I feel like my husband is in the way

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Convert_in_99

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The closer I get to God and back with my faith, the more and more I find myself distancing myself from my husband. I feel like HE is in the way of me doing anything that God might want me to REALLY be doing. God did not want me to marry a non-catholic. God just doesn’t do that. He permits it yes, but it’s not what he really wants. I feel like I am stuck with a man I don’t really like because he is nothing I would like to be right now. He isn’t Catholic, he isn’t really that religious at all, he’s very worldly. On top of it, I can’t get pregnant (combined we are very infertile) and he doesn’t make enough at all to even think about adoption and he refuses to foster. I married him at a time when my faith was at a low point. Now that it is growing again I feel like he is this huge weight I have to drag around and that gets in the way of me finding a real vocation. Marriage to a catholic and having children, or taking care of my family as a single person (can’t with husband because we are stuck out of state and have been for 7 years.)

All I ever wanted in life was to marry a good Catholic man and have lots of children. My life SO didn’t work out the way I originally intended, and how I think God would prefer I live it.

I know none of this probably makes much sense, but I’m trying my best to explain what I feel. What on earth am I supposed to do? I am miserable in this marriage. I want “freed” so badly. I am just waiting with bated breath for this to end so I can actually get a start on my real life, that God intended for me.
 
So you don’t like your husband, and you view him as a huge weight you must drag around, and he gets in your way of pursuing holiness?

This attitude is more reflective of focusing upon pious behaviors than cultivating personal holiness. If you were really growing in holiness, do you suppose that you would be viewing your husband as dead weight from which you desire to be freed?

Remember that God loves your husband as much as He loves you, which is to say that He loves your husband perfectly and He died for your husband. I doubt God views him as a burden from which you must be freed.
 
But I don’t understand why God didn’t give me a Catholic spouse like I originally wanted. My husband was the only man who would marry me. Now I realize that I shouldn’t have settled, but i was afraid I’d never get married otherwise. Now I just feel like I am stuck in something that wasn’t what God wanted, and am just wanting to get on with life and figure out what He had wanted for me instead. There is no way that God wanted me to be married to a non-catholic and not have kids. That just isn’t the purpose of Catholic marriage.

I wish the Church didn’t allow mixed marriages at all.

Again, I know I don’t make much sense, but I am trying to express how I feel. I have mental health issues and so relating how I feel is difficult for me.
 
You decided to marry this poor man. How would you feel if your husband went around saying that he wished he never married you? It seems, to me, that you have already made up your mind and that you will be filing for divorce soon.
 
How do you know that God didn’t want you two to be married? You cannot possibly know that.
Take responsibility for your own choices. You chose to marry him. The Church is not responsible for the choices we make in selecting our spouses.
Whether or not this was what God had planned for you, the reality is, this is where you are now. You are bound to a man in holy matrimony (assuming a valid marriage). You, as his wife, have a responsibility to help your husband get to heaven. The purpose of marriage is twofold: for the procreation and education of children, and to help get the spouses to heaven.
Regarding the infertility, even lifelong faithful Catholic couples experience infertility. God is not punishing your choice of spouse by causing you to be infertile.
Therefore, if you are unable to have children, your focus at this time should be upon the second purpose of marriage - get your husband to heaven! 👍
 
Convert_in_99 said:
But I don’t understand why God didn’t give me a Catholic spouse like I originally wanted. My husband was the only man who would marry me. Now I realize that I shouldn’t have settled, but i was afraid I’d never get married otherwise. Now I just feel like I am stuck in something that wasn’t what God wanted, and am just wanting to get on with life and figure out what He had wanted for me instead. There is no way that God wanted me to be married to a non-catholic and not have kids. That just isn’t the purpose of Catholic marriage.

I wish the Church didn’t allow mixed marriages at all.

Again, I know I don’t make much sense, but I am trying to express how I feel. I have mental health issues and so relating how I feel is difficult for me.
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I understand that you are trying to express how you feel. I thought of a suggestion for you that may be worth trying… this was part of our marriage prep class. Could you try and compliment your husband with one, good compliment every day? I don’t mean things like “you look nice,”… I mean things like, “You are so good at cooking dinner the way I like it,” or “Your hair looks especially handsome today,” or something specific.

Making a habit of this requires us to look for the good things in our spouse, which is more thought-intensive than considering the negative. The negative is easy to think of, and it will consume you!

How do you know this isn’t God’s will for you? Consider how deeply He loves our mother Mary, and how much sorrow and pain He has allowed in her heart. Keep faithful to your vows, and carry this cross of loving your husband. It is what you swore to God with the marriage. Please don’t give up your hope for your husband. Pray for him. Lead him to heaven!
 
Convert_in_99 said:
But I don’t understand why God didn’t give me a Catholic spouse like I originally wanted. My husband was the only man who would marry me. Now I realize that I shouldn’t have settled, but i was afraid I’d never get married otherwise. Now I just feel like I am stuck in something that wasn’t what God wanted, and am just wanting to get on with life and figure out what He had wanted for me instead. There is no way that God wanted me to be married to a non-catholic and not have kids. That just isn’t the purpose of Catholic marriage.

I wish the Church didn’t allow mixed marriages at all.

Again, I know I don’t make much sense, but I am trying to express how I feel. I have mental health issues and so relating how I feel is difficult for me.
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Have you ever read the story of Elisabeth Leseur? If not, Google her. The short version is that she, too, was a Catholic woman with many health issues who married a non-practicing-Catholic man. They never had children. Because of her example, after her death her husband reverted and, no less, became a priest. During their marriage, her husband wasn’t just a non-practicing Catholic: he was a prominent atheist who wrote widely about the non-existence of God. Think a sort of Christopher Hitchens. God might have wanted her to marry a Catholic man, but He did great things within that less-than-ideal context!

If you were validly married, then your vocation is to help your husband to get to Heaven. That is what He wants. I have no doubt at all that between the marriage struggles you are having and the infertility, this is a terribly difficult cross to bear.

There is an oft-repeated phrase in the Narnia books which comes to mind here. Aslan (a Christ-figure) is often asked by one or another of the children “what would have happened” if he or she had acted differently. He usually replied (I paraphrase) “Child, how many times must I tell you that you can never know what might have been?” What he means is that what has happened has happened, and that it is the child’s duty then to do the best he or she can in the circumstances that are, rather than the ones that could have been. The only time, IIRC, that Aslan breaks this rule is to tell a child who has made the right choice what would have happened if he had made the wrong choice.

You will probably never know what might have happened if you had waited for a Catholic man. It’s unfortunate that that happened, but it can’t be changed now. (Unless, of course, you honestly believe that your marriage was invalid, in which case you should seek the advice of a good priest on what to do about that.) The only thing you can change in this situation is you: how you react to your husband, how you treat your husband, how you think about your husband. This is not to say that if he’s unkind or unreasonable it’s your fault. He’s a grown man and responsible for his own actions. However, you are responsible for upholding your end of the marriage, however hard it may be.

Have you asked him to go to counseling with you to discuss your expectations in this marriage? Have you talked to a good priest, together or separately or both, about how to improve your marriage? Would you consider going to Retrouaville? Have you sat down with him and discussed your desire for fostering children? I would suggest, however, that you may want to put the ideas of adoption and fostering on the back burner until you and your husband are in a better place with your marriage. Children in foster care are often very emotionally scarred, and need foster parents who can present a loving and united front to them.

As to why you never got the Catholic spouse you hoped for, no one can answer that. Why doesn’t God have would-be wonderful parents conceive children, while fifteen-year-old drug addicts do and then kill them? We can’t know; we can only accept that He knows best, however horribly hard this can be.

This whole post sounds, I suspect, rather harsh. It isn’t meant to be–tone of voice is everything, and I can’t put it into the written word. :o

I am very sorry you are in this difficult situation. 😦 :console:
 
I agree with mommamaree’s advice, and want to add that even people who are deemed infertile do occasionally conceive. Also, I doubt that anyone’s life works out as they intend. You’re in a bad patch of your life, but it may (with God’s grace) turn around quite unexpectedly. Lastly, marrying a Catholic man won’t necessarily solve all your problems - just because a man is Catholic, doesn’t mean he’s a good Catholic or a good person.

May I suggest discussing this with your priest? I’m sure that either he or other priests he knows have heard similar problems many times before, and may be able to offer advice or get you connected with a good marriage counselor.

Best of luck with your marriage!
 
It is really hard, praying for something we think we don’t really want. But there is one prayer which is guaranteed, every time. It is, “Thy Will be done.” Not “My Will”; “Thy Will”.

Try this one though, every night, before you sleep. You probably know the first bit:

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of mercy,
Hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve:
To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.
Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us,
And after this our exile,
Show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O merciful, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary!

Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God;
That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

And Holy Mother, in your mercy,
Pray for my Husband, our marriage, and our love together.

I place my marriage in your care,
And I trust in your infinite help.

Amen!

After posting here, many people will be praying for your marriage. You will be blessed, if you allow it.
 
What everyone else has said, plus this:

For the unbelieving husband is consecrated through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is consecrated through her husband. 1 Cor 7:14

All those “what ifs” and “might have beens” will sour your spirit faster than anything else I can think of. I speak from experience - it’s best to stop living in a dream world and live in the present.
 
Convert_in_99 said:
But I don’t understand why God didn’t give me a Catholic spouse like I originally wanted.
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God gave you this man for your husband. Be a good wife to him. That is what God really wants you to do. If you are a good wife to him, God may find fertile ground in him to give him the Grace to become Catholic. You have a very important job. Your job is to help your husband get to heaven.
 
Convert_in_99 said:
The closer I get to God and back with my faith, the more and more I find myself distancing myself from my husband. I feel like HE is in the way of me doing anything that God might want me to REALLY be doing. God did not want me to marry a non-catholic. God just doesn’t do that. He permits it yes, but it’s not what he really wants. I feel like I am stuck with a man I don’t really like because he is nothing I would like to be right now. He isn’t Catholic, he isn’t really that religious at all, he’s very worldly. On top of it, I can’t get pregnant (combined we are very infertile) and he doesn’t make enough at all to even think about adoption and he refuses to foster. I married him at a time when my faith was at a low point. Now that it is growing again I feel like he is this huge weight I have to drag around and that gets in the way of me finding a real vocation. Marriage to a catholic and having children, or taking care of my family as a single person (can’t with husband because we are stuck out of state and have been for 7 years.)

All I ever wanted in life was to marry a good Catholic man and have lots of children. My life SO didn’t work out the way I originally intended, and how I think God would prefer I live it.

I know none of this probably makes much sense, but I’m trying my best to explain what I feel. What on earth am I supposed to do? I am miserable in this marriage. I want “freed” so badly. I am just waiting with bated breath for this to end so I can actually get a start on my real life, that God intended for me.
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Prayers ascending for both of you. :gopray:
 
Convert_in_99 said:
I married him at a time when my faith was at a low point. Now that it is growing again .
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I mean this in a genuine loving way, please try and look at the positive, while married to HIM your faith got stronger. Perhaps that is how God had planned to bring you back to the faith.

Also, Catholics are not suppose to use contraceptives. However if a couple is infertile, no where in the church does it state ‘Infertile couples are obligated to adopt and foster kids’. If it is God’s will, a childless married couple can be a very holy thing

Angie
 
I have been in your situation and I’m still married and we eventually had a son, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It has not been easy, but have you ever thought that maybe God has chosen you to help save his soul?
 
LPS said:
Your husband may not be “in” the way … he may be “the” main way that God transforms you and helps you grow in holiness.
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Plus, you may be the same for him. As has already been noted, you really should read about Elisabeth Leseur, and preferably read her diary. It could change your whole outlook.
 
I say this as a Catholic married to a non-Catholic: Do not blame your choice of spouse on God or the Church. You might also quit repeating the falsehood that “all I ever wanted in life was to marry a good Catholic man”. That is not true, is it? You and I have both followed many desires other than that, haven’t we? Even if you had not, be sure that having a picture in your mind of the spouse you want is no guarantee you’ll get him.

You chose the spouse you chose, and it is unfair to him to treat him as if he is beneath you after the fact. If you didn’t marry with the idea of getting a non-Catholic, what makes you think he married you in the hopes his good Catholic wife would later start resenting the Church for allowing her to marry him, because she decided she didn’t like him? That could hardly have been his wedding day dream? What if he did that to you? Would “good religious man” be the first description to come to your mind? Do you not think that God loves him and thirst for his soul? Why does God thirst for his salvation, and you do not? Whatever you do, then, don’t look down on your husband.

To follow God and to take up our cross every day is to keep promises validly made, even when they don’t lead down the path to sanctity that we ought to have chosen for ourselves. I would also let go of the idea that this is not the path God would choose for you. God knows not just your potential, but your faults. You do not know that this marriage was not the best way God could have allowed your faults to be addressed. At any rate, what kind of Catholic we are shows itself when we are asked to be faithful to our duties in a situation we wouldn’t choose, not in how much we dwell in a life that we can’t even know was something God was ever going to offer us. If we are willing to be faithful, God can use any situation we are in to transform us into a saint. We must, however, be faithful in the position we are actually in. We get nowhere by imagining what saints we would be, if things were only different than they are. There is no sanctity to be found in unreality! To be a saint is to be willing to fully face our real life, as it is.

I do not want to be too hard on you, though. I think you are saying these things to yourself because you are truly hurting and are being tempted to bitterness and recrimination, blaming your real hurt on a man who did not cause your troubles. Reject that temptation, and all the glamorous problems of the life you might have had. You are being charmed with fantasies. Don’t go there. Ask, instead, for the strength and grace to be faithful to the promises you have freely made. That’s the ticket! Do think of Elisabeth Leseur, as suggested. She was married to a Catholic who had fallen so far from his baptism as to be an atheist and a virulent attacker of the Church. She offered her life as an offering for him. When she died, he was still unrepentant. How do most Americans know about her? Because Elizabeth’s husband told their story to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, while he was helping to give a retreat as a Dominican priest.
 
Convert_in_99 said:
The closer I get to God and back with my faith, the more and more I find myself distancing myself from my husband. I feel like HE is in the way of me doing anything that God might want me to REALLY be doing. God did not want me to marry a non-catholic. God just doesn’t do that. He permits it yes, but it’s not what he really wants. I feel like I am stuck with a man I don’t really like because he is nothing I would like to be right now. He isn’t Catholic, he isn’t really that religious at all, he’s very worldly. On top of it, I can’t get pregnant (combined we are very infertile) and he doesn’t make enough at all to even think about adoption and he refuses to foster. I married him at a time when my faith was at a low point. Now that it is growing again I feel like he is this huge weight I have to drag around and that gets in the way of me finding a real vocation. Marriage to a catholic and having children, or taking care of my family as a single person (can’t with husband because we are stuck out of state and have been for 7 years.)

All I ever wanted in life was to marry a good Catholic man and have lots of children. My life SO didn’t work out the way I originally intended, and how I think God would prefer I live it.

I know none of this probably makes much sense, but I’m trying my best to explain what I feel. What on earth am I supposed to do? I am miserable in this marriage. I want “freed” so badly. I am just waiting with bated breath for this to end so I can actually get a start on my real life, that God intended for me.
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It sounds like you are trying to use wanting to do God’s will as an excuse to end your marraige. Let me make this perfectly clear God hates divorce. It is God’s will that you remain married to this man and remain faithful to him.
Whether you marrying a non-Catholic was his will or only permitted by him is irrelevant because you are married to him and God wants you to stay married.
 
Convert_in_99 said:
. There is no way that God wanted me to be married to a non-catholic and not have kids. That just isn’t the purpose of Catholic marriage.
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You don’t know that. I am married to a non-catholic christian and I can tell you it was God’s will that we get married. My sister and her husband can not have kids. The Catholic church does not say a child has to be born in order to have a valid marriage. Just that we can not stop the conception of a pregnancy.

And As I stated in my previous post God’s will now for you is to not get divorced and stay faithfully married to this man.

.
Convert_in_99 said:
My husband was the only man who would marry me. Now I realize that I shouldn’t have settled, but i was afraid I’d never get married otherwise. Now I just feel like I am stuck in something that wasn’t what God wanted, and am just wanting to get on with life and figure out what He had wanted for me instead.
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This makes me think that you have now found another man who wishes to marry you. I will say this again. God’s will for you now is to rmain faithfully married to the man you married.
 
amazon.com/The-Secret-Diary-Elisabeth-Leseur/dp/1928832482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1372040777&sr=8-1&keywords=the+secret+diary+of+elisabeth+leseur

As others have suggested, this is an amazing book, and it might help you a lot. Elisabeth Leseur had a tough time because her husband was an atheist and she never got to have children which broke her heart. But she persevered and found a way to do God’s will in the circumstances in which she found herself. I’m sorry you’re having a tough time. Elisabeth Leseur’s example would be a good example to follow. Don’t give up on your husband. Don’t give up on the vows you made before God. I’ll pray for things between your husband and you to work out according to God’s will.
 
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