kids, trying to be home more. I'm at too much of a distance to know if he's acting too pastoral and not "husband" enough, but my sister said he is trying very hard and just loving my niece. Dang! I wish they would come here.

Owl,
I am not even sure she is in withdrawal. Not even sure contact has really been broken. She just says she shouldn't have married her husband and hasn't made the right choices all along. Who am I to tell her she's wrong on this? Maybe she's right -- maybe she shouldn't have married NIL. But a wrong decision won't be made right by abandoning the family she freely chose to have with NIL.

I need an aspirin. Thanks for the continued support.

~ Snow

You don't tell her that she is wrong about marrying your NIL...but you DO tell her that at the moment, she's so stressed out and confused because of the EA and involvement of the OM that she can't KNOW if she made a mistake or not. Quote my case, quote all the others that you've seen here on MB.

Tell her that if she HAS married the wrong person, then she CAN fix it. But if she does it now, she'll ALWAYS have doubts as to whether or not she truly gave it a chance. What she needs to do is to follow the appropriate steps to end contact with OM, and work on her M. If after she's done that, and it's STILL not working...THEN end it with her H.

Any update, Snow?

Bump...hoping to hear an update on this Snow. Been praying for your family.

Thanks, Owl. The sitch isn't good. My niece left her family again and is now with OM for "at least two weeks" when I guess she hopes she'll have enough information to make her choice.

I texted her this afternoon and I would love to talk with her but I don't think she'll call me. She knows FWH and I have been down this road but I think she thinks it is different in her case because God has put her and OM together. Funny. She doesn't know it, but my husband thought that what he was doing was Okey dokey with God, too.

I just wish I could talk to her. I told her that no matter what she decides I will still love her. And that is true. I am just very worried about her and there isn't much I can do to help her from far away, especially if she doesn't want my help.

Thanks for asking for the update. How are things with you?

~ Snow

Owl, what you wrote last week.... this is what I wish I could tell her if she would only call me....


This is what is on my heart. I hope she will call.

~ Snow

I'm VERY sorry to hear this, Snow. I know that my wife felt like God had put the OM in her life 'for a reason'. She thought that reason was so that she could be happy with him. She's realized since that it was so that we could repair our marriage and be happier with each other.

Send her an email with what I said in it. The idea is to get the seed of that idea planted, and hope that it will grow while she's off in la-la land with OM. Because eventually, the shiny new feeling will wear off and she'll find herself just as miserable and unhappy with OM as she was with her H. And all we can do right now is to hope and pray that it happens before it hits the point of no return.

My family and I are doing fine. My oldest kids graduated high school last nite, and it was awesome to share that with my wife. It occurred to me last nite how wonderful that was. Last year, she was looking forward to being at this event with OM (and actually, figured that I would be there too...she seemed to think we'd be some kind of big happy three way family...she'd hoped that we'd still be friends through all of this...sheesh! LOL). But last nite she was very happy with how the entire day went...and it was spent with ME!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

That's great owl! I am so glad for you and your family... that you are together to celebrate life's wonderful events. You said your "two" oldest graduated? Twins? My two oldest, twins, graduated last year and their sister is up to bat next week (just had her last day in high school today!). Life sure flies fast, doesn't it? Now if it wasn't for that little middle-schooler of ours H and I would almost be empty-nesters!!!!

~ Snow

LOL...well a little known secret about me for ya. I have two sets of twins. Read again...four teenagers, two birthdays. The second set will graduate in a couple of years.

Congratulations on your family as well my friend!

Two sets?! Having the twins and their sister 18 months apart was bad enough. If she had been a set, I think I would be certifiably insane by now. My hat is off to you and your wife. You rock!

LOL...so I guess now it would make sense when I tell you that the issues that really lead up to my wife's EA actually weren't about me...they were about the family stress, and how we dealt with it. That, combined with untreated depression is what started her talking with the OM, and of course, the risk of talking about your R issues with an opposite sex friend...

You get the picture. Good news is that it won't be but a few more years and we'll be in the empy nesters category ourselves! LOL

Bingo on all counts, Owl. I am blessed with a family full of ADHD people and stress is the norm, not the occassional situation, in our house! When husband was looking for an apartment in another state to go join OW #1 I told him to make sure it had two bedrooms cuz he was taking at least two kids with him!!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

He quit looking. The rest is history.

~ Snow

I'm still praying that your niece will somehow 'come to her senses' sometime soon, my friend. It is so easy for me to see myself in her husband's shoes, given what I went through. I hope that you're able to drop her an email or something to help get a message through to her.

Did you and your family learn more about the OM yet?

Hi Owl,

I talked with another niece this morning who has been in touch with my WW niece a lot via phone. We have a family wedding this weekend and my niece is in for that so we were able to talk a long time and go out to lunch and talk some more. I didn't get much work done today!

WW niece is staying with OM, of course, but she had been thinking about attending the wedding and was asking her cousin for tips on how to "face the family." She isn't coming now anyway, but I told niece this morning if WW niece tries to change her mind, talk her out of it. Nothing good could come of it. The issues began many years ago and they started long before WW niece even knew her husband. I think my WW niece is just now beginning to form her own set of beliefs and needs to break away from her mom... and her husband in her eyes is an extension of her mother. It is a very complicated mess and since my sister will be here this weekend, and my father will likely find out this news for the first time, I think it is best WW niece stay put for now. Opinions are vociferously "shared" in our family and this is part of WW niece's problem, I think... She wants to stand on her own two feet and be heard. But when she gets up the nerve to speak out, her immediate family basically tells her she's gone off the deep end and they quote scripture to bring her "back to the fold."

It's not working. It is antagonizing the situation. WW niece may very well be relating to God on a very personal level for the first time and when she tries to share that she gets shut down because of the OM sitch, but also because her "version" of relating to God is somewhat different than that of her fundamentalist family. From where I sit, she just needs to separate the two issues: her walk with God and her unholy friendship with OM. Keep the one, get rid of the other.

The OM has no wife or kids or anything. He works -- a lot -- and WW niece knows he's not perfect. But the thing it, he relates to her. He TALKS to her for pity sakes... something her own husband has not been real good at (hmmm... sounds like something I've read someplace... oh, yeah, His Needs, Her Needs!).

She now has the emotional tie she so desires to have with her husband, it just happens to be with this guy who shared with her that she didn't have to try to live up to the perfect Christian pastor's wife if that was not who she was and God would love her anyway.

Who wouldn't love that? The depression my WW niece suffered under began to lift and now she doesn't want to go back to that. And who could blame her? But she misses her kids.

The niece I had lunch with is trying to get WW niece to cut ties with OM, but also move out and get some space between her and her husband, and mom, so she can sort things out. Given the circumstances I think that is sound advice, but WW niece and NIL have little money to pull this off. And NIL is placing time demands on her ("you must do this by such-and-such date....") Again, not working. Too soon for tough love, in my opinion. Plan A is what is called for. Plan A, Plan A, Plan A. When NIL engages as though in Plan A my WW niece is optimistic. Then he falls back into those demands and WW niece is back to being unseen and unheard.

So at lunch we discussed it some more and my brother (who went to lunch with us) offered for WW niece to come up to where we live, bring the kids if she wants, and stay with him for a month. This would be ideal because this brother's wife is a very gentle, loving soul who ministers to people in crisis all the time. It's a gift she has. I have wanted WW niece to somehow get in touch with this particular SIL of mine thinking that she will validate her feelings and help her sort them out without becoming a romantic link like OM has become.

My niece said she would give WW niece a call and suggest this option to WW niece. My brother told niece to tell her that if she wants, she doesn't even have to tell anyone she's here, just that she is safe. I said if she brings the kids she will have to tell her husband where she is going. No way would I let my kids out of my sight if I were him.

I think my FWH and myself might be a negative in WW niece accepting this offer from my brother because we live nearby. So I am going to tell niece to relay to her that she doesn't even have to let ME know she's here and FWH and I will not interfere. I hope she will take this chance. I really think it could be so good for her.

Meanwhile, my brother and I hope to get our sister (WW niece's mom) over to my brother's house tomorrow after she gets in town for the wedding. We hope to gently discuss some of the very valid issues WW niece has in hopes that my sister can see that she needs to take her mom hat off and back off a bit. This is not going to be easy, I assure you.

Ack! I see I've gone on and on. I hope you get the picture. If you are the praying type, please pray that WW niece will come to my brother's house and be ministered to by his lovely wife. That would be huge.

~Snow

Well, I'll pray that God work His will in this situation, and that it works out the way that He wants it to. That way, it works out the best possible way that it can!

It sounds to me like you're taking the right track on this. Not too much pressure. At the same time, she DOES need to know what the consequences of her choice to remain with the OM will be.

It was THAT conversation that finally led my wife to start thinking for the first time in our situation. She had moved out of the house and was living in a motel for 4 days, and was scheduled to get on the plane that Friday nite to go be with OM. I didn't sleep at all on Thursday...and prayed and prayed. And I got an answer...I knew what I was supposed to do. I got dressed in some of my nicest clothes, threw on some cologne, shaved, and drove to the motel where my wife was staying. (she had no idea that I knew where she was or what flight she was supposed to be on)

At 7AM that morning, I called her cell phone, and asked her to do me a favor. I asked her to answer her door...then I knocked. LOL...scared the heck out of her at first, but it woke her up, and we sat down to our first real face to face discussion since I'd found the proof of the EA.

We talked civilly the whole time. But I also made it VERY clear to her what would happen if she got on the plane. I told her that everything up to this point was possible to be worked through...but the moment she got on the plane, our marriage was over.

If she left, it not only would end our marriage, but our friendship too. Because she would have betrayed both. I told her that our kids would have to decide which of us they would want at which events in their lives, because if she gave herself to another man, I'd NEVER forgive her. That I would NEVER want to be with her again. And if she was ever foolish enough to bring the OM near me, it would be a horrible mistake.

And I got very specific about the events. The graduation ceremonies that my oldest two just went through, marriages they would have, etc... I made it clear that she was going to destroy us as a family if she left and chose him.

And for the first time, she SAW that. It finally sank in to her what she was doing to herself, the kids, and me. At least it started to. Up to that point, she had completely ignored everything the kids and family and I had said to her.

But right when it started to sink in, and she wasn't sure what to do, OM called. And he could hear the indecision in her voice, and he told her not to come to him.

That was the end. It took a few more months for the withdrawl and everything else to work out, but that was really the end of her fantasy.

I will pray that something similar happen in your situation my friend. That God will open her eyes and her heart to what's going on, and show her what she needs to do. And that she'll find the strength to do the right thing.