Answer this for yourself. Are you loved the way God intended you to be loved? Are you respected? Are you accepted for you? I think in your heart you know. I just posted an article on my blog about submission vs surrender. I would welcome you to read this and I do pray that God will open your eyes to see that you may not be living the life he would want for you. http://jesus-day.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html

Please pray, and apply the “principles”, and read as the Holy Spirit inspires. The situations are similar, the genders are different, but you can turn the advice around when needed. I hope this helps you in your quest for understanding.

I so long for the passion (talking, listening and hearing and just holding each others hand…) we once had to return. whenever we talk to each other, it is always about the doings of somebody else. i personally feel and think that we have grown emotionally unattached from one another.

Yes the birthhday and annivessaries are celebrated, to the world everything seems blessed, but I know in my heart that it is not. I don’t have any fears as a BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN, my concern that I have is that when my KIDS (3) are grown and married, that we as a couple will not have anything to say to one another…

I have not developed nor have I seen us grow and I’m tired too. I want a divorce. I am leaving in December. We can only be friends; my intimacy for him is gone and he knows it. He loves women so he will have no problem bouncing back. I’m tired; it’s over, I decided. No more being tired of mental abuse. Anyone can have him now. He still keeps contact with her, so she may get him, I don’t care.

When she breaks his heart, he’s coming back home to you. He put you on a backburner for her. And when she hurts him, he’s gonna come back to you. He can’t drag you along on his string. You’ve got to cut the cord. If you do take him back, you’re really not going to want him because it’s not the same love it was when you two first met. It will be rebound love, him getting over her and realizing you will always be there for him. You deserve to be no one’s fool, Rose. Don’t be a fool for love.

I want to ask you a question though, because it’s been plaguing my heart since I read your comment. How can you be in “the healing process” when your husband is not helping you to heal, but is rather treating you like YOU have the problem? I understand how God can help you to heal, but somehow I can’t imagine that God would be healing you by telling you to close your eyes to adultery (and that’s what the exchange of such intimate pictures and “meeting” together without your being present comes down to), and to keep subjecting yourself to further degrading behavior and groveling to someone who is dishonoring Him as well as you. It’s difficult to be in a healing process when the cutting is still going on and nothing is being done to stop the continuing bleed.

I love your heart Antonia. I believe that we need to work on keeping our marriages together WHENEVER it is possible, so I love the fact that you are trying to hold onto yours. But I’m not sure that allowing yourself to be your husband’s rug under his feet that he can keep emotionally stepping on is keeping your marriage together. I’m concerned that eventually he will discard you, if you don’t show him that you are of more value than to allow him to do that and keep doing that.

I truly believe that often one spouse can start the process to heal a marriage, but it’s difficult when the other “partner” has an unrepentant adulterous heart and continues to treat the spouse (you) in such a degrading manner. In that type of situation, it appears that something drastic needs to be done to put things on a better path.

There is a book I would highly recommend that you read. It is titled “Love Must Be Tough” by Dr James Dobson. Please go to the link I provide in the title and read about the principles he writes about and the reviews that are written about the book as well. I would recommend that you try to obtain the book and prayerfully read through it and see what you think God is telling you. I just don’t know that God is asking you to keep on the path you are presently going on with your husband. You need to seek guidance (by reading this book and such) and pray and keep praying for wisdom and discernment over these matters.

You may have more of a chance of saving your marriage by carrying out tough love and demanding more of your husband’s behavior in the way he treats you and your marriage relationship. I’m concerned that right now, your marriage doesn’t have much of a chance of surviving if you allow him to continue to treat you in the way he is right now. It seems like a dead end street with you being thrown out on the curb alone and degraded beyond what you are experiencing right now. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.

Please Antonia, pray about this and consider what I am trying to say here. Sometimes the best way to obtain love and be loving ourselves is to stand up straighter and exhibit respectful but tough love. I pray the Lord helps you and guides you in this!

But, in the mean time he was traveling to the same location several times a month, with excuses that his job needed him to work on a project –the reason for the increase in his travel. I felt like it was time for us to get away, and we went on a cruise for 4 days. I had a wonderful time, but did not know that his friend knew about our plans.

Then, I started my own investigation. I found out my husband had been traveling to see this lady and calls her every time he’s out of town whether he traveled there or not. Now keep in mind, I do all the bills and see everything. He doesn’t know his password to his own accounts. I started noticing calls to this lady and checked his work cell phone to find nude pictures of him that he sent to her right after we got back from our cruise.

Now, I could not hold my cool any longer. I am still in the healing process and trying to hold on to my marriage another year later. My husband now shouts me out time after time. When he wants something from me I always give in, but he never gives anything in return. He never says he’s sorry for his actions, but is waiting for me to give in and acts like nothing ever happened. The littlest thing I say or do is not enough for him. He goes through the silence treatment for days. When I try to talk to him, it’s like talking to a brick wall. Now three days later and we have plans, I don’t know how to communicate with him. I’m not sure if I would get a response. What do I do?

I was a Christian but he wasn’t, when my husband was unfaithful. It crushed me and yet I still loved him. I truly believe the reason the Bible gives adultery an “out” card is not because this pleased God but because he knew how completely it would destroy the other innocent person in the marriage from the inside out.

You might be wise to consider your husband’s depression issue and you are probably right to think he would regret it later and come back. But I would advise you not to just pretend all is well for the kids sake and live there pretending to be together when he has another woman on the side. For one thing, I think this sets up such a completely unbiblical standard for your children to risk seeing. And it also seems to offer your husband a “have your cake and eat it too” idea.

I would encourage you with Jesus’ help to try and tell your husband this is a wicked, ungodly idea and you will have no part of it. You don’t have to divorce him if you feel you shouldn’t for his depression issues or perhaps just your love for him. But you certainly don’t have to just sit by and pretend all is great. This seems like a very cruel thing to ask of you.

The Bible says not to be unequally yoked and that if your husband will not abide with you, then to allow them to leave. You don’t have to live immersed in his sin-filled life with him to love him. I think you should separate and tell him if he comes to his senses and wants you back to come back then. This would still give him some stability to fall back on if he has depression issues and allows you a way to hold on to some of your dignity and godliness apart from his profoundly unwise choices.

The problem is two fold. It has not been easy for us over the years. He feels that I broke promises to him concerning physical fitness (I am currently 40 lbs over and wear a size 12. When we married was probably size 2 (to small…was unhealthy size) and at my best I was size 6 around 125-130 (felt and looked good). So, that was 17 years ago and three pregnancies and c-sections later here I am.

I’ve never been a athletic person and he is. He feels that he has done and stayed true to every promise he made to me when we married and I have betrayed him by breaking the promise I made to stay in shape. I’ve yo-yoed through the years and was in a pretty good place before baby 1. But after the delivery he saw my friends all get immediately back in shape and lost it with me. He says I have been unfaithful with my promises to him and he kept his. Now all bets are off and I know he is currently in an online affair with someone with plans to eventually meet. I found his profile and his intention is to stay in the marriage and wants a long term affair with one person who is married also. He is unaware that I know.

In years past I “invaded” his privacy and he has gone to extreme measures to insure I don’t do it again. I’ve been locked out of our phone account (can’t have me seeing strange phone numbers) and he announced that he would not be explaining every business trip to me because I was checking up on him. The ironic thing is I had stopped looking in on him for the past year and it has been his recent behavior that had my bells ringing.

My dilemma is this…we are in a odd place. I have made mistakes through the years and I accept that some of this is just desserts to me. He does have a beef in some ways. He basically has presented me with this: What is better? Separate and divorce and leave the marriage without becoming unfaithful but we are apart and the kids are hurt…never to be together again. Or, stay together in the same home… be friends and parents and keep in the “game” with each other and perhaps we will naturally rebuild old feelings.

He wants that to be the outcome but realizes there is a risk of infidelity. I would have to adopt a don’t ask don’t tell acceptance of it all. Right now he feels all he can offer is to be friends and we are still sleeping together and being intimate if it occurs naturally (no pressure on me or him to have sex). He says right now the husband died in him a year ago.

From his perspective he begged me to fix this then…really five years ago when I “betrayed” him. He hopes that with the friendship approach we can have hope of rebuilding. I want that for my kids but can I accept the infidelity if (who am I kidding?) and when it occurs. In his mind he does not feel it is wrong…he has found a coping mechanism for dealing with the hurts I gave him. He also feels that I did not respond to his sexual desires in a way that validated him. He feels I mocked or judged him when he expressed his desires.

I need to mention that he is approaching 40 and there have been issues all along but the affair pursuit has really come to a head in the last year and in the last two months he has closed off completely from me and is pouring himself into this internet relationship. His phone went on the fritz for two days and he was desperate to get back online with her.

Today I asked him if he had found someone already and he said I should consider if I want the answer to that. A no win question and answer for both of us. If he says no then he gives me false confidence in him… can’t say it will remain that way and perhaps we should call it quits. If yes, then it’s out there and I will have to either openly accept it or call it quits and tear my family apart. Again..I know that the relationship is new (one month) and I feel that the initial meet and physical contact has not taken place yet. I know he has never been unfaithful before.

Here’s the thing…I know him and he might go through with this affair but he will regret it so deeply that I’m not sure he will recover from it. He has a depression issue (chemical imbalance) that makes him very moody and now it’s even worse. And this person will not live up to his fantasy of what he wants her to be. His expectations are so high for everyone around him. It might last a few months but I think no one will last long term with him.

I’ve struggled for years trying to meet his needs and serve him and he can be very difficult to please. Never is content (oh…I know some will bristle at that) but I have to tell you that he has left the military for me, sacrificed something he loved to do for something else not as satisfying, given me children and provided the means for me to be a stay home mom. I respect him so much for that…it has not been easy.

My gut feeling is that I need to make the effort to save this marriage. Three kids are involved and I know from personal experience how important that father relationship is to them (especially girls). I lost mine at 16. If we go our separate ways there will be no opportunity to go back. At least together with friendship between us we might have a chance of letting go of all the past hurts and baggage and rebuilding. There is hope there. Am I crazy? Am I a doormat? Can I survive the hit if he a full blown affair?

I will take your advice and move on. I will not sit around taking this abuse a moment longer. Yes, you are right "only God can fill the emptiness in my heart." I will derive meaning in life through God. I will continue to pray for my husband that God will change his heart. Thank you so much for your kind words. I will pray for you Sarah as well. May God bless you.

I fear that your whole life and meaning has been tied to your marriage all this while. You must derive meaning from GOD! That is the only standpoint that can swallow disappointments and still be able to find reason for living. Know that I am married with my own marital troubles too (different from yours although but not any less) but I have decided that no man (human) is big enough to make life miserable for me. YOU MUST MOVE ON BABY!!

It was only one week later that I found an SMS on his phone which told me they had never stopped contacting each other. I was devastated and immediately contacted our counselor and made another appointment. We went together again and after this my husband said he was not going again because he felt the counselor was biased and not considering his feelings at all. Anyway, soon after this he left home telling me he needed time to think. He said it was going to be a six months separation.

Before he left he took my credit card away and changed all the passwords to our joint banking account.This really hurt as I have never abused our finances in anyway.This resulted in me having to open my own banking account into which I could put my salary and pay for day to day expenses. He did however continue to pay for all major expenses such as the bond, rates and taxes etc and for this I am so grateful.

Anyway, the moment he left home he was free to continue with his affair without me looking over his shoulder. He became more and more distant from me and despite my pleading, tears and sometimes anger he continued mercilessly. Then the day came when he told me he wanted a divorce. I cried bitterly for days and then decided to seek legal advise. An agreement was drawn up and my husband was told to find his own lawyer should he want to file for divorce. (I refused to divorce him.) The day before this agreement was to be signed I was woken up early in the morning with my husband standing at the gate. He was home again. He said he had ended the affair – IT WAS OVER. When I asked him what changed his mind he said God had spoken to him. I was overjoyed and praised God for answering my prayers.

All went well for a day or two but after I asked questions and he told me the truth I fell apart again. She had visited him from New Zealand and their relationship had been physical. They were engaged to be married and had spent a wonderful three week holiday together squandering all our hard earned savings. During our separation he had also signed a two and a half year contract to work overseas and it had been part of their plan to get away. (By the way she is also married.) I felt so betrayed. How could he have done all this behind my back?

I tried so hard to get over my anger and hurt and continued to remind myself that he was back with ME and that was all that mattered. I prayed to God to help me. When I asked him if he loved me he said I must give him time. Oh boy this hurt especially since I love him so much. One day a week after he had come home I found an e-mail to his lover saying he can’t forget her and that he doesn’t love me. In the e-mail they had made a "deal" and his promise to her was that he would be in New Zealand with her in three months time. I did not tell him I had seen this as I did not want him to leave me for his overseas working contract (that was legally binding) with bad vibes between us. This was so incredibly hard.

Well, he has been gone for just over two weeks now and I am hurting so badly. His e-mails to me are short cold and abrupt. If I question him in any way he never answers me. He never says I love you and carefully dodges anything of importance.

My question is how should I deal with the situation I am in? I love him so much but have been told by family and friends to pick myself up and move on in life. I am in limbo and don’t know where to turn. I have given this problem to God but still have bad days like today when I feel at a loss. I pray everyday for God to change his heart. Please help me. Why is my trust in the Lord so weak? What must I do to move on? What should my approach to my husband be like? Am I making a fool of myself?

I get NO affection from him at all. The thing that is hurting me worse of all is no matter what I try to talk to him about he cuts me off like he doesn’t want to listen and the TV is more important that what I have to say. I even have tried to keep what I want to say during the commercials. But one time he made the comment "why are you even telling me that, it has no bearing on my life, so why are you even talking to me about that." IT HAS NO BEARING ON HIS LIFE??

That comment cut like a knife, I feel like MY LIFE has no bearing on his life. I tried to tell him that I just wanted to talk to him and share my day, but he doesn’t care about my day, he doesn’t care about anything that matters to me. He hates to visit with people as well as family, and my family is very important to me. But every time I want to have them over or go to visit them, it ends up in a fight. Our house is always very clean, but he excuses getting mad cause I should stay home and clean, instead of wasting time visiting my Mom or son.

One time I wanted to spend the day with my Mom and he got mad cause then he would have to clean house on HIS day off… Am I not entitled to a day off? I work between 45-60 hrs a week so I think that I am entitled to have a day off. Can anyone help me get my head wrapped around what is going of with him? I love him and I don’t want to leave him, but he is really making me feel not good about myself and I NEED him to listen or give me some sort of affection. I don’t know how to get that point across to him without it ending in a fight… please help.

When God created Adam he did not create Eve, Mary,Alice. The Bible says “…and a man will leave his parents and join with his wife”, and not wives.

Am so sorry to react this way and I hope it does not offend anyone. All the female friends and family around me are having issues with their marriages and I don’t know how to react because I am also married and confused.

Go for counselling help, for sure, and continue praying and asking God to lead you, but these men will not change unless something drastic happens. Leaving them is not the same as divorcing them, but they are abusing you. You have to take care of yourselves and your children and waiting for these men to change is not doing that.

I have found that many times God acts when we act. Make plans to leave, be definite and firm, and then listen carefully to what the spirit says to you. He may say to go; he may say to leave; and if you sense nothing, then go ahead and leave, but continue to be open to his leading.

I am in an emotionally abusive relationship also, and have no love for my husband left, but we are in counselling and so I will stick it out for a while longer. I am so dead to my husband that I wonder if I even want this relationship to be saved. But women tend to dither and dither when sometimes decisive action is needed.

Remember, God can’t lead you if you’re not in motion. I’d rather make a move and get His red light and know I’m not to do that, than wonder and wonder in agony for years.

I used to cry everyday and I isolated myself from friends as I did not want anyone asking me about him or when we were going to get married. Luckily, I had a good health plan and I went to a private hospital. When I gave birth and he came to the hospital, he said that the baby did not look like him at all and I could sense that he was trying to tell me that it’s not his child. And yes, the child looks more like me. But is it my fault? Do I prescribe who I want the child to look like? He started being nicer to me after the baby was born and tried to spend time with me when he felt like it. Four months down the line I was pregnant again and he still asked me to abort, but this time he was better than the first time.

He used to invite me to his house every now and then and would not even try to hide women’s clothing or items. I felt like he deliberately wanted to help me. I wanted to leave him, but he would not allow me. He would come to my house and beg me and say he would change, or he would turn it around and make it my fault. He just did not have respect for me.

This behaviour did not really change, but I still married him anyway. I don’t think I still loved him enough to marry him, but I felt that since he was the father of my babies, why not? After all, I did not want my children to grow up without a father. Bad move, maybe? The struggle still continues though. I don’t think he has a girlfriend anymore, but I know that he is still in touch with his ex’s which does not make the situation any better anyway.

What I’m trying to get at my dear is that you are not alone in this. In my opinion, if a man tells you in your face that it is okay for him to sleep with other women, he does not respect you. How does he think you will feel? Excited? I don’t think so! That’s emotional abuse. I have been through it and I have fought hard against it because if you don’t, you will start believing all the nasty things that he says about you. How can he say you are not worth talking to? What makes him more important than you?

If your husband does not want to talk to you, tell him that it’s either you go for counselling together or you separate from him until such time that he sees fit to talk. If he does not talk to you, but can have sex with you, what is he trying to do here? I know prayer is the best medicine, but you’ve got to help yourself too. Be firm, but pray at the same time. God will help you.

However, he tells me that it is okay for married men to have sex with other women. And that it is not considered adultery. I asked him what about the promise that he made to God and me when we married. I told him that if he wanted to have sex with other women I would leave him. It is not a threat. I couldn’t bear to wonder who he was with or if he was coming home.

To sum it all up, he tells me that I’m not worth talking to at all. If I say anything to him he will snap at me. We basically have no communication at all. We don’t hug, kiss or say I love you. He doesn’t acknowledge that I’m pregnant. Everyone tells me how big my belly is and it’s like he can’t see it. We might have sex once a month.

I have begun to feel like I don’t care anymore. He says that I’m controlling and disrespectful. He doesn’t feel women should work outside the house. He tells me that everything that was bad that has ever happened to us, is all my fault. He tells me not to ask questions and I shouldn’t speak unless he has spoken to me. He says I’ve made him feel this way about me. He doesn’t love me like he use to. He tells me that I need to be just the housewife and mother to the children.

What happened to companionship and what a mother and wife may need? Sometimes I feel like a part of me is dying inside. How can I pray for us? I’m confused. One time he stopped talking to me for six months. I prayed that things would work out for us. And it did, just the day before I was going to tell him I wanted a divorce. I am seven and a half months pregnant now. I don’t feel I am strong enough to pull us through this situation. I am scared I will get sick again.

About five yrs ago when I was pregnant and we had so many problems at the time, I didn’t realize how much attention that I placed on us as a couple and I got sick. I was rushed to the hospital and an emergency c-section was performed. I had placenta abruption. Our baby didn’t survive and I almost died too. My blood pressure spiked so high causing this to happen to me. I was stressed out.

I will always love him and I believe that God put us together. I also know that God is real….I wonder could it be that our time is up together as a couple? I have given up so much just to be with him. I raised his two children. They feel like they are my own. I prayed until I am numb. I haven’t gotten an answer from God. I need help because I can’t do this alone.

This is not a threat, but a possibility! I hope he is not the violent type or extremely jealous because he is going to take as if you are saying that you will cheat on him! But if he is jealous, he will start listening, I can guarantee you. You need to be a little hard on these African men, otherwise it’s like talking to a wall.

Trust in the Lord and as you write your letter, invite the holy spirit to speak to him in a way that will make him understand that you are serious about this and you want a change in your marriage that will lead to a happier life for the both of you. I’m also in a dilemma with my husband and I don’t know what I feel anymore. See article on How To Stop Your Wandering Eye: Every Man’s Battle to see my story. God will help you my sister. I am praying for you. Take care.

He is usually on his own. He does not make any conversation. I always have to start the conversation and he would answer me in NO’s and YESes. Our intimate life has stopped. He hardly touches me. In bed he moves away from me.

He can not tell me what is bothering him. I know things have not been well at his working place and I thought I would be there to assure him things will work out fine eventually, but he completely shuts me out.

I have reached a point where when he moves away, I also move away because I don’t remember hurting him. Why does he behave like he does not know me? I used to pray to God to change anything that I do wrong, some things that I know and other things that I don’t remember, also praying for him and my marriage. He does not seem to change a bit. I am so discouraged and I feel prayer is not helping him either. When I start to pray I fail to construct any sentence because my mind is so congested and I don’t know where to start from. I have given up and I am only waiting for him to react in whatever way he so wishes.

I cant just take it any more.