Please pray for a miracle to happen in my marriage. I have been married 17 years to Steve and have two teenage daughters. He left me two months ago unexpectedly at a church camp. After I confronted him about smelling perfume on his clothes he ended up confessing an affair with a women at work that he has been seeing for a year. He says he is in love with her. Well two days after the affair was exposed he moved back home and said he will never see her again. He was home three weeks and I confronted him with a phone bill that said he was still talking to her. He left again saying he is never coming back and will be filing for a divorce. He has now been gone two weeks and insists he is not seeing her and calls me most days to talk. He wants nothing to do with reconciliation but says he can't deal with thinking about a divorce since he is "homeless" and needs to focus on finding a place to live. He says he sleeps in a chair at work. Please pray for a miracle in Steve's heart. He is a christian and is very confused. He now says he loves me but not the way a husband should love a wife. I have read the book surviving an affair but don't know what to do since he claims he is NOT seeing her but doesn't want to talk about reconciliation with me.

Dear Pray2day,<BR>Please take to heart what Dr. Harley says in his book. He knows what he's talking about. Right now it's true. Your husband does love you and loves the other woman. He is very torn and confused. Like the book says, it's like an addiction and even if he tells you he will break it off, it's take more than words. It takes time and going through withdrawel. My husband was so down for a long time and did go back to her a few times before he could break things off permantly.<BR>I was so thankful for that book. Everything I read in it was right on the money. I found out that my husband was having an affair with a coworker for 3 years before he con-fessed. Please don't judge me for how long it took me to discover it. There's ALOT more to that story. <BR>I had to let him leave and make up his mind. He found out life with her wasn't all he thought it would be because he knew I was even more concerned about his salvation and how he'd ever be able to rationalize God's truth that NO MAN must seperate us. A Judge in the court that is.<BR>I'll be praying for you. What ever you do, don't give up. God does care and is faithful to us.<BR>In Christ, <BR>ONTHEMEND

Thank you for your response. It is good to know there is hope. I go from being hopefull to hopeless every time I talk to him. <P>I have been advised to minimize my contact with him and will begin screening my phone calls. It is so hard because I want him to call but then when he does I get angry and hurt again.<P>I think the hardest part is him saying he has not seen her but he wants a divorce. He says he knows it will never work out with her. I do not believe that he lives in his office at work when she lives right down the road from where he works. I also do not believe he is by himself week after week and never comes by to see his daughters. It is so hard to know that he continues to lie after the affair is out in the open. I have said just be honest. <P>What did you do when your husband left? What worked to bring him back home? Did he quit his job?<P>Thanks again for your continued prayer!<BR>Pray2Day

I'd like to take the credit for his return but it was the Lord's doing. He has a plan for each of us on this site and no one knows what the circumstances will be for bringing our spouses back to us or when it will happen.<BR>I find it hard to talk about the details now because he's not that same person I knew when he was having the affair.<BR>He was totally controlled by Satan and was so cruel and lied to everyone. Even his family and friends. He even lied to his lifetime friend. They cannot be honest even to themselves. He was sincere in saying he was done with her.<BR>But trying to live it out was another story.<BR>It was fortunate for me that she decided the grass was greener on the other side and started seeing other men. You'd think that would have done it for my H but he just rationalized that she only did that because she believed he wasn't going to divorce me and she did divorce her husband of 9 years. Although she didn't divorce him on account of my husband. Her and him had other problems.<BR>So no, my husband didn't quit his job. Although I did take Dr. Harleys advice seriously and told him he needed to transfer to another postal office away from her. But it never got to that point because he came home one day in the pits of all pits that she refused to even say hi or acknowledge him anymore. He thought they should at least be say Hi when they saw each other but she drew her line. She was hurt too in that he kept riding the fence with her. We were married 24 years by the time I found out. My youngest son had graduated in June and was 18 that year, my oldest was 20 and moved out of the house to live with a buddy. He couldn't take the fighting anymore. In October of that year he finally confessed to it and told me it'd been going on for 3 years! You have no idea how relieved I was to hear that! It made everything I went through make sense! The Lord led me to Dr. Harley's book and his book helped me piece everything my H had been putting me through me make sense! He was extremely verbally abusive and it got to be so excessive and extreme I wanted to do away with myself. But the Lord reminded me that He would rather I left him than to do that. And the Lord also taught me that when I'm feeling that way it is Satan making me feel worthless and I've learned to recognize him when he's speaking. But my H got so tired of hurting me because he really did love me in many ways. <BR> I just kept in God's Word and kept trying to do what Dr. Harley calls his Plan A. Although I didn't know that was what I was doing.....it was just my only way to survive. I drew close to the Lord and focused on Him and on what I could do to improve ME. I BELIEVED what God said in his Word that divorce was not God's Best. That He hated divorce and He convicted me that I had not really trusted Him for our relationship in the past and I suffered for 24 plus years because of it and so I certainly didn't want to repeat 24 more years of that! I was determined to trust Him for as long as it took to heal our relationship. We will be married 27 years this coming January and I am looking forward to this one!<BR>The Lord has done many miracles in him since that time. In fact I had remarked that the Lord was working better in Him than in me!!!! Praise God! Don't get me wrong He's working in me too especially lately. I think He realizes I'm strong enough now to take the discipline and criticism of my ways and THE LORD is gently pointing out my short comings NOT my Husband. In fact that's a big difference in our relationship now. My husband is no longer putting me down or verbally abusive. He's so loving now! He doesn't even bring up the things he had against me while he was having and affair. Those were just things he used to justify his reasons for the affair.<BR>We never have discussed a plan on how to prevent an affair happening again. We have both just put it behing us and are instead talking about Christian programs he listens to in his Postal jeep while delivering his mail. He is learning so much. And they have really been hitting on people staying true to their marriage vows.<BR>Sorry for going on so long. To answer your question again, in OUR case their was no reason for him to quit or transfer because the Lord helped him break away from her. It was over. And it had to be his decision to WANT to come back.<BR>It's not in our hands. <BR>I have prayed for her and for her husband as well. I have never met her or seen her face. I guess the Lord thought that was best too. It does make it easier. But I think about how wonderful it would be if she would come to know the Lord one day as well. She was just being used as Satan's instrument as well and I'm sure she wasn't the person her husband once knew as well. <BR>You will recognize Satan easily in every wayward spouse this site talks about. They all have those same traits! It's uncanny really!<BR>So just keep reading God's Word and draw close to Him and reread Dr. Harleys book he is full of wisdom. I will pray for you and your husband. Keep posting others have so much more wisdom and are much more committed to responding than me. I just felt led by the Lord to respond to you this morning before I left for work. I saw it was your fist time posting and didn't want you to go another minute thinking you're alone going through this or that no one cares. We all do!<BR>Be patient and always keep hope. God is the God of hope!<BR>He just wants us to "Be still and know that I am God"<BR>Take care and keep posting!<BR>ONTHEMEND<P>

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I was so encouraged by your testimony and when I got to the bottom of your letter and you quoted the scripture to "Be still and know that I am God." I started to cry. That is the scripture God has given me over and over. It is one that is so hard to put into practice though. Yes there is hope in God and I appreciate your encouragement to remain hopeful. You were also the only response I have gotten to my posting.<P>I did have some victory today for the first time in two months. My husband calls on the telephone almost every day just to say hi and tell me about his search for a place to live or discuss finances. I think he makes the lamest excuses to call but I always end up very depressed when we hang up. He never mentions wanting to reconcile and never asks to see our two teenage daughters. <P>So, after reading several books and talking to my counselor I have decided to not answer his calls. Today when I saw his phone number on my caller ID I just let the answering machine get it. He again left a message of just calling to say "Hi" and tell you "I love you, guys" and "I'm OK". What a victory that was for me to not go reaching for the phone to get my crumb of attention from him for the day. He sounded very down and I hope he starts to realize what a "divorce" will really mean. <P>I don't want a divorce and I am hoping that by not sharing my every feeling and asking for him to come home or inviting him for dinner, giving him groceries to take with him and even letting him wash his dirty laundry at my home that this will make him realize what a mistake he is making. <P>The worst part of this is the other woman is a Budist. I have not meet her but talked to her on the phone a few weeks ago. At that time she assured me she had made a mistake and has not seen him in weeks. My husband who had come home to reconcile said she was lying and scared to tell me she had just been with him the night before. I do not believe either of them now. I am positive their affair is still going on. Why else would he leave his family and claim to be sleeping in his office chair for the last two weeks. <P>Continue to pray for a miracle in my husbands heart. He says he "Loves the Lord" but his behavior is obviously not of God. He also blames me for what he has done and continues to justify his leaving me because he doesn't love me anymore. I don't believe this either. Why would he call and tell me he loved me and write me cards during the three weeks he was home and going to counseling with me, dating me and then when I found the phone bill with "her" number on it he left.<P>I do pray for this womans salvation but I also pray for her to tell him to go home. This is what she was telling him when he left the first time two months ago. She kept telling him to go home to your wife but kept sleeping with him. <P>Keep in touch and I am so happy for you to have your husband home and loving God!! My pray is that I will be able to share a testimony like yours someday.<P>God Bless,<BR>Pray2Day

ONTHEMEND,<P>Your post gave me great hope too. I too had wandered from the Lord in the 2 years I was married. Everything just became too busy, and I just kept on making excuses like that until God wasn't a part of my life. Unless I was in some dire situation. My wife drifted away from the Lord too.<P>I've read so much material too lately. And everything I read reinforces that I should not divorce, but I should pray and work on my marriage no matter what happens. The Lord sometimes has to teach us a lesson when we are simply not listening any more.<P>I know I promised to follow God everytime something went wrong in my life in the past, then slowly drifted away again. Now it's different, he is here with me every second of every day. I can feel him near, and I'm trying to follow his will.<P>I pray that my wife will return to the arms of the Lord, just I have done.<P>I worry sometimes that compared to you guys i've only been married a short time (2 years), been together as a couple for 6 years. I really do love this woman, and I know we were a great couple. Now she's just selfish and can't see a single thing that I do for her, that makes things tough. She went to a counsellor a few weeks again, wh taught her to 'live for herself, and not worry about other people'. Yeah great advice!!! I don't really see how that differes from just being selfish!<P>Sorry to rant, just wanted to let off steam.<P>Thanks again for your posts.<P>Plec.