Sometimes in this journey I am finding myself not even knowing what to ask for.

My father molested me when I was younger for years and years. It is not been until now that I have found a Christian counselor to help me work through that. I am just now at 40 finding any relief in my life and my soul from that.

Forward to present day...my H had an affair which produced a child. That paternity suit has led to the discovery of just the surface of his lifestyle as a sex addict. There's porn, escorts, many women - truthfully I do not have all the details on that as he claims they were all 'friends'.

Anyway, what can God use in this to make some good out of this mess of a situation. Well, (1) God allowed this to happen so I would stop idolizing my husband (2) God allowed this so I could eventually find some resolution to my past through this new therapist (3) God allowed this to bring my husband's behavior out of the closet so to speak and allow him to face consequences of his immoral behavior.

I am experiencing a whole host of emotions that I had suppressed for my whole life - some good and some I have no idea what to do with. The verse my therapist keeps working with me on is that Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted and to set the captives free. We are almost two years past the first d-day and I feel we are no closer in terms of any kind of recovery. My husband is unsaved and in denial about his addiction. He does the bare minimum to be able to say...I"m doing exactly what you asked of me.'....ugh!

I have a whole list of needs my H is unwilling and unprepared to meet - meaning he can't do them until he faces his own demons and deals with this addiction.

I want Jesus to heal my broken heart and many days I feel peace and I feel that no matter what happens in my marriage that I am valuable to God and HE loves me enough to send HIS only son to die for me and shoot, that's a lot of love. And, then there are days where I just wish God would take me home to those gold paved streets where I didn't have to suffer this anymore.

I know that even when I am sad, Jesus is in me. I know that when my husband is angry at me and trying to shift his 'stuff' on me that Jesus is in me. I know that when my husband rejects me and turns to his addiction that Jesus is in me and LOVES me.

My therapist on my first visit told me that my head knows these things...but the heart is about 18 inches away and that's a long way from knowing these things in my soul.

Fellow Christian MB'ers...I'm not even sure what to ask you to pray for. I always pray for my husband's salvation and his freedom from this addiction. I know he's hurting and I know he needs the Lord. I also pray for my own healing...for me to feel and believe in my heart what the Lord has really done for me and how much HE loves me. I pray for a restored marriage if that is God's will. If it is not...and God is releasing me then I pray for Him to make that clear to me. (I know it's already in the bible that I can leave for infidelity but I keep hanging on and quite truthfully I don't know if I hang on for Biblical reasons or just plain old fear).
I pray for my mind, for the Lord to replace the old mental tapes in my head and give me ones that are of Him. Maybe it's all too much to pray for at one time. I believe God is powerful and can do ALL things....maybe my prayers are okay.

I'm asking for prayers - I wish I could direct you on what to pray for. I will leave it up to God to impress upon you what to pray for me. I thank you for caring and allowing me to speak on this forum.

Angelia

{{{Angelia}}}

I am in the middle of so much craziness right now myself, that I am no use to anyone.

But I can still pray some.

Father, I know that whatever no matter what is happening, you can take all this mess and fix it.

You are doing it right now, turning darkness into light, in Angelias life.

I pray that all these things would be used by you for a demonstration of your love and power.

Father, I don't know what is going on, but so many people, who have been trusting you for so long are feeling at the end of their ropes today.


Father, I ask for a great outpouring of your Spirit to move in the hearts of all of us and our spouses, bringing into line with your will, convicting and helping us to want to choose the right. Let there be forgiveness, and healing, and reconciliation.

Show us clearly what you would have us do or say today to accomplish your purposes. Show us if there is anything we are doing that we need to stop doing.

Let Angelia be a reflection of your love to her husband and let him be drawn to you through her.Let this love be irresistable.

Tonight give Angelia hope and comfort and direction by your Spirit, just as Jesus promised.

Thank you Father.

Angelia,

I don't know if this will make sense, but I have come to really know the extent of Gods love for me, by the love I have for my husband.

Thank of how much you love your husband, in spite of all you have gone through, and his rejection of you...thats how God loves you, but even more so.

Shul, the hard thing for me in what you said is that due to my past with my father/mother/other bad relationships and now my husband, I have a rather skewed idea of 'love'. To be honest, I don't know what it is, what it feels like, or how it's supposed to act.

I'm just in the early stages of some counseling and trying to figure out how to make God my 'father, daddy'. How to crawl up in His lap and let him heal the wounds of my past.

I wish I even knew if I loved my husband or if I am with him out of fear. I've been asking God to help me live not in fear (for fear has torment) and not to make decisions out of fear (for that is sin).

Shul, thank you for your prayer. It is appreciated! Thanks!!!

You are welcome, Angelia.

I can see how it is hard for you to understand love- it sounds like you haven't been on the receiving end much in your life, which is so very sad.

We confuse love with feelings sometimes.
Feelings, emotions can come from loving someone and feelings loved, but it is not the same thing.

It helps if we view the word as a verb- an action word. It is an action, or an attitude of caring for someones needs, yes?

It is an intentional, sometimes costly, choice to treat others, to do to others what we would have them do to us.

Yes, I think you need to experience the sense of being cared for , having your needs met, before we are able to extend that to others.

I pray that you will experience security and acceptance in God's arms today, Angelia.

You will know what it feels like to have someone care about you so much that you can totally rest in the knowledge of his protection. You will know what it is to be able to relax and trust him to take care of everything, no matter what is happening around you.

That your heart will heal and you will grow strong and be able to love others without fear.

Angelia, read Isaiah 54v11-13. I think it is for you.

Shul

Angelica,

First quick thing, please write to me at my email address in my signature line. I believe we may be sister-souls!

When I was young, I was molested by my father also. My father was and still is an active alcoholic, and when I got older, he moved on to my younger sisters--I was just relieved it stopped, and it never occurred to me that he would harm my sisters. In the evenings, he started a fight with my mom, drove to the bars, and got drunk, and while he was gone, my mom would beat and torture us for hours.

Yep--not a pretty childhood.

BUT, about ten years ago I started therapy and when I first started therapy, probably for that first whole YEAR I kept thinking, "I thought therapy was supposed to make me feel better! I feel WORSE!! Much Worse!! Horrible!!" Oh, you know how it is, Angelica. Remember and reliving all those things that happened...it makes you want to throw up and die inside. It's so hard!! But it IS worth it. Be encouraged and brave, and keep going, because there will come a day when you DO feel better. That light at the end of the tunnel is not a train...and the tunnel can seem AWFULLY dark and AWFULLY long, but there is an end to it and at that end is light. It IS there.

During my IC, I learned that what had happened to me as a child was abuse AND it was not my fault. Of course, as is so common, as a child I thought is was pretty gross but my fault...even the beatings were my fault because I didn't behave or do something right, and I always forgot some rule or other and deserved to be beat for it. Well, when I learned that the way I was treated was abuse, I also discovered that I was being abused in my marriage.

Yep...that's right. My exH was doing everything but hitting me, and since he didn't hit me, I didnt' think there was anything wrong with it! I was literally surprised to discover that I was worthy of love and being treated well, and that was not the way I was being treated at all. In fact, like your H, mine was/is a sex addict...and all THAT was quite a surprise to gradually discover too!

Well...there's lots of history I could tell and lots of horror stories too. But let's suffice it to say this: my exH had continuous affairs of varying degree from the time my daugther was born until the month we split up. Some where full blown PAs that lasted 6 mo. or more...some were cybersex...some were ONS...some were swinging couples willing to have a single man...some were illicit email...and some were just heavy flirting at a bar or restaurant with the waitresses. It doesn't matter so much what kind of affair they were, but rather that there was just continuous and continuing dishonesty and unfaithfulness.

It took me a long time to get to this point--I won't kid you. I tried for probably five years to save my marriage and "get him" to work on his raging and admit his SA and do some kind of recovery and stay faithful to me, but he just wouldn't. Like your H, mine kept doing just the bare minimum and grumbling about that...or he just wouldn't cooperate at all...or he would SAY that he would do it and then not do it for months and months and months while I waited. My heart felt like it was torn to shreds and dead. So I spoke to him one day and said, "There are these three issues that must be dealt with: (list three issues here). Here's what I need in order to make it right with me and move forward: (list requests here). You can make the choice for yourself, and I would like your decision within three days. After that, I will assume your answer is no--that you are not willing to deal with those three issues or do my requests."

His response was to have yet another affair because I did not understand him.

Sigh.

It was at that point that I had him move out and I began to realize something. I can not change him. I can not "make" him choose me over his addiction. I can not "make" him love me either. Even if I concentrate on my side of the street and make myself the best wife and mother I can be, he can still choose to completely ignore God, have affairs, pursue money, and chew up and spit out those in his path. I may very, very, VERY much WANT him to choose God and his family, but I can not make him do it--he has to want to make that choice on his own.

And sadly, he did not want to. He chose his addiction and other women over God. He chose and chooses his SA and cybersex over me and his children. Please see my post on the D/D board, "My son caught my ex and he is devastated." To this day, his SA continues and now is affecting his relationships with his own children...and it saddens me to the deepest parts of my soul to see it!

One verse that literally saved my life is Proverbs 4:23 "Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life" KJV. In another translation "Guard your heart with diligence for it is a wellspring of life."

The day I read that verse, my life turned around. God loves ME and values ME TOO, not just my spouse. Yes, He wants my spouse to choose Him and return to Him, but God is not willing to hurt me over and over and over and over and over again in order to save my spouse. At some point GOD WANTS ME TO GUARD MY HEART. My heart is so precious to God, that He has commanded me to guard it with diligence. See? It is a GOOD thing and a godly thing to protect yourself and be diligent about it.

WHOA. God has a million little ways to get through to my spouse that I just do not have...but MY job--MY responsibility--is to protect my heart because LIFE flows out of it. LIFE. And I don't know about you, Angelica, but I took that to mean that peoples' lives would be affected and brought back to spiritual life because of my heart. I had an obligation to lots of people to protect my heart, because God was going to use my heart to bring LIFE to a lifeless place. My children...my children are completely and forever changed because of the way God has used me to teach them the ways of peace and maturity. My friends...my friends are completely and forever changed because of the way God has used me to sit with them or write to them or talk to them or pray with them. My co-workers are completely and forever changed because of the way God has used me as a Jewish person to talk to them about salvation when they asked me what I thought about the movie "The Passion of the Christ". My clients are completely and forever changed because of the way God has used me to help them see that an affair does not mean the end of their marriage and to heal and recover a covenant and a family.

Do you see what I'm talking about here?? This isn't meant as boasting, but rather to say LOOK HOW VALUABLE WE ARE! LOOK!! And whilst God dearly loves your H and wants him to turn toward Him and deal with his SA--God DEARLY loves you too and would not see your heart trampled or destroyed. Out of YOUR heart, Angelica, is a wellspring of life. This is a promise and a commandment. "Guard your heart with diligence for it is a wellspring of life."

Dwell on this a while,


CJ