But now that you are divorced, make sure that you don’t allow your heart to be united with anyone that you shouldn’t. Your former husband may want you back, but unless he shows (over a long period of time) that he loves God and loves you and puts his former lifestyle of deceit behind him, beware. You will enter back into a situation where you could be hurt again in the same way or worse. He doesn’t know how to love you as Christ. He may be charming and sincere in wanting to be united to him again, but you can’t build a good marriage based upon charm and desire. It’s not a good foundation.

Also, this man that you go to church with may be a fine man, and you may even have had a dream where you believe God showed him to be your husband, but I’m a bit leery of this. I’m not so sure that your dream came from God. If it was from God, He would reveal truth to you — He wouldn’t lead you into confusion. That’s not his way. That’s why I’m hesitant to believe your dream came from God. It could come from a number of other factors… deceiving spirits being one of them.

He may be a very fine man, but that doesn’t mean you both would be good marriage partners.

You ask if you should give yourself time. I encourage you to do so. Some of the biggest mistakes we can make comes from haste. If this man is truly someone who is to be your husband, ask God to give you agape love for him OVER A LONG PERIOD OF TIME. Don’t rush… proceed slowly and wisely.

Our society is so driven with the craze of “being in love” and finding a soul mate. I’m concerned that if you married this man and eventually as you see his faults after marrying (as you will), you will grow to dislike him, rather than fall in love with him. And then you will deeply regret making this commitment. You will feel pressure from the influences of society and within your heart to leave, either emotionally and/or physically. It’s the direction things seem to go these days.

Make sure that the person you marry has like values (particularly spiritual), and that you both have a mutual love and commitment to each other, to God, and to making your marriage a good one. If you start out with that, you will be able to move any mountain that comes up against your relationship. God will show you how to do so. Please wait, pray, pray, wait, and keep seeking God’s truth and abiding peace in this. May God bless you as you seek His will and His heart.

I tried to talk to him but he did not change. He would apologize but continued with his behavior. After the death of my baby, he abandoned me and shifted to a new area where the girlfriend lived. Up to now I do not know where he stays. I tried all I could to get him back but it didn’t work. I was hurt to the last and I nearly killed myself all because of him and I decided to divorce him.

I am a born again Christian. I decided to surrender my all to God and He talked to me one day thru a dream and showed me someone else to be my husband and the guy is God fearing. I loved my ex husband and he wants me back now and he is after me. He phones and sometimes he doesn’t and he rarely comes to see me. I used to communicate and visit him at his work place but since stopped. My family advised me not to go back to him.

Now I am in a state of confusion because I do not have love for the guy God showed me but he loves me. We go to the same church. We spend time together and he wants to marry me as soon as possible. I know I should follow God’s will and not fleshly desires, but I always think what would happen if we get married and do not have that love in me. Will the love grow or should I give myself time? Please help.

Thank you so much for the website. Got to read it over and over again in order to understand that our spouses are not there to ‘make us happy”, we need to make ourselves strong and happy in the Lord

God also wants every woman who is married to stay invested in Him alone and also keep him #1. When my spiritual eye wanders away from God and my desires are soley on my husband alone, I crash and burn. I have to keep reminding myself that God is my husband – Isaiah 54:5. When my attention is on God, I find God’s love consuming me and enveloping me in a way that no other can. God has a cute way of showing me His love, not just from my husband, but from my son, from loving myself, and from the wonderful and spiritual sisters that He puts in my life. Believe it or not, I also use Leah’s example in the Bible in Genesis 29. Leah was desparately trying to win the affections of her husband Jacob because she desired love. In the end, she realized that God was craving her love and affection. She found out painfully that God was the one who was deeply in love with her and finally she Him – “This time I will praise the Lord.” Genesis 29:31-35.

Of course, marriage is not easy. We find that in 1 Corintians 7:28. It is sometimes, however, very difficult to trust God when we are hurting. We forget that God hurts too! Nonetheless, It it comforting to know that whatever we face in marriage or in life, God’s love never ceases. He wants us to find comfort in knowing that He is enduring many of the blows for us and that He will never ever leave or forsake us.

He rarely wants to discuss anything. When we do talk, he gets frustrated and begins to use profanity–and or sometimes leaves. He has gotten fired from jobs because he wants to run the bosses, people and does not want to be told what to do. The kids are all grown now so I don’t have to deal with that aspect. It was somewhat of a nightmare when the kids were coming up that’s why we separated. It may have damaged them in some ways –but they do seek God’s help, more than I can say for the father.

I feel that I have done all God has asked me to do and I realize some people will not change. God is such a loving God. He can only change a heart if a person is willing to let him work on it. I realize now that he has departed mentally from this marriage for quite some time and it’s time for me to depart both mentally and physically for peace and happiness.

We would quarrel about how much time we were spending apart and not speaking enough on the phone. I wanted to speak to him everyday but he didn’t think it was necessary and we ended up having silent telephone conversations because “there was nothing new to talk about”. That’s when we sort of agreed to skip a day and write emails in between.

I used to go mad when his phone went to voicemail or when he returned my call late, if at all. We were not married then but he is the guy I am married to now. Now that I live with him, I have come to realise that he is generally a quiet guy and doesn’t speak much. If I had known that before, it would have saved me from a lot of pain, worry or insecurity. I now know that he is loving in his own way apart from the communication differences, that’s what I call them now.

I would encourage you to hang in there and do the best you can; you have come a long way. I survived 5 years of long distance and it worked. I still don’t know how but I know God is wonderful. Whatever opportunity you have to communicate make the best of it and make his memories about you good. Pray about it and God will safeguard your marriage from all sorts of evil and distractions.

Sometimes he may not want to speak; please don’t force it or take offense because it will only cause you more heartache and sleepless nights. Get comfort from God’s promises in the Bible and they will carry you through this hard season.

He started his habits again. I spoke to him about it, he got angry and said he doesn’t know what I want from him and he didn’t want to talk about it.

Now I feel that he is never going to change, in fact I need to do something about myself. I love my husband, but I feel alone as he is hardly there as a partner. Please help me, how do I make him see that this is destroying our relationship?

He does not answer the phone when I call. He has an excuse for not answering. He does not understand that this makes me feel that there is someone else but he says not. He is always asking me if I have found someone and that makes me feel that this is what he has done. I have been with him for 9 years and married 5. I really just want us to try and work it out with spiritual counseling.

I have come through the most hellish time in my entire life, and unfortunately, I’m angry still. He refuses to discuss anything about his affair, and discounts the pain and emotional devastation that has occurred in me. He has never shown a moment of remorse or concern for how his actions have affected me, while professing to love me while he refuses to stop communicating with this "woman" and she won’t stop either.

I’m 64 years old and frightened. His "outside woman" calls me and says things like, "I’m a good woman and I’m having sex with your husband because you’re too old to be any good at it!" He defends her right to do this, because "you know how people say things when they’re mad".

I don’t know why I stay, but I haven’t got enough money to leave either. I guess I’m just hoping to die before this goes on much longer. Enough is enough, and I deserve a kinder companion than this. I’ve been totally devoted to him since the day we met over 20 years ago.

When we met he had a pair of stolen airline socks in a paper sack … and nothing else. He’s an uneducated man from the Third World – but he was kind and attentive and like a sponge to learn when we met. He also adored me and I found his innocence to be sweet and lovable and I adored him too, in spite of our different cultures. He was proud of me and I was proud of him … no more.

He’s embarrassed to be married to an old "white woman" and the black women he "hangs with" reinforce this at every opportunity. He’s treating me like his caretaker and he deserves everything and more, that I work so hard for and share with him. All I want is a loving companion to share my life with. That’s what he wants too – the difference is, he’s waiting for me to provide everything and be everything, while he sits there in silence or sleeps on the couch.

He absolutely cannot communicate at all unless he’s angry. When he’s angry he’s never at a loss for words … and you can imagine what he says then. I never hear anything positive about me from his mouth … never. It’s anger, or nothing. I know I come across as judgmental and angry, but, until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes – your judgment of me is no more compassionate than mine is of him.

Love IS the answer, but it’s buried under a huge mound of deceit, lies, cruelty and indifference. It has colored how I see men in general, I’m afraid. I’m not as gross as I seem to have come across … just beaten down and sad.

So I have to ask, why did you marry a guy who doesn’t meet your standards of communication? I’m assuming you are not happy with the communication, yet you chose to marry him.

I think it’s rather insulting they way you approach your 2nd and 3rd paragraphs here. You call for men to get over themselves and you call them emotionally weak. Perhaps it’s this attitude that encourages your men (and others) to remain closed to communication. Who in their right mind would open up further if they are verbally beaten in this fashion?

I don’t think men are disabled emotionally. I think your husband does behave poorly. However, this cannot be much of a surprise given the culture. Yet I also see that you want him to come to your side of the argument, and I see little if any understanding for the cultural mores that he was raised with.

I don’t agree with the affairs, etc. Still, I think you are missing the boat if you are comparing all men to your husband.

I do like your ideas about how to treat sons, since in the US most absent fathers are absent because the mother kicked them out. Only a minority of those cases involve abuse or infidelity on his part. It is just as likely mom is unfaithful as dad is. I think women need to start treating both husbands and sons correctly.

You see, with 67-75% of all divorces being initiated by women, and as I said before, men are no more unfaithful than women, after all if they are unfaithful, it’s not with another man, men are being sent the message that their contributions to the family are not valued.

So combine that with the messages that men are emotionally, verbally and relationally inferior and I’m amazed that men will even choose to be married in this day and age.

Now add in a devaluation of the work men do and you begin to see why men do less and less. No appreciation for what they do, or who they are. We don’t work enough, we don’t communicate correctly, we don’t have the right emotions, we are not nurturing enough. You begin to understand why men have seemed to give up. What we do either isn’t right, or doesn’t meet a standard, or is so far outside of who we are that if we were to meet that standard, chances are we would no longer be men.

I’ve had a theory for a while that is bolstered by home improvement shows. These shows are typically targeted at women. I think many women see their husbands as little more than another home improvement project. If she can fix him, then things will be OK.

Who wants to be fixed? (double entendre OK here) How is that going to make a spouse feel loved, cherished, etc?

I think much of the problem is men DO express themselves and when they do, they are told to stop being so (fill in the blank)

Men are not emotionally lazy. But they will avoid the criticism such as what is displayed in your post. Frankly, what you write, borders on verbal abuse. You engage in put downs, disrespectful judgments, gross generalizations, and the idea that your views are superior to those of the men you are criticizing.

I hear that you are frustrated. However, being frustrated doesn’t give you the right to verbally beat up on an entire gender merely because you believe you have a bad husband.

If he is having affairs, then why are you with him? You are free to go. He’s not Christian, he’s not faithful and he doesn’t live up to your standards. So what is keeping you in this miserable marriage?

Or you can keep on doing what you are doing, being critical of how he and apparently how you believe other men fail to express themselves. Thus you are ensuring that this man and perhaps many others, will be sure to avoid expressing anything of emotional value to you because it’s not safe for them to be emotionally honest with you.

It’s not that men have to express emotions like women or women like men. Instead each of you need to learn how to recognize when your spouse is expressing those emotions. Instead of just assuming (wrongly) that if emotions are not expressed in your language that they don’t exist or are inferior.

What you’ve written here is the equivalent to the parent who tells her child he will never amount to anything. As long as you believe this, with respect to expressing emotions, men around you will continue to hide their emotions and continue to live up to your expressed views of these men.

After all, who wants to be thought of as a dead cow (a rather inconsiderate and thoughtless image considering your husband is from India BTW) or a teen with Downs Syndrome? It doesn’t seem you are living up to your standard of being fully human, compassionate and loving when you wrote this. It appears you don’t hold yourself to the standards you expect others to follow.

Why would anyone seek to meet that standard when it is apparent you don’t meet it either?

When will someone actually expect the men to "get over themselves" for a few minutes and "try" to understand and communicate with women? It’s always the women who have to do all the compassionate understanding the guiding. Are men so emotionally weak and uncaring that they are not expected to do anything they don’t want to do?

My husband actually did me a huge favor and accompanied me to a Christmas celebration in our town. This was the first time we’ve been anywhere together for more than 10 years because in his culture (West Indian) men are considered to be weak and feminine if they are seen in public enjoying their wife’s company!! Well, he spent the entire evening walking a good distance behind me, like a guard dog. Any time I slowed down and waited for him to catch up to me – he stopped where he was and just stood there waiting for me to move again. It was as if he was embarrassed to be seen enjoying himself in public with his wife!

Ours is a cross-racial/cross-cultural marriage of 20 years duration. In all that time, he has not picked up on or understood anything I’ve ever said to him about what I need from him as his wife (his culture rarely marries, but "breeds" with myriad partners, whom they never marry). His idea of a good husband is one who comes home every night – even if it’s the next morning. He resents being home with me and considers it a big sacrifice of his "man" time, which is a totally private part of his life.

Well, the girlfriends float up to the surface of the cesspool occasionally and he’s extremely proud of his manhood because of them. He brags to me about them and sees nothing wrong or immoral with having girlfriends – although he insists the women would NEVER, EVER come around me. He doesn’t connect the idea of sneaking around and committing adultery constitutes anything other than his right as a man. It’s me that has the problem.

My point is this: Women need to stop treating their sons like they were born as Jesus reincarnate and start to SHOW them that it’s a good and manly thing to CARE about others, especially their wives and daughters. I’m real tired of hearing about how "disabled" men are emotionally. Their mothers (or whoever it was that raised them) need to stop growing men who can’t express themselves and don’t care.

Too many excuses for men and too much work for women. It’s grossly unbalanced and merely enables men to be emotional wimps. It’s time to stop making excuses for men who are too lazy for the emotional work required to plow through life and it’s also time for women to stop doing it for them. God must be so embarrassed by men’s inability or unwillingness or disinterest in becoming fully human, compassionate, loving, beings.

I know it’s gotten pretty boring trying to drag our men through life, like dead cows on the end of a chain. Men can do better, now that they know better. And, if they don’t, it’s only because they don’t care. As far as needing to feel appreciated and loved – don’t we all? Women AND Men. My husband makes me feel like the caretaker of a teenager with Downs Syndrome. And I suppose I make him feel like a dunce. If the shoe fits…

I find strength in the Lord and His Word, like my friend – when I watch TBN or Gods TV, he switches off and watches football, yet he is a Sunday church goer and "saved". I am not happy in my marriage. Many times I feel I would be better alone, separated or widowed. I always comfort myself that I would not lose much. In fact, in this day and time of HIV AIDS, I comfort myself that I am better off without him, but I know that’s not God’s plan. Therefore I am waiting, praying and seeking God for His Grace and direction because I know that God is my ultimate husband. WHAT DO I DO?

Women of God, I was told that wisdom is the ability to apply the information that you have. Stop wailing, God knew you before you were born & he saw everything that you will go thru and yet he chose you. He called you His daughter and saw fit that you would be called by His name. He saw the ability in you, you can do it. Love always.

He could be having an affair again, really not for sure because I said I wasn’t going through what I went through before to have to find out. I love him more than anything in this world and every time I think of losing him, the only thing I can do is just sit and cry. What can I do when I have tried everything I know to try?

What do you do when they in no way shape or form will even discuss getting counseling?

I have been praying about this for many years, perhaps it is time for me to start a prayer group for married women. I trust the Lord to guide me in this situation and help me overcome it.