"I made it VERY CLEAR to my H that if he DIVORCED me that I WOULD NOT HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH HIM...He came to BELIEVE ME about that and actually FEARED that..."

Yes! I was able to influence my WH to agree to signing a one-year separation agreement instead of the divorce because I refused to agree to have contact with him after the divorce was final. WH assumed, expected, that after the divorce was final he would still get to come over to my home whenever he wanted to, have dinner with us, have me go along with him and kids for visitation, etc. I was adamant that once the divorce was final he would lose me and that NO we could not be 'friends'! I am CERTAIN that my WXH planned on keeping me in his life forever, cake-eating, and if I had agreed he would have ZERO respect for me.

Hi mimi,

I hear you saying what divorce means to you. The choices we make are limited in the scope of their power. We can choose to sever all physical, emotional, social, and legal ties through divorce. However, to me - and this is my personal biblical faith - when we make a covenant... it is not merely a physical, emotional, social, and legal covenant.

It is a spiritual covenant.

It is not merely a covenant between 2 people. It is a covenant with God.

We no longer control the covenant once we enter it as Christians... because it is a lifelong and binding covenant... at a spiritual level.

If the covenant were not so powerful... if God were not greater than us... we could divorce at will as the equivalent of shacking up and moving out. It is the spiritual bond of covenant relationship that wreaks the havoc inside of us... and the reason why divorce is more traumatic than the death of one's spouse.

It's like trying to pull a "rip-cord" to bail out... but the rip-cord is in our hearts... and we can rip at it... but we cannot end the bond inside at a spiritual level. We are merely tearing ourselves and each other apart at our core level inside.

This, also, is why betrayal is so trying a matter.
I have prayed over the matter... I have diligently searched the scripture... and I have also the inward witness of the Holy Spirit revealing this to me.

It is only in the last 350 years that the Christian church has considered the bonds of marriage impermanent... and the institutions of church, marriage, and family have been destroyed... and things are only getting worse, imo.

Understanding that you hold a different position than I do... I still am open to discuss the matter of my Plan A.

If my husband evidences disrespect for me... there is no way that I will have sex with him.

However, if he becomes vulnerable and this is a method of restoration of our love... and I believe the leadership of the Holy Spirit is to proceed... that's different.

I'm not going to judge you either way, mimi.

While we can indeed choose to enter into in a union God forges... this is not a union we can choose of our own human wills to exit at will. Legally -- yes. Spiritually -- no.

It's a covenant. It's permanent between 2 Christians and indissoluble.

It's like if a person chooses to have sex. He/she can choose. But if he/she gets herpes... it's forever.

lol

Oh... just being lighthearted... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />. It's a joke, ppl.

As one great theologian once said, "Lighten up and live!"

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Mimi... the man has been "grounded" for quite some time in a Plan B. He's not had the pleasure of my company for quite some time.

It's not like if there had been no time that he had been put in a corner for being naughty and denied his cake.

He will value the cake... if he has learned his lesson... and is allowed to come out of the "time out" corner to taste the cake... again.

I've done a long Plan B... and it has crushed his spirit. I am not opposed to comforting him in the right dynamics.

And I'm not very good at being a doormat. Never have been. He has paid a very heavy price.

I'm willing to Plan A and restore him... if and only if he learns what side his bread is buttered on.

God bless.

hi,

again, i think there are different variables at work. I have had a long Plan B.

It was never my WS's plan to get stuck with the OW.

He's probly as thirsty as a dry man in the desert... or as hungry as a prodigal in the pigsty right now.

Timing is everything, imo... and why the 2 situations are completely different and mean different things.

Thank you for sharing... your experience may parallel other's... but it's very different from my present circumstances due to my Plan B and my WS need for affirmation and approval... and his EN's met by me.

God bless

It's not God's will that any should perish but all should come to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not God's will that any should engage in premarital sex... yet God does not count our sins against us through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ.

While you may think that threatening, domination, control, disrespectful judgments, etc... can manipulate a person into changing... that's not how we come to truly change.

It is the goodness of God that leads us to repentance.

God does not condemn us. There is no reason to be shackled by sin, shame, and guilt.

God's grace is no license for sin or immorality or sexual sin.

But God calls us, by grace and love, to return to Him.

Our true happiness is found in Jesus Christ.

There is no love outside the holy bonds of matrimony.

And it is love that the heart truly seeks.

I don't think you yet hear, know, or understand what I am saying.

But God bless you and have a great day.

Back:

Are you saying that you would have sex with your X-Husband, even though he is married to another woman now?

If he is married to another woman and you have sex with him, that is adultery.

If he is married to another woman, and has not yet divorced her in order to reconcile with you, then he would be disrespecting you to have sex with you.

You got it, Mere Mortal...

"Our true happiness is found in Jesus Christ."

I totally agree with that Back.

IMHO you may be making a mistake I was stuck in for a long time. I idolized my WH. It has been very hard for me to give up hope that my WXH and I might someday reconcile. I still struggle with false hopes somedays...

It's easy to assume that since you may still feel so strongly in love with your WXH that it is God's will that you someday get back together. I know sometimes people expect God to remove a desire from their hearts, and if the desire does not lessen, they then assume God WANTS them to keep wanting the object of their affection...

I finally came to the realization, after literally YEARS of praying to God to either give me back my husband or else remove my desire for my WXH, that I had made an idol of my WXH. The temptation and desire for my WXH is still there, still a struggle, but now I know it is not God's will for me to want my WXH so much, and that God wants me to lay that desire and temptation down at His feet willingly.

The truth is my WXH is a mere mortal, not a god. And he wasn't even a very good mere mortal and husband anyway. He did not deserve my worship. In fact it was a sin and offense against God for me to place so much importance on trying to keep my WXH.

Now whenever I feel upset or bitter remembering how my WXH chose OW over me, when I remember how rejected and hurt that made me feel, I also think about how analogous that is to how I ignored all the love and companionship I could have had with God during those same days, but I was so focused on wanting my WXH that I failed to accept God's offer of something much better. In effect I was rejecting God for my WH the same way my WH was rejecting me for the OW.

Back, your XH is just a mere mortal and an adulterer.
He is not worthy of your worship.

And besides, he is not even your husband anymore.
You've contorted Christianity to somehow excuse your hope/plan to someday commit adultery with your XH behind his current wife's back. That reveals how important you have allowed your XH to become to you - too important - MORE important than the religion you exploit to justify your sinful agenda.

Let your XH go. Lay him down at God's feet and leave him there. Ask God for forgiveness for the sin of making an idol of your XH.

Mere:



Beautiful!!

I think you what you are saying is really helpful. That was one of the lessons that I learned. I put my H up.. too high on a pedestal..where he didn't even want to be...

Thanks...

Stellar post MM!!! I hope you will c&p it over to the thread Mimi started for Back to make sure she gets the opportunity to read it...I would not have thought of that at all, but I can see so clearly now that you've laid it out like that-WOW, thank you for giving me some much needed understanding there...I believe that would be a very helpful post to Back!

Mrs. W

One thing that I find really confusing is that back's exH is married to his affair partner. Seems then, that his marriage would qualify, as what some would call, an "affairage". So is an affairage a <real> marriage that should be honored? Or not? Is it helping/aiding an affairage to counsel her to back off, or should we be looking for ways to help her break up an unholy union? Divorced is not the same as unmarried, and that's because the bonds of marriage do really outlast the legalities....and back can feel that. Beyond the defensive language, I hear alot of pain. I've heard some of you guys say you understand why a BS might go out and murder the WS and OP.....but you can't understand why one might want to seduce one? I completely agree that planning a seduction is not the plan she needs....but I have great empathy for how hard it is to let your husband go to marry his affair partner when you still long for him.

meremortal....that was a truly beautiful post.

I don't think that falls under the guidelines of MB principles. Perhaps, off site some could help her conspire, if that is within their moral fiber.

This is marriage builders not affairiage destroyers.

It was a rhetorical question ba109. I just find it a bit confusing how to determine which affair marriages should be treated like "affairages" and which aren't. Back is a betrayed spouse who lives in a small town and has to watch her X parade around with his affair partner....I'm just surprised not to seem more understanding about why she might be thinking the things she does. Of course they're not healthy....but infidelity does that to people. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/confused.gif" alt="" />

I would say that the marriage being supported...and no one here has supported the marriage as far as I can see..and her committing adultery are two different things. As far as what Back can feel SF...do you not see the obvious issues with this poster? There is a pathology here that goes far beyond her story...and I emphasize "STORY."
She should not be focusing on breaking up this "unholy union." Her focus should be on improving herself...assuming that even a little of this story is true.
Adultery would occur if she were to sleep with her EX H while he is married to another person...they are in fact legally married. Doesn't make it right...but it is a fact.
If you haven't done so already, i would suggest that you go back and read Back's posts...there are things there that once again point to the board being distracted by a troll.

I know it was rhetorical but it's exactly what back wants from the board.

y'all.....I just think that infidelity can be destabilizing and so painful that BSs often have misdirected desires to get revenge. And I understand that. Obviously, we shouldn't encourage back to put her soul in the same peril as her husband did....but her thoughts are not that bizarre to me. I feel badly for the situation she's in....and I'd like to see more encouragement to try a healthier plan. medc....I read all her stuff already....rather odd....but not completely out of keeping with someone who's been betrayed so horribly and not yet healed.

Star:

I started the other thread because I truly wanted to try to help her and she saw the thread as being slanderous and started focusing on the motives of the forum members.

I was encouraging her to do PLAN B rather than the plan she was concocting to do "PLAN A".

mimi,

I know your motives, because I know you better....but if I were back....the way you worded your first post would probably have upset me too. And then she asked nicely for you to remove the word "Ho" and you wouldn't. I'm not asking you to remove it....I'm just saying I understand why she would be unlikely to believe your motives were to "help" her....because in her place....I wouldn't believe it either.

I made the change, Star. It was the RIGHT thing for me to do.

Hi StarFish,

This has been one of my greatest fears over the years:

"but I have great empathy for how hard it is to let your husband go to marry his affair partner when you still long for him."

I know that if my WXH ever marries again I will have a very rough time with that!

But I also know that I will continue no contact with my WXH (as much as is possible) and I certainly would not have sex with him to try to seduce him away from his new wife.

I do get the part about a marriage resulting from adultery not being a real marriage in the biblical sense - that it will always be an adultery. I don't think of those marriages as fully valid either.

And once during Plan A I did have sex with my WH, but he was still my husband, had not divorced me yet. And wanting to break up WH's adultery with the OW was a major factor in why I did it too. But I did tell my WH that once the divorce was final he would no longer have me in his life, even as a friend. WH was SO SURE that he would always get to keep me too, that I would not even date an OM let alone remarry.

Maybe in Back's case her WH has not expressed such an attitude of entitlement? Maybe he never tried to push any boundaries she set up around herself or insist on cake-eating? I think I got some encouragement from my WH's stubborness about thinking he would never lose me. At least I had the feeling that he still wanted me too, not just the OW. I could set boundaries up around myself, raise the price for admission back into my life, inform my WH that he could not have me cheap or as some sort of accessory to his OW. My WH's desire for me gave me something to work with in order to break up the adultery.

Maybe back suspects when/if her WH expresses desire for her again he won't be willing to dump/divorce the OW for her, that she can't afford to withhold sex from him if he wants it? I don't know. I just think she'd be settling and doing something immoral herself. I agree that marriage of adulterers is not something sacred but doing something so self-denigrating and unredeeeming just to break up that adulterous marriage is going too far IMHO.

But from my perspective, whether or not it would be right or wrong, it would just be sad and pathetic. I have felt pretty low and rejected at times through this but I insist on certain boundaries and respect for myself so I would never consider having sex with my WXH unless he somehow convinced me to remarry him! And of course that would mean he would be free to marry - not already married to an OW.

I believe that a willingness to go THAT far in order to break up an adulterous 'marriage' is an indication of too low self-esteem and too high of an opinion of hte adulterous XH. Even if such a drastic act managed to break up the adulterous marriage (instead of just allowing the XH to cake-eat) he would still be an adulterous, unrepentent wayward. Why would the BW want him back in such a state?

I agree with every single word you've written MM. I still understand that infidelity can make a person feel crazy enough to do harmful things. It's so destructive to self esteem....that I don't think it's unusual at all for a betrayed spouse to entertain these thoughts. Back needs to hear logical arguments like the one you've provided so that she can see beyond her pain. I just can't remember a BS getting hammered so badly for wanting revenge....a perfectly normal reaction really. I don't agree with what she plans to do at all, and hopefully she'll rethink this....but I don't think she's terrible for thinking it.