Sigh! Now what?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jengl
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

Jengl

Guest
Thank you all for your answers and advice from my previous thread titled “Please Help”.

I’ve been spending the last few weeks attempting to talk to my husband about our problems: (the use of his porn, refusal to stop, disregard for my felelings, not wanting to talk, etc).

Unfortunately I have been unsuccessfull. He’s always hostile to me. Just the other night I said to him - calmly and softly- that it appears to me he is full of hatred. He said that he is. I thought for a moment. Then I said that he doesn’t appear that way with anyone else like his family and friends. He told me he doesn’t feel that way with them. Just me. He doesn’t want to talk, and doesn’t want to work on this. He won’t leave either though. It’s possible he may have said what he did to get a reaction out of me - which he didn’t get (I went into our room for a while and watched TV and prayed)

HIs attitude towards me changed once I began to take my faith more seriously. In fact I put off going to daily mass this whole year because he didn’t like me doing it. He calls me a zealot sometimes. I often wonder if I’m not fighting him, but something else… He says he “hates” Catholics - yet half of his family are Catholics ( the other half - including him - are Baptist. Now I’ve met many Baptist people and they do not express this rage against Catholics - so it’s not his belief system…)

I don’t know what to do. My heart tells me the marriage is probably over. But marraige is indissolvable. We;re supposed to stay together. I came from a divorced family and I vowed I would take my marriage most seriously…

Ugh!! I’m so confused right now. I think about going to a priest about this, but I feel awkward.

Then there are days when he seems like everything is fine. As long as I don’t breing anything up. I feel like he’s physically here - but not emotionally or spiritually here. I try to get him to a councelor - but that is a no go. He strongly rejects it.

Today he acts like everything is fine despite our conversation a few nights ago. Tomorrow - who knows. If he’s in another mood I will probably be the villian again. I also apologized for my faults in the arguments (I have been very insecure lately - many friends and acquaintences are girls.) He tells me he doesn’t believe I am sincere. 🤷 I’m in a place now where if I do something wrong and I realize it - I have to apol;ogize or I will feel bad.

Ugh -I’m at my witts end.
 
Wow. You sound like a wonderful person.

Maybe, you should walk up to him. Sit down in front of him, and say “Are you angry with me? What have I done that has caused all this hostility. I’m your wife. We need to talk.” If he can’t talk to you. Talk to a priest. If you feel the marriage is over, get an annulment. It’s ok. Things like this happen. You can do it. Being Catholic is the biggest source of strength.

I’m almost sure none of this is your fault. Everyone on CAF is your friend. We hear you.

Praying for you,
Adi
 
Thanks AdI. I think you’re right about the next step - talking to a priest. It will take me a while to muster up the courage. We’re a small parish (compared to the one I grew up in) and there’s only 2 priests. I’m in the choir and my kids go to the school. I know the priests are sincere about confidentiality.

Prayers are so powerful. Thank you for including me and my situation 🙂
 
Hi Jen,

in your other thread, you stated “He apparently has different moral values as he’s very into pornography” . . . .

Regardless of his reasons, pornography has no place in a christian household WITH CHILDREN in it. Maybe he needs a wake-up call on this matter, but do you realize that the ‘fruit’ of pornography is CHILD MOLESTATION? Ask him if he intends that for the future of his own children (whether he causes it indirectly or directly), and if not, what he intends to do about it? You can’t have it both ways; all of our actions and activity have a consequence. Just exactly what is he teaching his kids?

Ask him what is his version of an ‘ideal’ christian family - a role model family that yours should be aspiring to? This is something that you two should discuss, because it will help point the way to making changes (improvements) rather than just ‘drifting’ thru life aimlessly. There is ALWAYS hope to repair things; and the first step is to realize that there is a problem, and sometimes the most efficient way to do this is to identify the ‘right’ way that things should be done, or at least a ‘more-right’ way than you have been doing it. Unfortunately, many choose to plunder along haphazardly, doing things ‘their’ way until they hit a brick wall, refusing to consider any other way or suggestion until they’ve exhausted every (misguided) avenue and get over their pride. Hopefully your husband won’t take it to that low - and ask him if he plans to, because the way your are headed now certainly ain’t working! You’re not the first family to ever have problems, and you’re not the first family to have to deal with pornography, so there are solutions out there, you just BOTH have to want to find them. (I’m emphasizing BOTH, because you cannot do this by yourself, nor can you leave him alone to fix this by himself).

Any solution is going to include Christ; and Mary, if you just ask her; Let her ‘Crush the head of satan’, like it says so right there in Revelations, and Christ will redeem the sins committed so that your spirits can be cleansed. In fact, the Holy Family is not a bad model to aspire to . . . …

YBIC,
G.
 
Wow. That was very insightful, G. You are right - it does take TWO. Right now he wants no part of working things out. I think he would be happy just living in limbo - no addressing the problem. The answers I’m getting from him now are “I don’t know.” I asked him straight out what it was that I’m doing and he says “I don’t know.” When I request him stopping the porn it’s “You’re not my mom.Stop acting like my mom.”

I keep praying and trying though. You are so right about Mother Mary. I have a goal to say the Rosary everyday. There have been times I’ve started in sobs - and ended with peace. ONly the Rosary can do that. :):crossrc:
 
The Rosary is very powerful for helping to break vice - if only you could get him to do a family Rosary together with you.

Besides that, you can take the ‘spiritual fight’ to the next level - just as JohnPaul2 did in 1984 when he consecrated the world to Jesus THRU Mary and help bring about the fall of communism, so you too can consecrate your family to Jesus thru Mary. Whether your husband will join you or not, you should pray the Total Consecration - I can’t think of anything more powerful that would help to bring a spiritual turnaround in your marriage.
Here is a link to an entire step-by-step program online, for free (approved by the Vatican, as well):
familyland.be/family_consecration/introduction-to-consecration-to-the-holy-family.html

I only suggest this because my wife insisted on the same about 5 years ago, and it has totally transformed my family. Please consider this.

-G
 
Thank you so much! This really gives me hope! You have no idea how much so. I have faith that God hears and answers our prayers. I know He does and I know Mary hears us. Thanks again. I will keep you posted.
 
You know, I think there is only one man. And when one of us kicks him out of our house he goes and moves in with someone else. Then they write about him and we tell them to kick him out… and he moves on… now you have him, Jengl.

Pass him along. He’s a bad penny.

Next? 👍
 
Jengl,

I recommend that you go back to daily mass. Make your life as close to Jesus as you possibly can, do not distance yourself from Him. Pray MORE, and always love your husband with gentleness. Offer up your sufferings to be united with the Cross for the salvation and conversion of your husband.

Remember saint Monica? She prayed for, what, 30 years before her son - saint Augustine - converted? It can be done.

Remember that by choosing to love him you want the highest and best good for him, which is Heaven. Hate and porn, which go hand in hand, might send him the opposite way, so you must not give up the fight.

You might have some emotionally charged talks, and HE might leave YOU, but you need to consistently, but gently confront him on the porn. Porn will destroy his respect for your marriage.

If he is a baptist, then perhaps he will respect the scriptures. Remind him of Matthew 5:28 (whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her), and remind him that adultery breaks one of the 10 commandments. Baptists and Catholics agree on this.

Now I want to share my own experience, as I married a non-Christian and later rediscovered my faith. I am also a recovering sex addict.

Porn also generated in me intense hatred for my wife. Why? Because porn desecrates the sanctity of marriage, objectifies people as objects (so I looked at my own wife as an object), and cause me to turn inwardly on my own pleasures. Marriage is the opposite, to give oneself totally to the other. When I was focused on my own pleasure I resented the giving I had to give my wife. Porn also cheapened my marital intimacy and reduced its pleasures for me, for I had been with many other women in my own mind (always better in my fantasy than my real, pudgy, and “unexciting” wife), and that meant the marital act did not deepen my relationship with her as it should. Deep down I knew that porn is genuinely evil. People like to think of themselves as good, and do not react well to being exposed to have done wrong. When I was confronted I become angry - just as the pharisees became angry at Jesus when He confronted them with their sins. Just as the abortionists become angry when truthfully told that they support legalized murder. I got to the point where I prayed for my wife’s death. Yes, that much hate.

You have to be ready for that anger. The answer to anger, sin, and hate is love - not what society considers to be warm fuzzy feelings, but the kind of sacrificial love Jesus gave us. It’s harder for him to be bad to you when you are consistently good and loving to him. That does not mean that you back down, but it does mean that you should not give into your own anger (as hard as that is).

I only got out by sanctifying grace and my choice to turn around and try to rely on Jesus. Your husband will probably need the same. Ask a priest to give you spiritual direction on how to pray for your husband that he will receive that grace.

One last thing, sorry for the long post. You are right that marriage is for life. Even if you are divorced civilly, your marriage is presumed valid. I urge you to put thoughts of divorce out of your mind, even though your marriage is a cross right now.

God Bless
 
Sorry, thought of a couple of other things.

It doesn’t surprise me he wants to keep you away from mass and to make you more “secular.” Evil can’t abide good, and he is engaging in evil, so he’ll resent you becoming closer to God (even if he’ll never put it that way). Don’t let him tempt you to do that. You need to become closer to Jesus.

Also consider the possibility that he is being tempted by dark forces. Pray for Saint Michael to drive them away, and offer up additional sacrifices (prayer, fasting, etc.) to atone for your husband’s sins. If you do penance for the both of you, you will both benefit.

God Bless
 
tedfay, there is a difference between this situation and St. Monica. Here there are children watching this example and being exposed to moral evil.

Does she have the luxury of marinating them in this poisonous environment for 30 years while she prays for him to “convert”.

Meanwhile, you suggest another poor woman consign herself to having none of her own needs validated or taken care of, apologizing for practicing her religion, walking on eggshells, unable to discuss anything of importance that the husband doesn’t want to discuss, living with his growing and more apparent displays of hatred.

Until when? Until he has destroyed her personality and she is a shell of her former self?

Been there, done that. All in the name of a marriage that was “indissoluble.” A “marriage” that eventually was found not to have existed at all.

At least I was out of it back when we had Windows 3.1 and dial-up, before the internet was shovelling porn by the gallon into my home computer. I didn’t have to walk into my room and see him surfing the internet or come across his porn sites when I was checking my email. Back then, the worst he could do was play solitaire on the computer till I hid that application because he was OCD and it was making ME crazy.

I don’t know how women deal with it now.
 
Everyone else has given you plenty of good advice so I have nothing to add except my prayers for you and your family.

I worry about your husband being so turned into himself that he sees no problem with what he does and seems to hate you. Looking back now I think I was like that at one point, and it was because of that addiction. Continue to pray for him, and do try to go to mass if you can. Forget if he calls you a zealot, he those needs prayers even if he won’t see the problem.

Tedfay brings a good point in what Jesus talks about adultery just by lustful thought. Regardless though, pray! The prayer to St. Michael also seems like a good idea.
 
Meanwhile, you suggest another poor woman consign herself to having none of her own needs validated or taken care of, apologizing for practicing her religion, walking on eggshells, unable to discuss anything of importance that the husband doesn’t want to discuss, living with his growing and more apparent displays of hatred.
Click to expand...
I can hear the pain in your words, and I feel for you. I, too, have been through horrible divorce and annulment, for me as a result of my ex choosing to give into same sex attraction.

However, my suggestions are the opposite of what you think I suggest. By coming into more full communion with Jesus we all have our true needs met and are happy, regardless of the circumstances of our lives. Look at the lives of the saints who endured terrible suffering, but inwardly were at peace. Saint Maria Goretti, the abused child, comes to mind, as does Elisabeth Leseur, who is now a candidate for sainthood. Elisabeth prayed her whole life for her atheist husband, who mocked and mistreated her her whole life. After she died, he read her diaries and then converted and became a Dominican priest. But deep down she was always happy.

That means the result of following my advise, which is in essence to become closer to Jesus, is the opposite of becoming an empty shell. Instead of becoming an empty shell, I would pray that Jesus would fill Jengl with His Holy Spirit in a way that will bring her ultimate peace. Instead of losing her personality, she should hope discover herself. Instead of apologizing for her faith, she should boldly but gently and lovingly proclaim it and live it. I am not God, so I don’t know what He will do, and I certainly don’t know what Jengl’s husband will do, - but I have seen the results of lives of the saints. I also know the results of events of my own life.

What that means is that I practice what I preach, or at least I try imperfectly. My wife is non-Christian, and in the past she has mocked my faith, and screamed her hatered of the Church with a passion. She used to constantly oppose my efforts to educate our daughter in the true faith. Yet, I do not leave my wife, but rather try (quite imperfectly) to live my own words.

The effects have been real. My wife and I are closer together now. She still hates the Church and says she’ll never join, but she now allows me to educate our daughter, and I am able to go to mass in peace. I hope that in time she will convert as Elisabeth’s husband did.

The truth of “no divorce” comes from Jesus himself. Matthew 5:32 and 19:9. Even the people of his time thought that this rule was too extreme.

If there is no divorce to a valid marriage (yours and mine first marriages were not valid), then it stands to reason that the answer to an extreme cross in marriage is to come closer to Jesus, not to run away from the marriage.

Nevertheless, you are right that when children are involved there is a special obligation to protect and raise the chilren. That might be enough to separate; especially if the father is actively encouraging them to get into porn. If there is physical abuse, the Church certainly encourages the abused spouse to separate (even through civil divorce). However, the marriage remains without an annullment, which is not a divorce (that’s impossible) but instead a recognition that the marriage never existed in the first place.

Only Jengl, in conjunction with an orthodox spiritual director and of course God, can decide what is right for her. I only offer my advise based on what what I honestly think to be the Truth; if it is not Truth, then I can be objectively corrected with citation to scripture or other Church teaching.

God Bless
 
Thanks so much for your post. I found it helpful and insightful. I I agree about uniting the suffering to Jesus. As Saint Faustina once said - I’d rather suffer and be purified on Earth than in Purgatory.
I recommend that you go back to daily mass. Make your life as close to Jesus as you possibly can, do not distance yourself from Him. Pray MORE, and always love your husband with gentleness. Offer up your sufferings to be united with the Cross for the salvation and conversion of your husband.
Click to expand...
I miss it so much! And it actually makes sense to go - The Eucharist is where we gain our strength for the battlefield 🙂
Hate and porn, which go hand in hand, might send him the opposite way, so you must not give up the fight.
Click to expand...
It makes sense. He has been worse since his habbit increased.
You might have some emotionally charged talks, and HE might leave YOU,
Click to expand...
Sometimes I feel emotionally - he’s already gone.
Porn will destroy his respect for your marriage.
Click to expand...
That is true. He seems to have no respect for us at all anymore.
If he is a baptist, then perhaps he will respect the scriptures. Remind him of Matthew 5:28 (whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her), and remind him that adultery breaks one of the 10 commandments. Baptists and Catholics agree on this.
Click to expand...
Thanks - I will try that.
Marriage is the opposite, to give oneself totally to the other.
Click to expand...
Yes - he’s def stopped that. He even says he’s only out for “Number one” - meaning himself.
You have to be ready for that anger. The answer to anger, sin, and hate is love - not what society considers to be warm fuzzy feelings, but the kind of sacrificial love Jesus gave us. It’s harder for him to be bad to you when you are consistently good and loving to him. That does not mean that you back down, but it does mean that you should not give into your own anger (as hard as that is).
Click to expand...
Oh yes - he’s always giving me that anger. Every time I want to talk with him. Especially about the porn issue. Many times he will just lie and say he won’t do it again. Sometimes he’s sincere and tries - but lately he is just shut down.
. Even if you are divorced civilly, your marriage is presumed valid. I urge you to put thoughts of divorce out of your mind, even though your marriage is a cross right now.
Click to expand...
Yes - I definitely don’t want to leave. He would have to leave because I know that marriage is forever.

God Bless
 
It doesn’t surprise me he wants to keep you away from mass and to make you more “secular.” Evil can’t abide good, and he is engaging in evil, so he’ll resent you becoming closer to God (even if he’ll never put it that way). Don’t let him tempt you to do that. You need to become closer to Jesus.
Click to expand...
This is so true. His contempt for me increased tenfold as my relationship with Jesus grew. THe more I made Him a part of my life, the more he seemed to resent me.
Also consider the possibility that he is being tempted by dark forces. Pray for Saint Michael to drive them away, and offer up additional sacrifices (prayer, fasting, etc.) to atone for your husband’s sins. If you do penance for the both of you, you will both benefit.
Click to expand...
I think you’re right. I’ve read how much love for God angers the devil. The attacks are increased. Maybe This is an attack - because I was well on the road to living a holier life when all of a sudden things blew up. One minute I thought things were fine - the next minute I’m worried about the health of our marriage.

Thanks for all your (name removed by moderator)ut.
 
Liraco said:
Everyone else has given you plenty of good advice so I have nothing to add except my prayers for you and your family.

I worry about your husband being so turned into himself that he sees no problem with what he does and seems to hate you. Looking back now I think I was like that at one point, and it was because of that addiction. Continue to pray for him, and do try to go to mass if you can. Forget if he calls you a zealot, he those needs prayers even if he won’t see the problem.

Tedfay brings a good point in what Jesus talks about adultery just by lustful thought. Regardless though, pray! The prayer to St. Michael also seems like a good idea.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your prayers and encouragement. I hope he will see reason with that Bible passage.
 
God Bless, Jengl, I pray for you. Continue to seek Jesus, especially in the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist.

I have posted about my own battle with impurity and lust here: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=394687

Maybe you can get more from it.

If, in one of those times he is genuine about trying to give it up, then have him read what I have written about my own experience. Maybe if he hears it from another guy, he will understand better.

God Bless
 
Which reminds me, if he ever considers getting some help with his problem, or to see why what he’s doing is wrong, this might be a good site to check out:

www.whodoesithurt.com
 
Liraco said:
Which reminds me, if he ever considers getting some help with his problem, or to see why what he’s doing is wrong, this might be a good site to check out:

www.whodoesithurt.com
Click to expand...
Thanks Liraco. I sent this address to my husband as well. I will encourage him to read these things. I don’t know if he will. He outright and vehemently rejects that this is wrong. But I won’t give up trying to talk about this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top