Marriage Problems

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renewed…

I hate to say this but do you think your wife’s involvement in the occult maybe has brought some source of darkness into your home?

I really suggest getting the home blessed, having your wife renouce those practices and you fasting and praying .

You need to get in control of your wife and your home , that is your minstry

God bless
 
Soul Rebel,

I don’t think my wife’s activities invited the evil into my house, as she has not called on any dark powers, or on anything other than “generic goodness” (whatever that means), to my knowledge. I suppose it’s possible.

When I was a small child, just a little older than my daughter, I also had unwanted encounters with the evil one, and I was raised in a good Catholic home. The problem went away in much the same way as it did with my daughter, through prayer. Satan can tempt or threaten anyone, even as Satan was allowed to tempt Christ. The key is to turn to prayer and God alone, which works 100%.

When I speak with our priest today, I will bring up having the home blessed. I am always up for prayer and blessings. ANYTHING that can bring more of the goodness of the Catholic church into my home is a good thing.

As for “having my wife renounce those practices” and “* need to get in control of [my] wife and [my] home,” I think you are missing something critical: Free will. I cannot control my wife and I cannot control my daughter. If God Himself will not control them, but rather grants them free will, then excersing dominion over them would be both sinful and fruitless. Dominion is also contrary to love. Further, my wife would most certainly rebel against any attempt to control her - that is her number one “hot button.” In fact, that is one of her misinformed gripes about the Church - that it is an entity bent on “mind control.”

That being said, I can and will learn and then teach. I can and will remain steadfast regardless of any threats that are brought to bear. I can and will exhort my wife to follow the true path of Christ. I can and will set rules with respect to my daughter, and follow through with them. Until she is an adult, I can use my parental authority to prevent her from wandering where she should not go. Thus, I can and will forbid my daughter from getting into any of that new age garbage.

I can and will do all of these thing in a spirit of love and charity. Doing so will be very hard, and it will be impossilbe to be perfect, but through prayer and God’s assistance I will do my very best. Through God it will be enough.

As for my family being my ministry - I agree 100%. The church defines marriage as a vocation. Thus, my vocation is my wife and our marraige, as well as my daughter. To truly fulfill this vocation, I must try to evangelize both.*
 
Renewed…
Just curious… Has your wife watched “The Golden Compus” or read the book series?

Trying to understand if you can point back somewhere where someone told her how “controlling” the church is… Sometimes our “fears” fester for some time before surfacing as bad behavior.

Prayers
 
Renewed…
Just curious… Has your wife watched “The Golden Compus” or read the book series?

Trying to understand if you can point back somewhere where someone told her how “controlling” the church is… Sometimes our “fears” fester for some time before surfacing as bad behavior.

Prayers with you!
 
Newbetx,

My wife has not seen the Golden Compass. I learned well before the movie came out that the movie and the books are invidious aetheist propaganda of the most nefarious sort. I am thankful that my wife supported my decision to have our family boycott anything related to those stories.

As for pointing to somewhere regarding my wife’s feelings, your intution is correct. As a child, my wife was hurt by a priest who treated her in an unchristian-like manner. Additionally, he preached only hell-fire and brimstone and “rules,” rather than the love of Christ and natural desire to follow the perfect teachings of Christ and the natural law. Although she was not physically abused, the psychological effects have lasted ever since. This technique was especially ill-suited to my wife, as even as a small child she naturally tended to rebel against authority.

Although she has come to like individual priests, her attitute to priests “in general,” and through them the Church, is still dominated by her childhood experiences. If you point out that, logically, any problems with that particular priest do not relfect on the Church as a whole, and that the teachings of the Church should be evaluated on their own merits, you would be right. However, this reasoning, while sound, has absolutely no effect on my wife.

Sadly, she is not particularly susceptible to logic, but rather is usually dominated by her emotions. Logic is totally useless when she gets angry. Love, however, works wonders with her - but again not when she is angry (which used to be very frequent - it’s less now).

Dont’ get me wrong, my wife is extremely intelligent. She just lets her emotions define the logical premises from which she proceeds. I’m working on that, and as my previous posts have indicated I’ve made some progress.

In the end, the Holy Spirit will be the one to convert her - by whatever means reaches her the best. I pray that I can be the focus of the movement of the Holy Spirit in this regard, but I’m not sure if she will listen to me. A prophet in his own land, and all that. However, I won’t stop praying, hoping, or trying. 🙂
 
I’ll also add that my wife also focuses in on the sins of individual Catholics committed during the reformation - both real and percieved - especially by those in the Church heirarchy. She also easily falls victim to the portrayal of Church authorities as controlling, political animals - such as the Pope in the current Showtime series “The Tudors.”

Generally, she doesn’t like authority. So, naturally she rebels from the absolute authority of the Pope.

She also disagrees with the Church’s teachings on birth control - which she again sees as being controlling of people’s “rights.” (We don’t use any at my request.) She’s ambivalent about abortion, but leaning more towards the correct perception as an inherent and grave evil.

She also simply does not believe in the Eucharist. It’s been explained to her (she started an RCIA course, but dropped out), but she doesn’t believe.

Part of the problem is that she doesn’t really understand Church teachings. I’m working on that myself by developing skills in apologetics. Part of the problem is a lack of knowledge of the bible. Part of the problem is that one of her best friends is a Southern Baptist and, since she is influenced by emotion, tends to believe her friend without really doing her own analysis.

Anyway, there’s a lot of problems. 😦 However, all I can do now is learn, love, pray, and hope. 🙂
 
Intuiter-Feeler? I am that way. I understand. Sorry about her early experience. My first experiences with Priests were not that way. Our current priest is extremely good but sometimes we think he used to be Baptist. 😉 He is tough in his challenge but gentile in his delivery. No matter, though. Funny how my wife and I can hear exactly the same words and come away with completely different ideas about what was said. 🤷

Well, again, I continue to pray for you.
 
Yeah, she’s an “intuiter-feeler.” I’m a “left brained logic” person. Makes for an interesting combination. :confused:
 
renewed,
In the end, the Holy Spirit will be the one to convert her
Click to expand...
this is TRUTH.

after a few years, I determined not to argue or play apologetics with my unbaptized husband any more (he was raised in a Christian home that believed in adult baptism only). I just struggled living my own faith, which was, at the time, only half-informed.

I realized that when I offered my limited apologetics, it only gave him something tangible to fight against. I stopped being his dance partner and left him to his own ruminations. our last argument was this:

he: I will NEVER believe that bread is really Jesus. Nobody can convinve me it is. nobody will EVER convince me it is.

me: you’re right. if that bread really IS Jesus, he’ll convince you Himself.

Jesus did convince him in a BIG way. My husband’s been baptized, confirmed and receiving Jesus for 14 years now. He believes. he’s a kind, gentle, generous ,holy man.

He credits my early attempts to convince him AND my determination to shut up and leave him to God as BIG factors in his conversion.

so you stay quiet. preach the Gospel without speaking a word if you can. Fast, but be careful of your health. Instead, maybe fast from TV or radio or idle chatter several days a week. PRAY THE ROSARY! the best thing to come from this thread is that you are interested in praying the Rosary!! Mary is your wife’s mother, too. She will intercede. receive Jesus in Eucharist. and speak ONLY after you’ve prayed for the words to speak.
 
Renewed777 said:
I’ll also add that my wife also focuses in on the sins of individual Catholics committed during the reformation - both real and percieved - especially by those in the Church heirarchy. She also easily falls victim to the portrayal of Church authorities as controlling, political animals - such as the Pope in the current Showtime series “The Tudors.”
Click to expand...
Hmmmm, did Showtime do two versions of “The Tudors”? I’ve watched both seasons, and saw clearly the evil fruit of sin and rebellion against the Church. My husband and I have both been impressed with the way this show did NOT paint Henry and his mistresses and cohorts as heroes, very un-hollywoodlike.

The Catholics in the program are shown as the heroes.

I cannot imagine that she saw the same series as so different 🤷
 
Actually, in my opinion the show shows EVERYONE in an unflattering light - which is typical of atheistic Hollywood. I agree that it showed the wickedness of Henry VIII and Anne Bolyn, but it also shows them as standing up for “freedom.” Also, just watch the demeanor of the Pope. He is shown as very haughty, and very much a political actor. Compare and contrast his demeanor (and that of his cardinals) to the demeanor of, say John Paul II or our current Pope. Look at what they did to Cardinal Wolsey, going so far as to show him committing suicide - something that historically he simply did not do.

About the only Catholic heroes shown were Catherine of Aragon and Thomas Moore. They did a great job with Catherine, at least as far as I can tell, though the portrayal of Moore had some problems.

Anwyay, I could say more, but I want to keep this thread on-topic. 🙂
 
O.K., so the visit with the priest went VERY well. He answered all of my questions satisfactorily and gave me some good advice as to how to handle my specific situation. From a general perspective, it’s the same as what others have suggested: Love combined with knowledge and teaching. He stressed that I had to be patient, and unless the issue were of critical importance (like baptizing any more children we might have) and further unless I had no other choice, I should not be confrontational with my wife. He saw her slightly improved attitude as a sign of grace working in her life. I should foster it.

I talked some more afterwards with my wife, hoping she would see how good I felt about everything. She’s still skeptical, but at least for now she is accepting of my faith. I will keep praying for her, and will definitely implement some of the suggestions I’ve seen on this thread.

Regarding the story with my daughter, he didn’t say one way or another if real evil had come into my house - and I wouldn’t expect him to (I didn’t ask - I just told him the story). When I asked if he would bless my house, he said sure. He blesses houses all the time. Blessing the house can help to keep evil out by making the house a focus for us that those who dwell within are centered on God, and also in that the house becomes a sign of faith.

I asked my wife again if it was O.K. with her, and she agreed! Her attitude was that if it would comfort our daughter, she was O.K. with it. I’m not sure she fully believes, but she does at least have some belief that blessing the house is more than just a motion. Anyway, definitely going to do that. Only good can come from it.

God bless everyone
 
Remember, faith preached to our spouse is never received as well as faith lived out in front of our spouse.

You counter her negative impressions of the Church with love. You respond to her arguments with a soft voice and love. You listen to her rants with love. You have a servant’s spirit around her and show her how your works of faith reach outside of your home and help other people.

When Jesus fed the 5,000 the followed him and waited eagerly for more. Notice that there is no mention of an outpouring of conversion. they wanted to be fed and entertained. Now, back up a bit in John and read the story of the woman at the well. He loved her and showed compassion. She shared that with friends and neighbors and they all came to see Jesus. He taught them and, more importantly, showed them his faith and love and the entire village - not even Jews - had a massivve outpouring of salvation and repentance.

Miracles do not produce conversions, faith and love does.
 
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