I’ve come to this website for advise from a Catholic perspective. We married in the Church, and at the time my wife was a practicing Catholic. She no longer attends Mass, and is not even interested in going to a different parish. The advise I’ve received from other websites dealing with marital issues is that since she is no longer interested in the marriage that I should give up and move on. Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I still value my marriage commitment. I would rather give it time than give up now. I’m also concerned that my children are exposed to her as she is now, and that she would continue to be self-absorbed and disengaged from our previous social circles if we were to divorce. I don’t know if staying together is helping her to change her mind or to just become more set in her opinion.
The Church doesn’t require a validly-married couple to stay together if they cannot live in the same house in peace. It certainly doesn’t require a person to remain in the house where they are being seriously abused by a spouse (meaning, I don’t mean the kind of clumsy harm that the vast majority of sinners do in our marriages, but something that adds up to more damage than that in the big picture). Emotional and psychological abuse count. There are people on this board who are concerned you are putting up with abuse.
You are being treated badly, but you don’t seem to feel the abuse is beyond what you are willing to endure for a limited amount of time. You’ve told about your wife’s faults, but you have also honestly admitted that you have some things to learn about being a husband. I think your willingness to see both is a good sign.
There are people who get chemotherapy for cancer with worse odds than your marriage has, and sometime they do beat the cancer. They don’t give the chemo to themselves. I think you are smart to ask whether your efforts are making matters better or worse. You really, really, really need to find out how marriages that are as far in the ditch as yours is ever come back. Of those who come back, far fewer make the journey by hard work and dumb luck than make it by getting some guidance. There are people on this board who fear that staying is not as likely to be effective medicine as separating. I don’t agree, but in suggesting that you need to ask your wife to leave, they aren’t necessarily saying throw the marriage away. They’re saying to force the question with her about whether she’s in the marriage or out. They fear that she’s taking her cake and eating it, too, and leaving you with nothing but the bill.
Mother Theresa said, “God didn’t call me to be successful. He called me to be faithful.” I think that is what you’re trying to do, and I say good for you. But there is another saying: “Pray to God, but row away from the rocks”. Where you can find practical help, by all means get it.
I think you are on to something when it comes to giving up a bit too readily, even though I don’t want to say that any of the other posters believe that staying together isn’t the most desirable outcome. The other posters are absolutely right that there is intolerable behavior going on in your house.
The question, then, is how to object to and stop the offensive behavior without utterly killing the marriage in the process. That’s not a simple question. Not every marriage that goes off the tracks is invalid. Sometimes, it is the choice to sin, not an enduring defect in the marriage or the partners, that causes even serious problems. Sometimes, these can be fixed. It does take a willingness to remain faithful when infidelity is what you’re getting in return. Sometimes, though, refusing to let the elephant take over the room does work best.
I think you’re right in deciding that you want proof that you and your wife can’t patch things up. Once you give up, it is hardly likely that there will be an opportunity for another try. There are days in the future for deciding that it is time to pull the plug. If you’re up for some CPR and a stay in the ICU, if you think the pulse has not been gone for too long for a recovery to be hoped for, I say go for it, and God bless you. But do get some professional help in working out how to do the rescue. It really is necessary.
Unreal. Out… goodbye… I’ll be in tearful prayer beseeching the holy risen Christ for your broken return, but until then let your “friend” take care of you. Everything she says you did to her may be true but this other lady is correct. She using it as an excuse to use YOUR money to finance HER sin.
