Broken

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brendawithfaith

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Mine is a long and complicated story of how i ended up in the place where i find myself so i will try to just speak of the events i think contributed most to my situation. I have been married now for almost 25 years. Nine years into this marriage, a very happy marriage, i learned that my husband was basically living a 2nd life and i was clueless. He had been using meth for quite some time (which did help me to understand why we had been experiencing troubles within our relationship that we hadn’t before). With the use of drugs comes along lies and selfishness. Who was this man???what happened to his morals? What happened to our shared beliefs? This was such a huge betrail to me and our marriage. Huge does not even beging to explain the enormity of it. I felt suddenly like everything was a lie. I understand that drug use is complicated and all that goes with it but my point is why not talk with me. How could my husband lie and live a life seperate from me? He was my friend and partner. We shared our lives but he choose to have another without including me. This event deffinately had a life changing effect on me and my connection to him. Fast forward, we are still married and it has been 25 years now. In that time he has become an alcholoic.(he is not on drugs) i hate it but i still find myself blessed because he no longer uses drugs. The most painful part of his drinking is he chooses to go out and stay out and is not spending time with his family. I spent years trying to manage his bad habits and balance it to make so type of healthy family life. It has caused him to be absent in the lives of our children and our marriage. But i dealt with it the best i could.i found many years ago that my love for him was fading. Each time he would do these things i would be hurt and of course sad but it seemed to just chip away at my heart. Next thing i know … It doesnt really hurt anymore. I felt very little. I think it was self preservation on my part. I was scared. I knew i was falling out of love. As it was happening, for years and years, i told him.i was honest. I tried to fight it (the lack of feeling) i explained to him what was happening to me and how i felt. I guess maybe he didnt really understand. Still it never stopped him from bad choices that hurt my heart.
About a year ago something in me changed. I found myself thinking that i deserved to be whole and happy. I was done pretending everything would be ok. I was done excepting the toll it has had on me and what all this has done to me, to my soul. I was no longer a joyful happy hopeful person. I told him this and that i wanted to seperate. I really had decided that i was leaving. He begged me to give him one more chance and i have. He has done so much to correct things and make our lives better. He loves me beyond words. I know i am very blessed to have a spouse who would do all this but just as i feared, my feeling for him have not come back. I just dont love him like a spouse. He feels like my friend. It is aweful. I try to put on a good face but it eats away at me. When we are intiment i feel violated and like a liar but of course i keep that to myself. I need guideness so badly. I pray. I gave up and gave it to god. It isnt changing at all. Is there a particular prayer i could be praying?? Am i asking the wrong way?? I dont want to be like the women in the bible who spend their lives unhappy and just holding onto the belief that god has a plan. That is who i am right now. But i want joy in this life too. Please help me, please. I must be missing something. Also, has this happened to anyone else or am i just being selfish? I do want to say that it isnt an issue of forgiveness. I have forgiven him over and over again for years. I understand he has an addiction. I am not mad or holding a grudge. We have done counselling and i have the tools but i just cant find that spously connection to him either emotionally or physically. I am finding that this situation is taking the life out of me.
Thank you for your concern…god bless.****
 
Praying to the Holy Spirit to give you guidance, direction, strength, fortitude & wisdom in your time of need.
 
brendawithfaith said:
Mine is a long and complicated story of how i ended up in the place where i find myself so i will try to just speak of the events i think contributed most to my situation. I have been married now for almost 25 years. Nine years into this marriage, a very happy marriage, i learned that my husband was basically living a 2nd life and i was clueless. He had been using meth for quite some time (which did help me to understand why we had been experiencing troubles within our relationship that we hadn’t before). With the use of drugs comes along lies and selfishness. Who was this man???what happened to his morals? What happened to our shared beliefs? This was such a huge betrail to me and our marriage. Huge does not even beging to explain the enormity of it. I felt suddenly like everything was a lie. I understand that drug use is complicated and all that goes with it but my point is why not talk with me. How could my husband lie and live a life seperate from me? He was my friend and partner. We shared our lives but he choose to have another without including me. This event deffinately had a life changing effect on me and my connection to him. Fast forward, we are still married and it has been 25 years now. In that time he has become an alcholoic.(he is not on drugs) i hate it but i still find myself blessed because he no longer uses drugs. The most painful part of his drinking is he chooses to go out and stay out and is not spending time with his family. I spent years trying to manage his bad habits and balance it to make so type of healthy family life. It has caused him to be absent in the lives of our children and our marriage. But i dealt with it the best i could.i found many years ago that my love for him was fading. Each time he would do these things i would be hurt and of course sad but it seemed to just chip away at my heart. Next thing i know … It doesnt really hurt anymore. I felt very little. I think it was self preservation on my part. I was scared. I knew i was falling out of love. As it was happening, for years and years, i told him.i was honest. I tried to fight it (the lack of feeling) i explained to him what was happening to me and how i felt. I guess maybe he didnt really understand. Still it never stopped him from bad choices that hurt my heart.
About a year ago something in me changed. I found myself thinking that i deserved to be whole and happy. I was done pretending everything would be ok. I was done excepting the toll it has had on me and what all this has done to me, to my soul. I was no longer a joyful happy hopeful person. I told him this and that i wanted to seperate. I really had decided that i was leaving. He begged me to give him one more chance and i have. He has done so much to correct things and make our lives better. He loves me beyond words. I know i am very blessed to have a spouse who would do all this but just as i feared, my feeling for him have not come back. I just dont love him like a spouse. He feels like my friend. It is aweful. I try to put on a good face but it eats away at me. When we are intiment i feel violated and like a liar but of course i keep that to myself. I need guideness so badly. I pray. I gave up and gave it to god. It isnt changing at all. Is there a particular prayer i could be praying?? Am i asking the wrong way?? I dont want to be like the women in the bible who spend their lives unhappy and just holding onto the belief that god has a plan. That is who i am right now. But i want joy in this life too. Please help me, please. I must be missing something. Also, has this happened to anyone else or am i just being selfish? I do want to say that it isnt an issue of forgiveness. I have forgiven him over and over again for years. I understand he has an addiction. I am not mad or holding a grudge. We have done counselling and i have the tools but i just cant find that spously connection to him either emotionally or physically. I am finding that this situation is taking the life out of me.
Thank you for your concern…god bless.****
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Have you sought advice from your pastor or from the Diocesan marriage office? I mean perhaps it is time to file for legal separation. But I am uncertain of the moral justifications for such a move. But it seems to me you would be justified. There is no reason you should allow yourself to be treated as a door mat. Under the conditions you outlined, you may even qualify for an annulment because it seems to me he was too immature to contract a valid marriage ( based on his hidden life style ).

Linus2nd
 
I was listening to a speaker on Christian marriage, who gave this
advice on how to rekindle lost feelings, and start a romance with husband again.

He said to talk out loud in front of your husband and esp. for your own ears to hear, your husbands good points and his physically attractive qualities. This was given to women who said they cringe if their husbands come near them, from hurts, or just loss of love feelings.

Feelings can be fickle and we can recreate feelings of love again, after there are none, and even for good reasons that there are none.

He said love is like an old fashioned water pump that needs to be PRIMED. sometimes.
Sometimes they pour water into and down a pump into a well, to prime it.

That is what you will have to do, by speaking out loud your feelings and good thoughts toward your husband, BEFORE you actulally have them.

God is the God of hopeless cases. ie. God often spoke something, before there was any evidence of it. ie. Abraham, God called him ‘the father of many nations’, while Abraham was 90 years old, without children and his wife, well past childbearing years, was barren even when they could have had kids. God asked Abraham to call himself "father of many nations’, and for others to call him that, too, long before Abraham even had one child, and esp. with a barren wife, no less.

Talk about hopeless cases. Abraham’s was one, for sure.
God changed Abraham’s name, from Abram, to Abraham, which directly translates to
Father of Many Nations. So whenever anyone called him, or whenever Abraham introduced himself, everyone including Abraham, heard these words, 'Father of Many Nations, Father of Many Nations.;

You must use your words too, to help yourself have feelings for you hub. again.
Start by praising his good points out loud, in front of him, but also when you are alone.
These are words of Faith, for your future.
Think back to when you first met him and wha tyou liked and say those things out loud, esp. in front of him.
Instead of cringing when he comes near you for physical intimacy, CALL HIM OVER, with your words, and honey up your speech,…say, oh honey, come over here, get all over me, I just love it when you do ‘’'this" or “that”, and say these things in faith.

also, praise your husband in front of your kids,…or to your friends and esp. in front of him,…
and in private,
wth him alone start talking aloud about his attractive physical points,…
and tell him, you like his hair, his teeth, his broad shoulders and talk about the way these points used to make you feel.

Prime your pump.

Keep talking,…and …as you speak out your hubs good points your own ears hear too,
and feelings follow what we think about.

Make yourself dwell on hubs good points from when you first met,…
talk yourself into feeling inspired physically,…when you are close with him, imagie you both back when you first met and how you couldn’t wait to be intimate and talk aloud about that time,…

it wont be long, because God is a partner in marriages with people, He is there too, helpoing you…
 
I am no expert so please ignore this advice if it is not for you. If you have forgiven him,
and he is not drinking and he is treating you well maybe you could try to rekindle the marriage. Maybe try a Retrouvaille retreat. Maybe start going on dates with him to get to
know him all over again and rediscover what you loved about him in the first place. This is of course if you are done with counselling and feel that you want to stay with him.

:Praying:highprayer:
 
I just wanted to thank everyone who has offered me some advise. I will definitely try any of these things that we haven’t already tried. Sometimes I feel so alone in this and guilty about my lack of feeling for him and just knowing anyone cares enough to offer me help means so much. May God bless all of you.
 
Is your husband a Catholic, if he is does he practice his Faith? God had to convince me of a very important truth. We demand from a person what they can’t give. And in the process we experience frustration, anxiety, and pain. If your husband has not been practicing his faith, and from what you said about his habits, I seriously doubt it. If we are not in the state of grace Satan has the advantage. He works through our weakness. And this can lead to the destruction of love, a family, or a person. Everyone needs salvation that comes from Christ alone, and He is the only one that can heal a deep injury. He is the only one who can give us the desire to forgive.and to love If we understand that a person could not resist the power of Satan because he didn’t have Christ is his life then we can find it in our heart to have compassion for that person. Its like a person bumping into you and making you drop something and you think him unthinking and rude, you turn to reprimand him and give him a piece of your mind when you discover that he is blind. You husband was spiritually handicapped, and he couldn’t give the love, and consideration you needed, without Christ it is impossible. There was also the influence of the alcohol, and drugs which is an addiction, and affect behavior and reasoning. If he is sincere, then make him prove it. Ask him is he willing to practice his faith, get his life straight with God, if he is then there is real hope to rekindle your love for him, and him for you. Every marriage has to be compose of three, God, the husband, and wife. With out Christ you will hit the rocks. My prayers are with you, and your husband.
 
I don’t think you are selfish, I think you are a very strong woman. You have been married for 25 years. The first 24 were not good at all. Your husband has been sober for only a year. That is NOT along time. Feelings that needed to be stuffed when things were not safe are coming out because you are now in a safer place. Totally normal.

Please, be patient with yourself. Do NOT feel guilty. Keep praying and keep up the good work

Angie
 
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