My wife and I were married five years ago, we are both Christians and we have no children. When we married, I was not a virgin, however, she was, and that was a big deal to her. After telling her of my first of two partners, I rationalised that to tell of the second would not benefit, instead, it would cause further pain. Besides, she already knew I would not be marrying her as a virgin.<p>Her response to my history was harsh – really harsh. She never let me forget about my failing (a failing in my eyes too) and held power in our marriage by bringing this up often. I felt additional guilt thinking ‘if she knew about No. 2 it would be even worse’ I knew that she hurt over this, and I was as patient as I could be, however, I now realise that many of my emotional needs were not being met.<p>In the pain of those times, I found myself unfaithful to my wife – an affair that lasted only 10 days, and had 3 encounters. I felt so bad about my unfaithfulness that I chose to have no further contact with the woman, and since then have not seen her at all.<p>Time passed, and things got better, but still some basic emotional needs were not being met in me, namely affection, adoration and sexual fulfilment. Late last year, I had a nervous breakdown, and left my wife, blurted out how I had cheated on her, and told her that I could not survive being married to her.<p>After four weeks, she gave up, packed up and went overseas for an extended holiday. During the next 6 months, I became involved with a woman, and life appeared to go on ‘normally’. That is until the nervous breakdown finished in early June. I sought counselling from a Christian psychologist, who alerted me to the fact that I had in fact suffered from a breakdown.<p>At this point, with nothing left at all, I did some soul searching and determined my main goals. My finished list contained only one item… that I would live a life that was in accordance with the will of God, regardless of the cost.<p>With no emotional desire, but in obedience, I ceased to see the woman that I was seeing, cut off all contact from her; I wrote to my estranged wife overseas expressing a willingness to work at our marriage if she so desired. Since then, I have been overcome with a desire to make this marriage work, and have effectively communicated this with her. For 4 months, with no positive feedback whatsoever, I maintained my resolve, upon her return, bit by bit, she is warming to the idea of being married to me.<p>I have expressed my desire to be a good and faithful husband, trustworthy and faithful.<p>It is a little over one month ago that she returned back to the country, she is staying with her grandfather. Since then, we have seen a lot of each other, even got on well at times. I get the feeling that given time, she will eventually move back home, however, I am extremely concerned that she still exercises her ‘right’ to say incredibly hurtful things to me whilst maintaining a threat to walk away if I ever do the same. This co-exists with what I would determine as a strong and deep desire to be married to me. She is delaying making her ‘decision’ to remain my wife or not… even in the face of the fact that such a delay shows her ‘power holding’ and causes so much more damage in me.<p>We are seeing a Christian cousellor, and have both read ‘His needs her needs’ She says that she loves me, however, continually attacks, and makes no move to meet any of my emotional needs, stating that it is not her responsibility.<p>When she attacks me, I want to emotionally hide from her, however, my resolve to make this marriage work holds me vulnerable. <p>I have some questions…<p>How can I work to see this power holding, and hurtful behaviour not persist in our marriage ?<p>Should I let her remain in a place that causes so much damage to my person, or should I hold her away until she is less damaging ?<p>What should I do if she persists in being so destructive ? Should I work to restore such a marriage ?<p>How does this add up with strong Christian beliefs ?<p>Please help<p>I.K.
