First I want to say I am very sorry for you and this difficult cross you carry. God is near to those whose hearts are breaking.
I don’t know you and i could be wrong. My impression on reading your first post was that you are a person who takes on a load of blame easily, and there is a good chance that blame is misplaced. If your husband is a person of ill will, he could manipulate your eagerness to take the blame so easily. Then I read more and get the impression he has taken advantage of that. He sounds insincere.
How I can say this is because I also saw only the good in my ex-husband (of twenty years). I was always willing to take the blame and to be the chameleon, changing any and everything if it would only save my marraige. I lived my life trying to save my marraige alone. I constantly tried to improve, always analyzing what I should improve next. I never wanted to blame him for anything. A fault I had was sticking stubbornly to something my mother said when I was young, that God does not want us to keep a record of wrongs. So I would make myself “forget” all his wrongs, and only focus on my wrongs. It would have been wiser to remember. It would have been facing reality.
Later when it fell apart beyond my control, a wise, holy, pious priest said I had been trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. So true. I also had been fiercely trusting and waiting for God to do the miracle of healing our marriage, but the priest said though God does miracles, He never tells us to expect one.
As to the sow’s ear comment by my priest, Michele says nothing like this. I think she is caught up in her optimism-world and ignoring the reality that not all marriages can be saved. Its a fantasy we all have – the most popular magazine column of all time is Lady’s Home Journal, “Can this Marriage Be Saved?”. In one page each month a terrible impossible marraige becomes great. Yes, its the success-only stories from various counselors files – they are not all saved! We don’t get to hear how many are saved. 1%? 10%? 30%? Who knows. If you follow the column, it sure seems 100%!
I feel Michele takes advantage of people the same why the diet industry takes advantage of people who want to get thin. She is too committed to selling her persona as a high-priced marriage-saver and not committed to truth. She uses testimony to claim she knows the way. But just as some people will lose weight on ANY diet and some children will learn to read on ANY reading plan, some peoples bad marriages will be saved with ANY marriage-saving strategy. Since she ignores the giant reality of marriages that cannot be saved, I feel she is presenting only the side that suits her image (and bank account).
I am wary of Michele because she advocates ignoring your husband’s cheating. That’s just not right. A better saner perspective can be found in Christian author James Dobson’s Love Must Be Tough.
By the way, at the end I was pushing earnestly for a Retrouvaille weekend. He refused. But the Retrouvaille people did let me know that not all marriages can be saved. Both have to want it. One person cannot save a marraige alone.
Well, I get the feeling your husband is not sincere. I might be wrong. Its just having had an insincere husband, I have a nose for it now.
Good news is you draw close to Jesus in the tough times. In the end you feel gratitude for whatever hard times brought you closer to Our Lord. I wouldn’t trade them. More good news is that Jesus heals broken hearts. He healed mine. He made mine like new. Praise Him forever!
Don’t give up! Will he still do the follow-up sessions or no?