Advice on prayer for marriage

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daviddewar

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Right now I am currently beginning my recovery from alcoholism; I am attending at least 1 AA meeting per day, working with our priest, attending mass and visiting the perpetual adoration chapel as often as possible, re-joined RCIA, etc. Because of my alcoholism and the behavior associated with it, my wife has decided to separate and move to be with her family in Florida (we were living, and I still am, in South Carolina). She will not tell me whether or not she is seeking a divorce, and while talking with our children I have discovered a couple of examples of dishonesty on her part. I am doing what I can right now to take one day at a time, return to God, and allow God to take control of this situation as unbearable as it is for me.

My question is this: When praying, would it be too selfish for me to ask Jesus for the opportunity of my wife to become willing to communicate with me, more specifically to communicate with me concerning reconciliation of our marriage? Is it too selfish to ask for direct healing of my addictions?

You have to understand that I am only asking because I only wish to do what is right for everyone in this situation. I keep getting a comforting feeling that as long as I am patient that everything will work out, but I also know that right now I am very vulnerable to outside influence.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks! God bless!
 
David,
I do not think it at all selfish of you to want to communicate with your wife and family. After all, she is still your wife. Pray that God will soften her heart, and that in time she will see and feel your genuine desire to change your life and become the husband and father you were called to be. May I suggest you post another thread in the prayer intention forums and ask for prayers for your intentions? They are very powerful.

I wish you success in your recovery. You sound like you are doing all of the right things. Please keep us posted. May God bless you and guide you.

P.S. Okay, I see that you do indeed have posts in the prayer intention section. 👍
 
Thank you for the comforting words. I am in serious emotional turmoil right now and I feel that although I am having many positive spiritual events happen that I am still very weak spiritually because of my own self-inflicted pain, doubt, and spiritual discord. I am just now, over the past couple of weeks, beginning to allow God to enter my heart and allow Jesus to heal me. Because of this I am struggling between knowing what the right path is sometimes - I definitely don’t want to be selfish. I want to do what I can to allow God to, exactly as you said, continue to fill me with the desire to change myself and my behavior to become the husband and father He wants me to be.

An alcoholic of my type demands instant gratification. My heart had shame, guilt, and sorrow because of my own actions, but instead of giving it up to God and working through it I decided to try to take the easier route and drown my shame, guilt, and sorrow with alcohol and drugs. This made me feel even worse, which caused me to behave even more horribly to my family. I have lost two jobs this year because of my drinking, and now I have lost the best friend I have ever had and our two wonderful children.

Because of my struggles, my afflictions, and my desire to do what’s right I am finding it difficult at times to determine which route is the best in prayer. Fortunately our priest has been talking to me and giving me some guidance, but he’s not always available (he’s a pretty busy guy). This is why I ask this here.

Thank you so much for your advice!

God bless!
 
daviddewar said:
Right now I am currently beginning my recovery from alcoholism; I am attending at least 1 AA meeting per day, working with our priest, attending mass and visiting the perpetual adoration chapel as often as possible, re-joined RCIA, etc. Because of my alcoholism and the behavior associated with it, my wife has decided to separate and move to be with her family in Florida (we were living, and I still am, in South Carolina). She will not tell me whether or not she is seeking a divorce, and while talking with our children I have discovered a couple of examples of dishonesty on her part. I am doing what I can right now to take one day at a time, return to God, and allow God to take control of this situation as unbearable as it is for me.

My question is this: When praying, would it be too selfish for me to ask Jesus for the opportunity of my wife to become willing to communicate with me, more specifically to communicate with me concerning reconciliation of our marriage? Is it too selfish to ask for direct healing of my addictions?

You have to understand that I am only asking because I only wish to do what is right for everyone in this situation. I keep getting a comforting feeling that as long as I am patient that everything will work out, but I also know that right now I am very vulnerable to outside influence.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks! God bless!
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No, I don’t think it would be selfish. God wants you to heal and God does not want to see the break up of any family.

Yes, love is patient. I gave you a prayer for healing you both you and your wife; I will look and repost it. In the meantime, get a sponsor and speak with your fears with your sponsor and your spiritual advisor. Everyone at AA has been where you are and will have even greater insights.

I will look for that prayer.

God Bless.
 
Dearest God,

I ask that You and the angels help me heal my love life.

I am willing to release any unforgiveness I may beharbouring toward myself and my partner, and I ask that the angels cleanse me of all anger or resentment now.

Please help me see each other through the eyes of love. I ask that all effects of our mistakes be undone in all directions of time.

Please work with my partner so that we may have harmony, romance, friendship, respect, honesty and great love for one another.

Please renew our love. Thank You.

Amen.
 
daviddewar said:
Thank you for the comforting words. You are most welcome.I am in serious emotional turmoil right now and I feel that although I am having many positive spiritual events happen that I am still very weak spiritually because of my own self-inflicted pain, doubt, and spiritual discord. Of course you are, that is perfectly normal. This is all new to you. But embrace it all, the struggles as well as the comfort of Our Lord! I am just now, over the past couple of weeks, beginning to allow God to enter my heart and allow Jesus to heal me. Because of this I am struggling between knowing what the right path is sometimes - I definitely don’t want to be selfish. I want to do what I can to allow God to, exactly as you said, continue to fill me with the desire to change myself and my behavior to become the husband and father He wants me to be. “Knock and the door will be opened.”

An alcoholic of my type demands instant gratification. Many people, even people that are not alcoholics demand it. But it is not to be for them or for you. Life doesn’t work that way. And the sooner you face that, the better off you will be. Pray for patience. Your family probably put up with a lot. They had lots of patience before it ran out. Now it is your turn to be patient and see what God’s will is for you.My heart had shame, guilt, and sorrow because of my own actions, but instead of giving it up to God and working through it I decided to try to take the easier route and drown my shame, guilt, and sorrow with alcohol and drugs. This made me feel even worse, which caused me to behave even more horribly to my family. I have lost two jobs this year because of my drinking, and now I have lost the best friend I have ever had and our two wonderful children. Everyone can have a second chance. Just don’t expect it to happen overnight. Patience, man.

Because of my struggles, my afflictions, and my desire to do what’s right I am finding it difficult at times to determine which route is the best in prayer. Fortunately our priest has been talking to me and giving me some guidance, but he’s not always available (he’s a pretty busy guy). This is why I ask this here.Others have mentioned praying to Matt Talbot. Perhaps an internet search will bring you some information about him.

Thank you so much for your advice! Please know that you will always find friends and advice here, such as it is…😉 Please keep going to AA. See if your parish priest or parish has any counseling available. Sometimes our lives are wrought with past failures and tragedies that we are not even aware of, or that we push aside and do not address. Find out what your is and face it.May God bless you and guide you.

God bless!
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One word of advice here and this is important. Do not discuss the problems with your children, nor anything about your wife. You say the children told you of some dishonesty.

Realize that this puts your children in a difficult position as being confidant to one parent and then another. Children struggle with this. And, it will only widen the split if your wife founds out. Please do not use your children as mediaries or sources. Besides being a recovering alcoholic myself, I grew up in a situation such as you describe where my father placed me in such a position.

You and your wife need to come up with an explanation for the children as to the separation, but you should not discuss anything else about your wife with the children, nor ask them questions. You can discuss their feelings and confusion, but not your wife with them. Those discussions can come with your wife when you are both ready to talk to each other.

Here’s a link to Venerable Matt Talbot.

Matt Talbot

And though there are proscribed daily prayers for any time of the day, the way you pray will be whatever opportunity you have. If you have time, say a rosary. If not, say another prayer. The Our Father is an important prayer too. There are links available to a daily ritual of prayer throughout the day, but you can pray as you feel.

And keep us posted; I will be praying as I’ve been there too.
 
Leegal said:
One word of advice here and this is important. Do not discuss the problems with your children, nor anything about your wife. You say the children told you of some dishonesty.

Realize that this puts your children in a difficult position as being confidant to one parent and then another. Children struggle with this. And, it will only widen the split if your wife founds out. Please do not use your children as mediaries or sources. Besides being a recovering alcoholic myself, I grew up in a situation such as you describe where my father placed me in such a position.

You and your wife need to come up with an explanation for the children as to the separation, but you should not discuss anything else about your wife with the children, nor ask them questions. You can discuss their feelings and confusion, but not your wife with them. Those discussions can come with your wife when you are both ready to talk to each other.
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Thank you for the prayers and the link. I will check out the link immediately.

Amanda and I have always been very open and honest with our children. I haven’t hidden the fact from them that Mommy took them to Florida because Daddy is having a lot of problems right now, is very emotionally and spiritually sick, and needs to get better. The children (5 year old son and 6 year old daughter) have been offering prayers to me. Our daughter is getting frustrated with not knowing whether or not we will ever live together again as a family. I told her that I don’t know the answer to this right now and that she should pray for what she feels is the right thing.

I will never say any disparaging comments about Amanda to our children. Mainly because I know in my heart that her leaving really was the best thing for everyone (I was on a path of definite self-inflicted demise, and her leaving was the wake up call from God that I really needed - in all honesty, I have been asking her for help during moments of clarity. She said she would support me but I have to clean up by myself), but also because the court has forbidden both of us from saying, or allowing others to say disparaging remarks about the other in the presence of the kids. I love Amanda with all of my heart and soul. Her love is as perfect as a human’s love can be. She is kind, gentle, forgiving, and devoted to worshiping God. I am more angry with my own actions, knowing that I have caused her pain and sorrow, than with hers.

I have had to stop our daughter from trying to tell Amanda something that she believes I want. The marital problems are between Amanda and I, and the children have absolutely nothing to do with them. I do my best to encourage our children to not worry about what is going on between Mommy and Daddy and to just pray if they feel confused or hurt.

I may be a mess, but I do believe that God gave me a cold, hard slap of reality right in the face a couple of weeks ago. I was still trying to run from God. When Amanda left, I started calling people to blame her, I let her family know of personal problems that we’ve had that paint Amanda in a bad light, etc. In my heart I knew I was guilty from these actions and all my other actions. Finally, I couldn’t take anymore. I poured the last 7 beers I had down the drain. I went into the bathroom to wash my hands. I started crying uncontrollably and asked God for forgiveness. I asked God to please give me a sign that Amanda still loves me. Almost instantly it felt like someone was guiding my hand to the bottom drawer of a small bin that Amanda bought for us to store toiletries and her makeup. I have never opened this drawer before so I had no clue what was in it. When I opened it I found my wedding ring which I had drunkenly given to her after our last argument. At that moment I knew for a fact that God was showing Himself to me. This was more of a coincidence. That night I felt comforted by the hands of God and was able to sleep for about 6 hours, compared to the 1.5 hours and 2 hours the previous two nights. I immediately went to our priest the next day, but he wasn’t there, so I called Cathedral of St John the Baptist to ask if anyone was available for an emergency pastoral care. Fortunately there was a deacon available. I went to him and poured out all of my transgressions - every single one. Amanda had told me that I could never heal as long as I wasn’t 100% honest with facing my problems.

Since that moment I have felt the overpowering presence of God and our Lord Jesus. As difficult as it is for me, wanting instant gratification since and finding myself slipping and making myself the center of my world (these are the things that caused much of the despair I tried to cure with alcohol), I know that I have to turn everything over to God and rely on His love and mercy and let His will be done. But it’s still hard.

Hence the original post. I no longer want to be the selfish person I was. I didn’t care for my family the way they cared for me. Yes, Amanda committed some pretty bad acts against our family, but she was always willing to come to me to ask forgiveness, which I would (mostly) forgive. But I wasn’t as willing to reciprocate when I would do something that I knew was wrong. And because I no longer want to be that selfish, self absorbed, seemingly uncaring (because in my heart I bore the pain of what I was doing because I truly did care - I was just too afraid to face it) person, I feel that praying can sometimes be a slippery slope for me. I want what is best for our family.
 
daviddewar said:
My question is this: When praying, would it be too selfish for me to ask Jesus for the opportunity of my wife to become willing to communicate with me, more specifically to communicate with me concerning reconciliation of our marriage? Is it too selfish to ask for direct healing of my addictions?
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Dear David, My heart goes out to you and your family and for the reconcilliation of your marriage. And no you are not being selfish. You are actually doing the opposite of being selfish…you are being self-sacrificying for the sake of your wife and your children.

You do not even realize that there are many wives who would die to hear their husband’s first of all admit that they have a problem and second to surrender and wish to be healed from a life of slavery to addictions. Do not lose your faith. Some words of wisdom:

“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
~ St. Augustine

Do you know how to pray the Rosary? If not, ask your Priest to help you. The Rosary is a powerful prayer of intercessory prayer which sounds like your family could use some help and ask specifically for healing and forgiveness from your wife. Also, you could ask some of the great Saints in Heaven to pray for you and your family.
St. Monica, St. Augustine and St. Padre Pio should be invited to help your family at this time. When my son was going thru a tough time, I would seek the help of St. Padre Pio and I was quite amazed that it was myself who needed the intercessory prayer and healing for something that I did and I was led to the Confessional after being away from it for more than 30 years.

Also, you should frequent the Confessional and have you been to a Healing Mass yet?
You are upholding your Marriage Covenant vows…to love your wife in good times and in bad. Peace of God be with you.
 
it sounds like you are doing all that you can. That link will also have all the daily offering and devotions, but you can do whatever you feel you need to do and don’t have to set to a proscribed schedule or do them in order.

You are on the right path. You acknowledge that this is your problem and you have taken steps, many steps, toward recovery in a short time.

I too believe that finding your wedding ring was a sign from God. Remember, it took you a couple of years to get where you are now, so it’s going to take awhile for you to get to where you should be. Be patient. Your alcoholism did not take a day to develop and your recovery, and restoration of your marriage, will take time.

If you have not done so, put the ring back on and commit yourself to healing your marriage. If anything, it will show your devotion to getting back with your family. Remember: “as ye name things, so shall they be named.” Positive thinking. Think of yourself as a married and recovering alcoholic with a family. The separation may be God’s way, indeed, telling you it was His time that you change.

You may stumble. You may have doubts that crop up. Things may not seem to go as you want, at first. And you must wait for God’s time. Don’t give up and give in. And, as you are on this path, I suggest you get a sponsor – one that has a long time in AA, not just one year. He will have greater insights. Learn your triggers, as some are obvious but they can differ for everyone. Despair does not make me want to drink; complacency does. I am more tempted when I think things are going well.

Though you have lost 2 jobs and you are separated, this is not bottom. Bottom is much worse. So consider, as AA says, that you are one of the lucky ones who saw bottom before you hit it. Speak at the meetings with the others there if you have time as they have all been where you are.

Everyone is pulling and praying for you.
 
David,

I have read through all your posts and as a husband and father myself, I feel that you are doing all that you can. I am sure that you have 100 questions you would like to have answered. All in God’s time. And there are some that may never be answered and you can to learn to accept that. I commend you for all that you are doing, but I have to encourage to make sure that this is a LIFE CHANGING experience, not just something that changes you for a few months/years or whatever time it takes to get your wife back. You have to be willing to give 100% of yourself to your wife EVERYDAY and expect nothing in return.

You seem to be in a pretty good place and maybe it is time to make a life plan, by that I mean a plan of how you want to treat your wife and family every day of your life, something realistic that you can stick to. Do not expect to bring here candy and roses everyday, be real. I know that his cannot be easy, marriage is not easy, but without God it can be even more difficult. God bless you for finding HIM in your life, that will be your greatest asset. I cannot imagine my marriage without God’s presence.

Four suggestions for you going forward:
  1. Watch the movie Fireproof and consider starting the Love Dare book.
  2. Read the book “Be A Man” by Fr. Larry Richards as soon as possible
  3. Start listening to Catholic radio. Listen to your local Catholic radio or check out EWTN, Ave Maria Radio, Immaculate Heart Radio and many others that I may be forgetting. If you have an iphone there is Catholic app you can get or just google some of those I mentioned.
  4. Volunteer. Do something constructive with the extra time that you have. Idle hands are the devil’s play toy and this will help you to be active.
Keep up the prayer, keep talking to those that will support and help you through this process. Seek all the help that you can find out. One good program is "More to Life’ with Dr. Gregory Popcak and his wife Lisa on at 11 CST on Ave Maria Radio. They have a telephone couseling service you could utilize as well. www.exceptionalmarriages.com is where you can find them.

I will pray for you, your wife and your kids.
 
I’m praying for you David. I pray this prayer to help me with doing his will and not my own and that begins with humility.

I found the following from here:
chastitysf.com/humility.htm

“To be taken with love for a soul, God does not look on its greatness, but on the greatness of its humility.”

—St. John of the Cross

The Litany of Humility

O JESUS! meek and humble of heart,

Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, Jesus.

From the desire of being loved, "

From the desire of being extolled, "

From the desire of being honored, "

From the desire of being praised, "

From the desire of being preferred, "

From the desire of being consulted, "

From the desire of being approved, "

From the fear of being humiliated, "

From the fear of being despised, "

From the fear of being rebuked, "

From the fear of being calumniated, "

From the fear of being forgotten, "

From the fear of being ridiculed, "

From the fear of being wronged, "

From the fear of being suspected, "

THAT others may be loved more Jesus, grant me the
than I, grace to desire it.

That others may be esteemed more "
than I,

That, in the opinion of the world, "
others may increase and I may
decrease,

That others may be chosen and I set "
aside,

That others may be praised and I "
unnoticed,

That others may be preferred to me "
in everything,

That others may become holier than I, "
provided that I may become as holy
as I should,

—by Rafael Cardinal Merry del Val (1865-1930),
Secretary of State for Pope Saint Pius X
 
I can’t believe just how awesome the power of prayer in this group is.

I put my ring on the night I found it. I spoke with our priest and he too told me not to worry about our marriage right now. I am a husband, I am a father, but I am also a recovering alcoholic.

Watching Fireproof proved to be very difficult. A good friend shared it with me when he learned what I was going through. Besides our drinking, I would have sworn the film makers studied our marriage as a model for the movie. I would love an opportunity at the Love Dare, but right now communication is restricted to email and must concern our children. I can only do what I can do by myself and pray that it will indeed change me for the better.

I love you all. Thank you and thank God for your prayers.
 
daviddewar said:
I can’t believe just how awesome the power of prayer in this group is.

I put my ring on the night I found it. I spoke with our priest and he too told me not to worry about our marriage right now. I am a husband, I am a father, but I am also a recovering alcoholic.

Watching Fireproof proved to be very difficult. A good friend shared it with me when he learned what I was going through. Besides our drinking, I would have sworn the film makers studied our marriage as a model for the movie. I would love an opportunity at the Love Dare, but right now communication is restricted to email and must concern our children. I can only do what I can do by myself and pray that it will indeed change me for the better.

I love you all. Thank you and thank God for your prayers.
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I understand that you are restricted but I would recommend looking at the book and doing the parts that you can do it because it has a lot to do with helping yourself. As you have come to the conclusion, there is a problem in your marriage and looking in the mirror reveals that. (not to say that it is not a two way street, but you can only control what YOU do about this and you can only do things to help make yourself better)

Check out the Be a Man book. That will definitely help you personally.
 
David,

Just an idea concerning the emails and the rules regarding them to your dear Amanda:

Write to her in every email exactly what you want to say to her and what your heart and the Holy Spirit leads you to write. Then cut it out of the email before sending and paste it into a word document or notepad file. Pray to the holy spirit that your typed words will speak to her heart. This will also allow you to reflect on and pray over your thoughts a day, a week, a month or years from now.
In Jesus’ name I’m praying for you Brother
 
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