Conditions for Reuniting

[whatevergirl]

Oh, I’ll be praying for you marine. I’m so sorry…may God give you strength and peace of mind to get through this chapter of your life.

 

[mmarine]

"my wife has not said she wants to come back. On the contrary, she has said a shortly after she left (about 2 months ago) that if I need to know now, then the answer is “it is over forever.”

Boy, she sounds like a tough cookie and certainly not remorseful for causing you such pain.

It is unfortunate for sure, but it seems to me that once the trust is broken it is all too common for the the hurt spouse to try to control every aspect of reconciling.

Do you feel you would be able to work towards reconciling without checking on e-mails, phone calls, examining things said/not said, wondering who she is seeing when not with you, just wondering.

This would seem a life of torture constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Whatever you decide please ask God for direction and assistance especially since you have children to raise.

horselvr,

Yes, my wife is very stubborn or “a tough cookie” as you put it. To answer your question about reconciling without verifying her every move, my gut and instincts tell me not to trust, but I agree with you that a marriage like that would not be a marriage at all, so I have decided I won’t do that if she comes back. I have finally come to the conclusion after prayer, counseling from a christain counselor, priest, friends and the responses I have received here on Catholic Forum, that I will take her back if she will come and I will treat her like a queen like I should have all these years and let God take care of the rest.

God Bless

 

[mmarine]

I think we are talking about 2 different types of control. I do not mean ‘controlling your wife’, I mean more ‘controlling how your pain will be healed’. That is what needs to be handed over to God. It appears there is a real big chance your wife will not be coming back and that is what you need to bring to God

Agreed He wants you to forgive. However, I seriously doubt He expects you to forget. Some people twist ‘turning the other cheeck’ into being doormats and God loves you too much for that. Also, it is VERY possible to have forgiveness in your heart with out trusting someone again.

CM

CM,

Thanks for the clarification. I agree one can forgive someone and not trust them, just like we can love someone, since it is an act of the will and heart, but not like them very much because they irritate us or clash with our personality. As far as my healing, God has really blessed me in the past couple of months with a peaceful heart because he has given me the joy of knowing I am responsible for raising my kids and when they are older, he will give me a new mission of working with the poor or kids with cancer. I am sad about my marriage, but I am excited about my new mission in life.

God Bless

 

[mmarine]

Dear OP,

My heart goes out to you. Yes, God does want you to forgive, even if sometimes your only sincere prayer can be, “Jesus, help me want to forgive” or “Jesus, I don’t feel like I can forgive her/him, please enter into me and forgive through me”. God can work with that. To the second part, No, God does not expect you just to forget. Pray for wisdom.

One thing I wanted to add, from having been there myself, is the toll reconciliation attempts can take on children. Sounds like you have 5 kids? God bless you. I have 4. My husband left us for another woman and for the next 2 years we tried to reconcile several times. That really hurt the children, giving hope to their happy-family-fantasies…only for me to discover yet again that the unfaithful spouse was still up to his old tricks, and dashing their hopes and adding to the confusion. That really hurt them and I wish so badly I had sheltered them from that, especially my oldest daughter. It messes with their mind to see mommy & daddy holding hands one month and then one parent kissing another person not too long after.

Another thing, PLEASE don’t worry about doing “the wrong thing”. This is a terribly difficult and painful path for you, and what InternetPoster recommends might not be what is needed in your situation. You are praying. You are offering up your suffering. You are taking care of your children and working. You need healing. Lay your heart at Christ’s feet and let Him work on you to build you back up again. That will take time. Do your best, cover everything in prayer, and release your heart from anxiety about making mistakes. God is so much bigger and can work with anything.

A wife and mother walking away from a husband and 5 children is a heartbreak…it’s incomprehensible but unfortunately it happens, huh. She may have times when she feels remorseful…well, feeling remorseful isn’t the same as BEING sincerely repentant. If she is sincere if/when she ever asks to come back and live as a family, she will without hesitation be willing to prove it to you…consistently over time, and she will be patient and understanding with your feelings. HUMILITY is key if she ever wants to reconcile. I put myself in her place, and this might be an incorrect assessment, but I think if I had done that and REALIZED the complete destruction it had caused to my precious family, you wouldn’t even have to ask me about my job. I’d hand in my notice immediately and do whatever it took to earn income away from the temptation of such deep sin. But that’s just my personal opinion. And now I’m rambling…

Praying hard for you. God bless.

SarahR,

I just wrote you a long response and lost it again. I will shorten it up.
First, thank you for responding to me and I am sorry to hear your husband abandoned you and your four children. I will be on guard against an insincere return of my wife because she already do that once with the first affair and then did it several more times, to a lesser degree with her flirting actions that varied in their degree of unfaithfulness depending on what she said the these men.

You are so right when you say a truly repentant person would show it by her actions and that would help rebuild the trust. I never really saw that humility you referred to with my wife after the affair, in fact, besides her returning to the guy before ending it, her next action afte the affair was to ask me if she could start a career in law enforcement where she would be around men all the time. I didn’t want to say no because I didn’t want her to resent me, but I was mad that she even asked, but I tried to trust her and it led to the recent flirting stuff.

I am pretty much done with trying to figure what to do with my marriage. I have decided to lay it all at the feet of Christ and you said and pray for His wisdom.

God Bless and may God reach your husband someday and bring him back to you in a way you can believe.

 

[RobnBobA1]

RobnBob,
I did not show enough affection in our marriage, which is why I forgave her for her physical affair, but when she returned to him for a while and then began a verbal affair before she finally ended it, I lost desire for her again and trust. I figured if I forgave her for the affair it would prove my love for her, but she used my forgiveness to keep the affair going longer. Then the snowball affect began, wherein, because I was angry over her repeated unfaithfulness, I didn’t want sex and I wasn’t affectioniate,which made her feel unwanted again, so she started flirting again because it seemed less unfaithful.

Like I said earlier, I wasn’t trying to blame you just get into her shoes for a moment since most women need a reason to leave a marriage for infidelity unlike some men that do so for the simply physical reason of sex. For most women it is the emotional aspect that they feel they are no longer getting at home, but another is maybe providing.

I agree that cutting off ties should be done between her and this man, however if she is repentent and wants it to work, she should be able to do so without quiting her job entirely, especially in an economy as such. Also keep in mind, that should she be repentent and want it to work, she may in the future come to resent you for forcing her to quit her job as a condition of reuniting. I am not saying that she would not have a lot of work to do to avoid or cut ties with that individual, but if in the future she does resent you for that action, this may lead again to her flirting or cheating with another man, or to generally be unhappy with you again, thus causing other problems in the home life, especially with children that you may have.

And for the question of if it was my fiance or spouse that did this, the solution for myself would be simply. I would leave without looking back…that is just me though and I understand that you have other issues that hamper that option, such as your faith and you willingness to forgive or at least try to reconcile.

I agree that her personality needs more leeway with interpretation of her actions, but it sounds like you interpreted correctly in her actual flirting nature towards this specific man.

Unfortunetely that is the way of a womans mind for the most part, to bring up mens past sins against them to get the upper moral hand in an argument. that is her flaw that she needs to work on. I know that I do constantly but because of both my and my fiances personalities, a true argument that we get into, once resolved, we both strive hard and to this day we have succeeded, to keep it in the past. It may help that in the future if you do get into a serious argument that at the end of said argument you both make the verbal agreement “We are done with this particular issue and will not bring it up again”, unless of course future transgressions along the same lines occur, but then it is a separate transgression to be fought about. This places more of the responsibility on her (and you) to uphold the agreement to not bring up the same incident in the future again to gain the upper hand.

If she does not want you in that particular dance class than try to suggest another type of class that simply you and her can do together. She may just be wanting this time with her son by herself. Suggest a cooking class, or a particular sport that you both like, such as a softball league, or perhaps simple a friday night tradition of going to the movies or book club, or simple dinner. If you both like to read, then consider putting aside one night a week to read to each other, switching off with different genres that you both may like. Or maybe just a simple drive in the country and spend the time acting like teenagers in their first love again more along the lines of tryign to re-get-to-know-each-other stage, or the courtin stage of your relationship with small unexpected gifts, such as a bundle of flowers that you picks in a wild field and such. These are just examples and I know that it sounds like I am putting everything at your doorstep to try, but since I cannot talk to her and give her advise on how to try to make things work, right now it is up to you, to at least get the movement started again in your marriage.

Is your councelor by any chance a man? I ask this because no woman that I know would ever tell you that being nice to your wife would turn her off. Maybe he meant it in a different manner, but ti seems to me like that was the message sent. A woman does not want a pushover…there is a difference. You can set you conditions up without being a pushover, and in fact, the whole point of those conditions, will show your wife that you simply will NOT take her back as if all were forgiven without her conceeding some. Think of it as parenthood. We give our children conditions for future privileges because of maybe past trangressions…for example, if they miss a curfew, you may allow them to go out with friends later but the condition is that they are home a half-an-hour earlier than last time, that they call you every hour with an update, that you speak to the friends parents and express your wishes about your child ext. This tells you child that “yes, you blundered, I am giving you another shot but because of your past problems you have conditions that you need to meet, until such time as you can prove to me that you can be responsible” This is by far pushover behavior and indeed presents a very strong action that you are willing to take her back but she must meet some condition in order for you to do so.

I’m sorry to hear about the divorce papers,hopefully you can work something out to both of yours satisfaction and happiness.

-Ooh-rah devil

 

[mmarine]

Sounds reasonable…except it’s like putting a bandaid on a gun shot wound. Your wife’s indiscretions, for lack of a better word, need to be dealt with in counseling…why is she flirting with other men? Cheating? Not wearing her ring out in public? If she agrees to your conditions, it will only be on the surface, if she has done nothing else to change within herself…unless she has been seeing a counselor, praying, really trying to get to the heart of her problems, your conditions will be like resolving symptoms but not getting to the heart of the problem. You won’t gain a true marriage back through control and conditions…you want your wife to come back, whole, healthy, and willing to be a good wife of her own free accord…

Whatevergirl,

Thanks for the reminder that control and conditions are not a receipe for a good marriage.
God Bless

 

[mmarine]

RobnBob,

Yes, my counselor is a man and I am glad you commented on his advice of recommending I not be too nice to my wife with cards, etc. I never really liked the advice and it probably hurt more than helped. It makes sense a woman would appreicate any gesture of kindness, but I think the counselor probably said to stop giving cards and such because she was not responding and he thought I was wasting my time, but I will never know if she would have eventually responded if I had kept sending her cards. It did hurt, though, to constantly have my acts of kindness ignored. Thanks giving me your opinion that most women would like a man being nice.

I will say, you are a strange cookie in one way though, and that is that you say you would not ever give your spouse another chance after infediltiy, but you keep suggesting that I am being too harsh or will create resentment in my wife if I make her quit her job so she will not be her ex-flirt. Your right, she may resent me for making her quit the job, but I don’t fell I should even have to ask, she should just be willing to make the sacrafice. Keep in mind, not only did I not make her quit her previous job after she had a full-blown affair and lived to watch her cheat a little longer with the same guy again and then move onto a few other guys and flirt, but I supported her in joining law enforcement. I lived to regret that too, because she started another flirting relationship when she herself said our relationship was great. She told me it was just her ego that made her do it (flirt) and the fact that he was the only guy treating her nicely. My point is, when I don’t set conditions, I get burned. If I do, you suggest she might resent me and you are right. So I guess I have come to the conclusion, I need to pretend to trust and just pray she will be moved by God to honor my sign of love by being faithful. If not, I guess God will settle everything in the next life and I will just pray that I do not get a disease from her.

As I said, I have made mistakes and been unfaithful to my wife by fantasizning about other women, which is why I have been so forgiving and accepting of her mistakes, but I am just wondering is she will ever change in her heart for God again. I do appreciate you telling me most women seek to look morally superior to their man because I did not know that was a woman thing. I just thought it was more human nature and some are more prone to it than others. She definitely has likes to tell me that overall, I have sinned more than her.

God Bless,
Be safe Marine:thumbsup:

 

[mmarine]

Like I said earlier, I wasn’t trying to blame you just get into her shoes for a moment since most women need a reason to leave a marriage for infidelity unlike some men that do so for the simply physical reason of sex. For most women it is the emotional aspect that they feel they are no longer getting at home, but another is maybe providing.

I agree that cutting off ties should be done between her and this man, however if she is repentent and wants it to work, she should be able to do so without quiting her job entirely, especially in an economy as such. Also keep in mind, that should she be repentent and want it to work, she may in the future come to resent you for forcing her to quit her job as a condition of reuniting. I am not saying that she would not have a lot of work to do to avoid or cut ties with that individual, but if in the future she does resent you for that action, this may lead again to her flirting or cheating with another man, or to generally be unhappy with you again, thus causing other problems in the home life, especially with children that you may have.

And for the question of if it was my fiance or spouse that did this, the solution for myself would be simply. I would leave without looking back…that is just me though and I understand that you have other issues that hamper that option, such as your faith and you willingness to forgive or at least try to reconcile.

I agree that her personality needs more leeway with interpretation of her actions, but it sounds like you interpreted correctly in her actual flirting nature towards this specific man.

Unfortunetely that is the way of a womans mind for the most part, to bring up mens past sins against them to get the upper moral hand in an argument. that is her flaw that she needs to work on. I know that I do constantly but because of both my and my fiances personalities, a true argument that we get into, once resolved, we both strive hard and to this day we have succeeded, to keep it in the past. It may help that in the future if you do get into a serious argument that at the end of said argument you both make the verbal agreement “We are done with this particular issue and will not bring it up again”, unless of course future transgressions along the same lines occur, but then it is a separate transgression to be fought about. This places more of the responsibility on her (and you) to uphold the agreement to not bring up the same incident in the future again to gain the upper hand.

If she does not want you in that particular dance class than try to suggest another type of class that simply you and her can do together. She may just be wanting this time with her son by herself. Suggest a cooking class, or a particular sport that you both like, such as a softball league, or perhaps simple a friday night tradition of going to the movies or book club, or simple dinner. If you both like to read, then consider putting aside one night a week to read to each other, switching off with different genres that you both may like. Or maybe just a simple drive in the country and spend the time acting like teenagers in their first love again more along the lines of tryign to re-get-to-know-each-other stage, or the courtin stage of your relationship with small unexpected gifts, such as a bundle of flowers that you picks in a wild field and such. These are just examples and I know that it sounds like I am putting everything at your doorstep to try, but since I cannot talk to her and give her advise on how to try to make things work, right now it is up to you, to at least get the movement started again in your marriage.

Is your councelor by any chance a man? I ask this because no woman that I know would ever tell you that being nice to your wife would turn her off. Maybe he meant it in a different manner, but ti seems to me like that was the message sent. A woman does not want a pushover…there is a difference. You can set you conditions up without being a pushover, and in fact, the whole point of those conditions, will show your wife that you simply will NOT take her back as if all were forgiven without her conceeding some. Think of it as parenthood. We give our children conditions for future privileges because of maybe past trangressions…for example, if they miss a curfew, you may allow them to go out with friends later but the condition is that they are home a half-an-hour earlier than last time, that they call you every hour with an update, that you speak to the friends parents and express your wishes about your child ext. This tells you child that “yes, you blundered, I am giving you another shot but because of your past problems you have conditions that you need to meet, until such time as you can prove to me that you can be responsible” This is by far pushover behavior and indeed presents a very strong action that you are willing to take her back but she must meet some condition in order for you to do so.

I’m sorry to hear about the divorce papers,hopefully you can work something out to both of yours satisfaction and happiness.

-Ooh-rah devil

RobnBob,

I have a long response to you below in another “post reply”, but I did not include your quote because the number of characters was too long with your comments and my reply. Please read.

Thanks again and God Bless

 

[monicatholic]

marine, your wife is on a path. God, I mean GOD, only knows how far down she’ll go. under what conditions-- IF EVER-- she will repent, return, reconcile.

My point is, when I don’t set conditions, I get burned.

marine. you got burned. conditions. no conditions. half conditions. your sin. your repentance. your sorrow. counseling. no counseling. whatever. you got burned.

there is nothing-- that’s ZERO-- you can do to undo another person’s free will. even lousy husbands’ wives stay faithful sometimes. you can’t make your wife cheat. you can’t make her faithful.

so now you have divorce papers.

you are left with the single life-long obligation-- that’s to pray for your wife’s conversion. only the HOLY SPIRIT can move her heart-- and not without her cooperation. and you’re not the Holy Spirit.

you have no next move.

except prayer.

you may have to learn to pray a very detatched prayer (disinterested prayer is the old fashioned term) it may go something like this: heavenly Father. Please allow my prayers to obtain my wife’s conversion and ultimate salvation. whether or not i ever live to enjoy the benefits of her conversion. not because i love her so much, but because i love you, Lord, and i know you love her and want her salvation."

this prayer was the hardest for me to learn. i pray it for my prodigal son daily ( a dozen times daily.)

 

[RobnBobA1]

RobnBob,

I will say, you are a strange cookie in one way though, and that is that you say you would not ever give your spouse another chance after infediltiy, but you keep suggesting that I am being too harsh or will create resentment in my wife if I make her quit her job so she will not be her ex-flirt. Your right, she may resent me for making her quit the job, but I don’t fell I should even have to ask, she should just be willing to make the sacrafice. Keep in mind, not only did I not make her quit her previous job after she had a full-blown affair and lived to watch her cheat a little longer with the same guy again and then move onto a few other guys and flirt, but I supported her in joining law enforcement. I lived to regret that too, because she started another flirting relationship when she herself said our relationship was great. She told me it was just her ego that made her do it (flirt) and the fact that he was the only guy treating her nicely. My point is, when I don’t set conditions, I get burned. If I do, you suggest she might resent me and you are right. So I guess I have come to the conclusion, I need to pretend to trust and just pray she will be moved by God to honor my sign of love by being faithful. If not, I guess God will settle everything in the next life and I will just pray that I do not get a disease from her.

As I said, I have made mistakes and been unfaithful to my wife by fantasizning about other women, which is why I have been so forgiving and accepting of her mistakes, but I am just wondering is she will ever change in her heart for God again. I do appreciate you telling me most women seek to look morally superior to their man because I did not know that was a woman thing. I just thought it was more human nature and some are more prone to it than others. She definitely has likes to tell me that overall, I have sinned more than her.

God Bless,
Be safe Marine:thumbsup:

I am a strange cookie and I like it

I think that real problem here is that is matters not her job, but her nature, or her faults to be more correct. I really don’t think that it matters if she is working at that particular job…it sounds like she will simply continue to have flirting incidents with any guy regardless of if it is there, at the bank, talking to the postman or delivery guy, or pizza guy. that is her faults that she needs to deal with and I really don’t see anything that you can do to prevent that, other than talking with her or expressing your opinions/feelings. She needs to change that and her quiting that job will just force her to move onto the next man to flirt wiht unless SHE has a change in heart.

I know that it may sound like I am hypocritical in that I would leave my fiance for an act of infidelity while trying to help you find ways to reconcile with a cheating spouse. For me it is a different situation and moral belief. I am not Catholic and infact athiest, therefor do not have the same morals as Catholics do when dealing with the situation of infidelity. For me it comes down to a very simple idea. If my man is willing to give his body to another woman behind my back, then he no longer loves me to the extend that I want or need in a marriage. That simple. I may still love him, but I will not commit myself to someone that does not have the same affection, and cheating demonstrates that love is not there on his end. Catholic are taught to forgive as jesus does and to try to hold together a marriage even after infidelity as part of their moral teachings. That is some of my basis for my previous posts. I know of marraiges that have survived infidelity, even years of it, and the end result is a happy stronger couple…I am not so forgiving so that is the reason for my personal statement that I would leave him.

As for the disease part. Should she come back and acts truly repentent, I think that part of your conditions should be testing for STD’s. While this may show a lack of trust, at the same time her and most especially you health comes first. You can still show an outward appearance of trust for her actions in the future while explaining that it is her past that you do not trust, since she has shown that you could not trust her past. When I mentioned the trust part, I meant mainly for her future actions, not her past. It is simple to say, "If you are truly repentent and want this to work, than I will give you my trust for the future…now I want to ensure that your past “untrustworthiness” (I suggest using a different word but you get the drift) will not hurt either of us further, ie disease. "

I’m sorry but fantisizing about women in your head if far different than physically doing something such as physically cheating or flirting (both of which are physical actions that it different than mentally thinking something). While you, in gods eyes, are still committing adultery by those mental images, only you and god know of that sin of the mind, and I assume that you have asked for forgiveness. With your wife, she put her mental thoughts into actions for the whole world to know and or see. What is in your mind is private while your actions are public. Would you consider it so breaking of your marraige to simply know that your wife simply had mental thoughts about the hot guy on TV, rather than her physically having sex with another man? They are not on the same page, the same plane, the same block. One is a mental sin that can privately be asked for forgineness and the other is a physical sin to include the mental sin that must be publically asked for forgiveness.

 

[RobnBobA1]

RobnBob,

I have a long response to you below in another “post reply”, but I did not include your quote because the number of characters was too long with your comments and my reply. Please read.

Thanks again and God Bless

I only saw your 11:02 post…was that the one that you were talking about?

Stay safe and hope that you find peace of heart one day soon.

 

[mmarine]

marine, your wife is on a path. God, I mean GOD, only knows how far down she’ll go. under what conditions-- IF EVER-- she will repent, return, reconcile.

marine. you got burned. conditions. no conditions. half conditions. your sin. your repentance. your sorrow. counseling. no counseling. whatever. you got burned.

there is nothing-- that’s ZERO-- you can do to undo another person’s free will. even lousy husbands’ wives stay faithful sometimes. you can’t make your wife cheat. you can’t make her faithful.

so now you have divorce papers.

you are left with the single life-long obligation-- that’s to pray for your wife’s conversion. only the HOLY SPIRIT can move her heart-- and not without her cooperation. and you’re not the Holy Spirit.

you have no next move.

except prayer.

you may have to learn to pray a very detatched prayer (disinterested prayer is the old fashioned term) it may go something like this: heavenly Father. Please allow my prayers to obtain my wife’s conversion and ultimate salvation. whether or not i ever live to enjoy the benefits of her conversion. not because i love her so much, but because i love you, Lord, and i know you love her and want her salvation."

this prayer was the hardest for me to learn. i pray it for my prodigal son daily ( a dozen times daily.)

Monicatholic,

Well said. I will prayer for my wife. I actually do want her back so it won’t be hard, but if I ever see her with another man, then it will be harder to pray for her, but I know I must pray even harder then; I will really need to rely on the “detached prayer” you described at that time. I do fear she will slip further into immorality and end up taking her life or something drastic, but I am hoping by telling her she can always come back will prevent her from giving up on herself out of guilt, which I think she has a lot of, as weird as that may sound given her track record.

With the divorce coming, I am trying to figure out how kind to be. I want to protect my kids of course, but I also want to show her I am not a mean person by being amicable. I do fear the day, if it comes, that my three girls have to be around a new husband or boyfriend of her’s. I fear it emotionally for me and my girls and I fear the real possibility that he might mistreat them or molest them. I am not sure I could control my anger if a man hurt my girls in anyway.

 

[mmarine]

I am a strange cookie and I like it

I think that real problem here is that is matters not her job, but her nature, or her faults to be more correct. I really don’t think that it matters if she is working at that particular job…it sounds like she will simply continue to have flirting incidents with any guy regardless of if it is there, at the bank, talking to the postman or delivery guy, or pizza guy. that is her faults that she needs to deal with and I really don’t see anything that you can do to prevent that, other than talking with her or expressing your opinions/feelings. She needs to change that and her quiting that job will just force her to move onto the next man to flirt wiht unless SHE has a change in heart.

I know that it may sound like I am hypocritical in that I would leave my fiance for an act of infidelity while trying to help you find ways to reconcile with a cheating spouse. For me it is a different situation and moral belief. I am not Catholic and infact athiest, therefor do not have the same morals as Catholics do when dealing with the situation of infidelity. For me it comes down to a very simple idea. If my man is willing to give his body to another woman behind my back, then he no longer loves me to the extend that I want or need in a marriage. That simple. I may still love him, but I will not commit myself to someone that does not have the same affection, and cheating demonstrates that love is not there on his end. Catholic are taught to forgive as jesus does and to try to hold together a marriage even after infidelity as part of their moral teachings. That is some of my basis for my previous posts. I know of marraiges that have survived infidelity, even years of it, and the end result is a happy stronger couple…I am not so forgiving so that is the reason for my personal statement that I would leave him.

As for the disease part. Should she come back and acts truly repentent, I think that part of your conditions should be testing for STD’s. While this may show a lack of trust, at the same time her and most especially you health comes first. You can still show an outward appearance of trust for her actions in the future while explaining that it is her past that you do not trust, since she has shown that you could not trust her past. When I mentioned the trust part, I meant mainly for her future actions, not her past. It is simple to say, "If you are truly repentent and want this to work, than I will give you my trust for the future…now I want to ensure that your past “untrustworthiness” (I suggest using a different word but you get the drift) will not hurt either of us further, ie disease. "

I’m sorry but fantisizing about women in your head if far different than physically doing something such as physically cheating or flirting (both of which are physical actions that it different than mentally thinking something). While you, in gods eyes, are still committing adultery by those mental images, only you and god know of that sin of the mind, and I assume that you have asked for forgiveness. With your wife, she put her mental thoughts into actions for the whole world to know and or see. What is in your mind is private while your actions are public. Would you consider it so breaking of your marraige to simply know that your wife simply had mental thoughts about the hot guy on TV, rather than her physically having sex with another man? They are not on the same page, the same plane, the same block. One is a mental sin that can privately be asked for forgineness and the other is a physical sin to include the mental sin that must be publically asked for forgiveness.

RobnBobA1,

You are a strange cookie, an athiest on a Catholic site. Well, you are a very logical athiest and I will pray the God will continue to protect you in the Marines and where ever life takes you. Your belief does help me understand your advice better, though.
Your’re right, the job doesn’t matter, my wife will sin anywhere if she had not changed in her heart, which will only come from God.

I do believe marriages can be stronger after an affair, as you said you have seen, but I my wife says she can’t trust me since I had fantasies, which included self-gratification sometimes. I do believe my sins are serious and adultery, but they do not cause the same problems of an actual affair like dissease, pregnancy and falling in love with someone other than your spouse, so I would think my sins would create less distrust of me for my wife and would be easier to heal from, but she does not act that way and insist that she does not think she can not trust me. Everyone I have talked to agrees with you and says an actual affair is more serious. Even my Catholics acknowledge that, although my sin is mortal, an actual affair causes two people to sin, so while I would go to hell unless I confess my sins, at least I have not caused another to risk hell by my actions. My counseler and priest had suggested that my wife needs to make my sins seem worse in some way (frequency of my fantasies) so she does not feel so guilty. I have confessed my sins and have no desire to think of other women because I am so attacted to my sexually and I know how empty I felt after I would fantasize.

Thanks for all you feedback and I will pray that God will touch your heart with his obvious presence in this world and compel you to become a soldier (sorry), Marine for God.
God Bless

 

[RobnBobA1]

RobnBobA1,

You are a strange cookie, an athiest on a Catholic site. Well, you are a very logical athiest and I will pray the God will continue to protect you in the Marines and where ever life takes you. Your belief does help me understand your advice better, though.
Your’re right, the job doesn’t matter, my wife will sin anywhere if she had not changed in her heart, which will only come from God.

I do believe marriages can be stronger after an affair, as you said you have seen, but I my wife says she can’t trust me since I had fantasies, which included self-gratification sometimes. I do believe my sins are serious and adultery, but they do not cause the same problems of an actual affair like dissease, pregnancy and falling in love with someone other than your spouse, so I would think my sins would create less distrust of me for my wife and would be easier to heal from, but she does not act that way and insist that she does not think she can not trust me. Everyone I have talked to agrees with you and says an actual affair is more serious. Even my Catholics acknowledge that, although my sin is mortal, an actual affair causes two people to sin, so while I would go to hell unless I confess my sins, at least I have not caused another to risk hell by my actions. My counseler and priest had suggested that my wife needs to make my sins seem worse in some way (frequency of my fantasies) so she does not feel so guilty. I have confessed my sins and have no desire to think of other women because I am so attacted to my sexually and I know how empty I felt after I would fantasize.

Thanks for all you feedback and I will pray that God will touch your heart with his obvious presence in this world and compel you to become a soldier (sorry), Marine for God.
God Bless

Well thank you…I try to be logical since that is the best course to not only positively affect my life, but also my political policies that potentially everyone in this country must live by (through laws, regulations etc) Anomolies and inconsitences in logic forces me to re-evaluate and research to best manage my own philosophies. One reason I am on a Catholic site, is not for the theological advise or reasonings but the logical consistences that can sometimes appear to one that does not believe what a vast majority of people do believe in. But that is all on a tangent.

I was thinking about a way that you could respond to your wife in a way that would not alienate her after her comment about her lack of trust because of masterbation. To be blunt I (personally) would tell her that her lack of attention in bed was mostly at fault. It is known that one of men’s needs is a sexual need (not the only but a major component in marraige to keep it strong and unitive) that only a wife can provide (I am trying to talk about this from a Catholic perspective so forgive me if I may get a component wrong) Her sexual attention to other men, leave you without, where your body still feels those natural urges that only you unfaithful wife is supposed to provide. My advise would be to tone down my language a little but not the message. If she is a godly woman (which is harder to believe) than she should know that her duties as a wife to a godly man is to include the marraige bed. It need not be everytime you want, but it does need to happen. I would hazard a guess and say that your sin of masterbastion is a direct coorelation for her MIA in bed or affection. If she wants to trust you in the future to not do such, than you need to be able to trust that she in turn helps you by being there physically. Her trust is a direct link with her own actions. she obviously is looking for the closeness that one gets from sex with other men, or even just the closeness of sexual attention (sexual words or meanings). Explain to her that she can get that if she comes home and in turn it will help her trust you since with her home and doiing her marraige duty, you will have no need to stray into your thoughts or hand.

Personally at this point I fear that her excuses are just that excuses. I may be wrong, and hope that I am, but the more information that I am recieving seems to fall into the line of thinking that she has reached the conclusion that she is morally superior and that her sins do not matter or have not contributed, or even blame your past sins for her indiscretions. A fellow marine of mine had a similar problem while in Iraq and even before, in which his wife was very inattentive in bed, but would flirt with past boyfriends (although no physical relationship ever arose that he knew of) She would blame his masterbastion on their problems when in realtiy it was her lack of physical attention that led to his sin. Unfortunetly they are in the process of a divorce since she is unwilling to help make the relationship work which was his efforts. She demanded that he stopped watching porn and he did, to stop looking at racy pictures and he did, to stop masterbating and he did, and yet none of his progress in those areas made a difference since she had already decided in her mind that she didn’t want the marraige any longer. I again, hope that this is not the case, and hope that you can make it work,

Thank you for your words

 

[mmarine]

One reason I am on a Catholic site, is not for the theological advise or reasonings but the logical consistences that can sometimes appear to one that does not believe what a vast majority of people do believe in. But that is all on a tangent.

RobnBobA1,
First let me say, I think God has planted a seed in you and I pray that as you continue to observe “logical consistences” amoung people who believe in God, you will begin to belive that God is the only one who can make sense of this crazy world.

My fantasies and self gratification were not because of my wife not wanting sex. She did want sex more than I had sex with her. I must take the blame for the times I fantasized. Most of the time I did it because I was not feeling close to my wife because of this relationship she had before we were ever married and I had no right to hold this against her. But there things she did when we were dating that made me wonder if she had really changed from the immoral lifestyle she lead with this former boyfriend. For instance, she called me while I was in OCS in the Marines and asked me if she could go camping with a male friend. I had to explain to her why that was a bad idea. She also rarely wrote me when I was in OCS when I needed her most and had given her a promise ring. Anyways, I let doubt creep into my mind and it hurt our marriage in the beginning and I never showed her the level of trust I needed to , which is why I blamed myself for the first affair she had, but after that I figured I had take my just punishment. Unfortunately, she proceeded to take advantage of my forgiveness by going back to her lover a little while longer, as I have said and then got into this pattern of indiscreations and flirting. Basically, several times in our marriage now, just when I was ready to trust her again and feel highly sexually attracted to her she would loose my trust with an indiscreation. This last 3-week flirtatious affair though, I got mad and demanded a guarantee that she would never do it again and that is when she said she would not give me a guarantee because I had not treated her well in the beginning of our marriage. She is right about that, but she doesn’t seem to want to acknowledge that she can’t use that as an excuse for her current transgressions anymore. As I have said, her own words to me after the physical affair and the 3-week verbal affair were that she thought I would leave her because if I had done what she did she does not think she could forgive me.

Oh well, I am done trying to figure out why she can’t trust me more easily after my mistakes if I can learn to trust her after her mistakes. I can’t control her ability to trust. I am just going to try and treat her like a queen like I always should have and hope she will respond to my love in action and ask God to protect me from her, if her heart has turned away from Him completely and she wished to do me harm emotionally or otherwise.

I will let you know if she goes through with the divorce, but I will still try and win her back.I will let you know if she ever comes back.

Now, my Marine friend, go seek God because He is seeking you, and you know it.

God Bless:thumbsup:

 

[mmarine]

Well thank you…I try to be logical since that is the best course to not only positively affect my life, but also my political policies that potentially everyone in this country must live by (through laws, regulations etc) Anomolies and inconsitences in logic forces me to re-evaluate and research to best manage my own philosophies. One reason I am on a Catholic site, is not for the theological advise or reasonings but the logical consistences that can sometimes appear to one that does not believe what a vast majority of people do believe in. But that is all on a tangent.

RobnBobA1,

I wrote a reply to your last post that you will see above, but I wanted to make sure I could still reply to any future post you post because I was worried the system may have dropped my out. This worry stems from the fact that I got an email from Catholic Answers on my personal email that contained a message from them, which was fine, but it also contained the entire content of one of my post. The problem is that my kids have the same email address as I do and I don’t want them to read things about their mother’s mistakes or mine. Do you know that Catholic Answers apparently occassionally sends emails to members that contain the content of their postings? I sent them an email asking them not to do this anymore, but it is odd that they would do this considering it could really ruin someone’s privacy who shares an email address with other members of their family.

 

[whatevergirl]

*Hi mmarine;

That’s odd…I have received links to CAF before in my email, but you click on it, and then it takes you to the forum…it’s been a while, I have deactivated that. You can go to profile, then I believe it’s ‘‘options,’’ and then you can disable receiving email notifications from CAF to your email. Hope that helps.

Sorry to interject…but, I thought I’d answer.

On the topic of your thread, I will keep you and your wife in my prayers. *

 

[RobnBobA1]

One reason I am on a Catholic site, is not for the theological advise or reasonings but the logical consistences that can sometimes appear to one that does not believe what a vast majority of people do believe in. But that is all on a tangent.

RobnBobA1,
First let me say, I think God has planted a seed in you and I pray that as you continue to observe “logical consistences” amoung people who believe in God, you will begin to belive that God is the only one who can make sense of this crazy world.

Now, my Marine friend, go seek God because He is seeking you, and you know it.

God Bless:thumbsup:

I appreciate your words and beliefs but in all honestly I am comfortable with my idea about the world and not looking to change it. For me to believe in a god would be a lie to myself. I am comfortable with not actually knowing or having confidence in knowing about everything with how the world came to be. It is not an important question for me to answer, neither is there fear of death (other than wanting to continue to live and enjoy life with my family while I can). To be honest (and please don’t take this as an insult) in my study of religion throughout the history of man, there is all common themes that people use to justfy them. A fear of death being a major one, in which we actually live very short lives when taking the worlds age into account. Our lives are simply a blip of time. Another would be a need to explain the happenings of the world. Greek religion is a great example and how the sun arose everday in the east and sunk in the west. They explained it using terms and ideas that they understood. Fire in the back of a chariot with horses drawing it across the sky. When that was discovered to not be the reason, then doubt about other beliefs were introduced and a new theory had to take its place ie a new religion. As we learn more about how the universe functions, less and less is there a need for those beliefs so religion just focuses on things that we do not yet know - the origin of the universe to begin with or life on earth and so you have stories of clay men and women made out of ribs. Another that is less known is our inate sense of justice or simply revenge. When one harms us, we naturally want them to pay. If they do not pay, we are affronted and need some type of comfort that they will pay at some point hence Hades, or hell or karma, or reincarnation. Sorry I went on but I thought I should explain a bit on why the possibility of a god for me would be dishonest.

On a personal note, my definition of god actually has a twist to it. Someone was trying to explain and use the metaphore of god being an atom (don’t remember where she was going with it). I took that to another level. God to me is just energy. Energy is in everything nonliving and living. It is in all matter, and cannot be created nor destroyed simply transformed on a basic level. It is the begining of everything. That would be my definition of god rather than a supreme conscience being who orchestrates everything through his will.

 

[RobnBobA1]

Were you Catholic and a virgin before you married your wife? Not trying to pry but get some insight. If that is the case then you were already steeped in the idea that sex was solely for the purpose of marriage, a concept that she did not share or have a strong belief in. You may have been brought up in that fashion with that concept “drilled” in your head from the catholic church or family. She may not have been, hence why it may have been a bigger issue to try to deal with than it was for her, thus your problem with her other life or sexual partner. You fantisies may have affected her in the same way that her sexual partners before marriage effected you. She would have a need that once you guys were together that your fantasies involved only her, since if they involved other women would lead her to think that she was not attractive enough in your mind, thus maybe causing her to look for men that showed her that they were attracted to her in the physical manner. This is assuming that your fantasies did not involve her but other women, or after you looked at other women. If they involved her alone and only after you saw her picture or talked to her, then it may have led to confusion on why you were not sexually interested in her when she offered, thus a lack of sex appeal in her mind.

It is good that you have come to the realization that you cannot control her trust factor or even her thought process. All you can do is show a level of trust and a willingness to commit if SHE decides to forget the past and begin anew on a new slate…for both of you. You are willing to wipe the slat clean but she needs to be willing to do the same or it will never occur and you will simply be playing a rigged game, constantly trying to atone for past sins with her not willing to do the same. Again…that is solely on HER head now.

Her actions however during OCS in my mind are unexcusable. Like a deployment, constant contact is needed between family and friends. For me anyways. But I was also secure in my families and fiances love, therefor it was not a necessity that I had to have constantly but occassionally. Some needed it more often and some less so than I. I know in bootcamp however, getting those letters from home was a blessing and always welcome because of the stress. Levels of stress coorelate with level of need. My level of stress in Iraq actually was not that high, maybe because I had been training with my guys for so long and we all trusted in each other to protect each others back, and our equiptment/training. When you are in the training process such as OCS or MOS school, the confidence in abilities is not present so confidence from those at home is very important…a confidence that she did not communicate enough during that time of your life, and for that I apologize for her.

Again…hope that you find a piece of mind and heart in your coming days,

 

[RobnBobA1]

RobnBobA1;6283032:

Well thank you…I try to be logical since that is the best course to not only positively affect my life, but also my political policies that potentially everyone in this country must live by (through laws, regulations etc) Anomolies and inconsitences in logic forces me to re-evaluate and research to best manage my own philosophies. One reason I am on a Catholic site, is not for the theological advise or reasonings but the logical consistences that can sometimes appear to one that does not believe what a vast majority of people do believe in. But that is all on a tangent.

RobnBobA1,

I wrote a reply to your last post that you will see above, but I wanted to make sure I could still reply to any future post you post because I was worried the system may have dropped my out. This worry stems from the fact that I got an email from Catholic Answers on my personal email that contained a message from them, which was fine, but it also contained the entire content of one of my post. The problem is that my kids have the same email address as I do and I don’t want them to read things about their mother’s mistakes or mine. Do you know that Catholic Answers apparently occassionally sends emails to members that contain the content of their postings? I sent them an email asking them not to do this anymore, but it is odd that they would do this considering it could really ruin someone’s privacy who shares an email address with other members of their family.

I knew that because when I check my mail, I have many many emails regarding posts of mine and/or responses. I would suggest that your privacy is already ruined by your shared email. Suggest considering getting your own account that you can use specifically for site that you do not want you children to look at, or rather your posts. This may be harder if you are doing so for accountability for yourself (in the case that you have a problem with looking at internet porn or such and are trying to use your children to keep accountability for your transgressions). Do you share for perhaps their accountability, so that you can see when internet activities that they are doing?