Husband trying to reconcile.. she does not trust

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I once tried to reconcile with such a man. It was an abject disaster. Did more long-term damage than the first time it collapsed.

Absent a real and sustained change of heart that is apparent to everyone, not just protestations of change… there is very little reason for hope.

What would such an indication be? Such a person doesn’t approach their spouse until they’ve really had a conversion… till they’ve become a person of deep prayer, daily Mass if possible, renouncing bad friends and vices, doing penance, a complete personality change all bound up with a recognition of the horrible damage they caused and a sincere humble desire to make amends. They don’t come looking for money, they come with money to pay reparation for the financial security their previous actions destroyed… legal fees, included.

They come with tears in their eyes for the suffering they caused others, not their own suffering and pain and loneliness.

Absent any of this, my advice is to slam the door in their faces. Leave them to God to sort out that relationship. They can do their conversion on their own time at their own pace.
 
Liberanosamalo:

👍

Agood friend decided she would take back her husband after he cheated many times, ran the credit cards up, ruined her financially and almost physically/mentally because of poor advice consisting much of what was given here.

He pleaded and begged her take him back and reconsider because God did not want them to divorce—blah and blah. He and a few other guilted her into taking him back and giving him another chance and to pray for his soul as a dutiful christian wife “is suppose to do”. She did and within the week, while she was at work he cleaned out the residence of everything.

She came home to an empty house.

So again I say:

Liberanosamalo 👍
 
horselvr said:
Liberanosamalo:

👍

Agood friend decided she would take back her husband after he cheated many times, ran the credit cards up, ruined her financially and almost physically/mentally because of poor advice consisting much of what was given here.

He pleaded and begged her take him back and reconsider because God did not want them to divorce—blah and blah. He and a few other guilted her into taking him back and giving him another chance and to pray for his soul as a dutiful christian wife “is suppose to do”. She did and within the week, while she was at work he cleaned out the residence of everything.

She came home to an empty house.

So again I say:

Liberanosamalo 👍
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this is exactly what she is afraid of as well… he is very flippant about everything… also, he has not once approached her with anything close to remorse… all he has said is whether she wants to come back to her old life?? also, he has never called her up or said that he was sorry, it has always been through the church friends who obviously are now feeling sorry for the guy since the girl is not willing to take him back… they have forgotten how many chances the girl had given him to come back or take her back…
ultimately, what makes me mad is that, when things went bad, none of these so-called friends were around for her. they all went on with their merry lives, telling her he was right in doing what he did because he was not “happy”… and everyone has the right to “happiness”…
 
God wants marriages to work, but He also said we must be wise as serpents.

I think some well-meaning people here have never come face to face with real evil, especially the ones who parade as wolves in sheeps clothing and take advantage of their spouse’s desire to be good people in order to harm them.
 
“what makes me mad is that, when things went bad, none of these so-called friends were around for her. they all went on with their merry lives, telling her he was right in doing what he did because he was not “happy”… and everyone has the right to “happiness”…”

But of course. Why would they care if she is able to feed the kids, pay the mortgage, the electric bill so on and so forth.

As long as he is able to find happiness. :rolleyes:

I agree again Liberanosamalo.

There is a very big difference in the husband that might get a little moody or doesn’t “compliment” his wife enough or “show her enough attention”. You know the normal everday living stuff as opposed to the husband that truely is evil and will do whatever he has to to cause real pain in the household because he feels he can and that he has the right to control his family even if it destroys them in any way he deems fit.

I was just looking at the “How to Love Your Husband thread”. All I can say is how wonderful it must be to have a good husband. This type of man a woman should go out of her way for.

The type we’re talking about—not so much. 😦
 
I know. I hear women complain about husbands and socks on the floor, or they want to watch football and I think “Wish that were my only complaint!” How easy marriage must be when you are with a normal spouse!
 
JesusInMe said:
ultimately, what makes me mad is that, when things went bad, none of these so-called friends were around for her. they all went on with their merry lives, telling her he was right in doing what he did because he was not “happy”… and everyone has the right to “happiness”…
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People often speak of their so called “right to happiness”. This often proceeds from political ideas forged by our founding fathers (USA). What we have a right to, and what we were created for, is Holiness. Now, in holiness, we can experience the Joy of God, while we might not recognize this Joy as a worldly happiness per se.

God is not concerned with what our friends think is right. Ultimately, this righteousness of God has to be searched out in our own hearts and lives. Was sacrificial love painful to you? Was it painful to Christ? I think it all comes down to how we think about it. Do we think as God thinks, or as secular humanists think? I mean, was God happy with the suffering of Christ? Did Jesus find worldly happiness on the cross? And yet, we know that Jesus’ sacrificial love on the cross is transforming, and we are called to join our suffering to His.

Now, what does this look like? For the originator of this thread, it might begin with intimacy, not intimacy with her earthly spouse, rather, intimacy with her heavenly spouse. And that heavenly intimacy begins in prayer and supplications. It begins in mass and finds it’s completion in the death on the cross, in the resurrection from the dead, and in the ascension into heaven. This is at once an earthly and heavenly experience of divine intimacy. From this divine experience of the love of God, proceeds the fruitful beginning of a holy life with her earthly groom, her former husband.

Does this mean inviting her divorced husband to move in, or to sleep with her? No, it means inviting him to share in the one and same divine intimacy. Once he has ascended this divine ladder of grace, then he will be ready to begin to accept his earthly spouse, and his earthly commitment of love, and his earthly duties and responsibilities as her husband.

How often we put the cart of sex, passion, and romance before the horse of prayer, grace, and holy communion with God. We need to have divine order in our life before we can expect to have divine happiness in it.

Gene
 
Liberanosamalo said:
I know. I hear women complain about husbands and socks on the floor, or they want to watch football and I think “Wish that were my only complaint!” How easy marriage must be when you are with a normal spouse!
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when i hear this, i feel the same way! Most women complain about normal guys and how they dont put things away neatly, how they never cook and how they never do the laundry… but they provide for the family and respect and love their wives…
 
climer97007 said:
How often we put the cart of sex, passion, and romance before the horse of prayer, grace, and holy communion with God. We need to have divine order in our life before we can expect to have divine happiness in it.

Gene
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how come everyone talks abut divine life but ignore what words God says about “being wise as serpents” or the fact that Jesus has allowed that a marriage can be dissolved because of adultery or abandonment?

and what happens if he never climbs the divine ladder of grace?
 
JesusInMe said:
this is exactly what she is afraid of as well… he is very flippant about everything… also, he has not once approached her with anything close to remorse… all he has said is whether she wants to come back to her old life?? also, he has never called her up or said that he was sorry, it has always been through the church friends who obviously are now feeling sorry for the guy since the girl is not willing to take him back… they have forgotten how many chances the girl had given him to come back or take her back…
ultimately, what makes me mad is that, when things went bad, none of these so-called friends were around for her. they all went on with their merry lives, telling her he was right in doing what he did because he was not “happy”… and everyone has the right to “happiness”…
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*Without remorse, I don’t have much hope for the couple. As Christians, we are called to forgive. But not all people who hurt others want to be forgiven. You have to want to be forgiven, for a marriage to heal and move forward. Marriage takes two, not a wife shouldering an unremorseful husband. Sometimes, people marry the wrong people. It happens. They might not have included God in that process and think God is going to keep together something He never blessed to begin with…

I believe in spouses and the Sacrament of marriage being a platform for love, growth and a place for God’s graces to flow through to help couples get to heaven. But, when someone is a chronic liar, cheater, and abuser…and is not remorseful on top of it…I would be hardpressed to think that is God’s will for a woman or man to stay with such a person.With God, all things are possible…but He doesn’t force Himself on us. We do have free will. *
 
JesusInMe said:
how come everyone talks abut divine life but ignore what words God says about “being wise as serpents” or the fact that Jesus has allowed that a marriage can be dissolved because of adultery or abandonment? and what happens if he never climbs the divine ladder of grace?
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Jesus never says that a marriage can be “dissolved” for any reason.

In Matthew 5 it is written: “But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, causes her to become an adulteress, and anyone who marries the divorced woman commits adultery.” Jesus is not here saying that it is okay to divorce due to unfaithfulness, He is saying that you can not cause a woman to commit adultery if she is already guilty of it.

Later, in Matthew 19, it is written: “Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery.” Jesus is here describing the same thing He described in Chapter 5 but from the man’s point of view, from the point of view the man who has already committed adultery.

In Mark 10 Jesus makes it perfectly clear: "He answered, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery.”

Likewise, in Luke 16 Jesus makes it clear: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”

This is what Jesus has said, and what the Catholic Church teaches to this day. The Church has no authority to divide what God has joined together, whether there was infidelity or not, abuse or not, abandonment or not. The only authority that the Church has is to say that God has never joined a particular couple together, to say that a marriage in the eyes of God has never existed. This is what an annulment is about. There is also the Petrine Priviledge and the Pauline Priviledge. Look these up as they might apply in this case.

So, what happens to any person who refuses the grace of God? This is between the man and God or between the woman and God. If either of them refuses to cooperate with the grace of God, there are of course consequences.

We are all called to union with God, to holiness, and we must first respect our individual calling. Then comes the matter of our vocation. Is the woman married to the man or is she single? If she is married to him, in the eyes of God, then she has an obligation to pray for him, whether he ever responds. Has the woman petitioned the Church for an annulment and gotten one? If so, then she has no marital responsibility to him. There are details of circumstances here that we can not possibly know, and it is not ours to decide. This is between each of them and God and between each of them and the Church.

Gene
 
Here are my 2 cents. I think as most everyone here that she should continue on her way. If he is truly repentant, he and she individually can pray to God to help him on the rest of his trip. As for the relationship, he has been a danger to her and she has done much for him. It seems like she should offer it up to God and move on.
 
JesusInMe said:
could you let me know what this is?
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For some reason, my post disappeared with the links to the answers to your question. You can just Google “Pauline Privilege” or “Petrine Privilege”. There are a lot of good websites out there which do a fair job explaining these processes.

After you read up a bit, you can then make an appointment with your local parish Priest and get more personal insight depending upon the specifics in question. It is way to personal and detailed to try to do in an internet forum like this.

Gene
 
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