My Marriage in Crisis

My situation is similiar to Cory's.  We have been married for 8 years.  We have a 13 year old step son and a 20 month old boy.  We have been seperated for about a month now.  We have seperated 3 times in this marriage, each time she has went to her mothers house.  My wife is one of the most Godly women i know.  Each day 5am she is reading her bible and doing her devotions.  I really admire that in her.  I am much like Cory, very rough around the edges, but have improved dramatically since the first seperation.  Ive taken much counseling and anger management classes.  My wife left this time over an argument about dishes, however, i know, something must have been building and this was just a trigger.  The really weird thing, is this is happening every 3 years almost to the month.  The second seperation, we had an arguement and i locked myself in our bedroom so as to not let it escalate any further.  She took that as me locking her out of my life.  And thought i didnt want her anymore, so she left.  Now we have a 20month old baby, whom i love very much.  I have waited 42 years to get my act together, so my child would not have to go through the broken home i had to as a child.  But at this point it doesnt look like that will happen.  I asked her what brought this on, and she said its the way i treat her and her stepson.  While taking our son out on Halloween, she said to me the following:  "you are not going to like this, and i know it will be hard to listen, but our pastor has been preaching about forgiveness, and i have asked God to forgive me for marrying you.  I dont believe our marriage was ordained by God, it was more of a convenience, i was a single mother and you had a nice home and career.  Needless to say i was shocked.  The first thing that came to my mind was our child was not meant to be either.  She asked me how i felt about what she said.  I said i am sorry you feel that way but i disagree, and left it at that.  No anger, no outburst.

Asking God to forgive you for marrying someone, doesnt sit right with me,  i can not find any scriptural support for this thinking.  God brings people together to be married as one, and he hates divorce.  If it was a convenience thing, why would you bring a child into the world, 8 years later.  It really doesnt make sense to me.

i have ordered mitches book, and will start to read when i receive it.  Last night i chose to rededicate my life to my saviour Jesus Christ.  I felt i had backslid and fell away from him after what happened at the church we no longer visit.  After we had been attending for 5 years, it was brought out that the pastor was having an affair with the youth pastors wife.  I was crushed, disappointed, and hurt.  I really loved this pastor.  We decided to look for another church and i always found something wrong with each, probably due to the hurt i was still experiencing.  This obviously led to me to choose to no longer read my bible as much, start cursing at my stepson, and argue with my wife.  She at one point questioned my salvation i recall.  Last night i forgave the pastor, and anyone else that has hurt me.  I rededicated my life to my saviour, and began to pray again for reconciliation.  I do truly love my wife and my family.   I miss my son terribly when i do not have him.  For 20 months, he was the first thing i have seen each morning.  I wake up with him, change him, feed him, and dress him.  now i dont have that nor the rest of my family.  It really hurts.  I had to drop my son off at the sitters this morning, and he was reaching to me and crying,  it was very sad.  Even though the whole morning was so uplifting.

The last seperation was so difficult, my wife did not speak to me for 3 and a half months.  Absolutely no contact.  I sold everything i owned except my clothes and the house.  She chose to not help at all with anything financially.  So i chose to put the house up for sale.  The day i received an offer, she called and said she wanted to work things out.  She didnt want to be 39 and divorced twice, she loved me and wants to spend her life with me.  We attended retrovaille, and then on to a marriage counselor for many months.  While attending the counselor, we were still living apart.  She asked him when he thought would be a good time for her to move back in.  He said im surprised you arent already.  So she moved back in, we continued on with counseling.  At some point in time, she asked if we needed to continue, i said it was up to her, i will go as long as it takes, for the rest of my life if necesarry.  She decided we were good and stopped going.

I think about that alot, if we never stopped, this may have not happened.  I do not drink, i do not go out, i do not chase women.  I just say the wrong things sometimes.  I am sarcastic, sometimes she does the same, so in my mind, i dont think anything is wrong.  But obviously they hurt deep inside.  After we reconciled the last time, i asked her to promise me if it ever got bad, please grab my hands, set me down and tell me we need help.  She claims she did when i brought it up, but i am sure she didnt.

Please pray for us, i do not want satan to claim another of Gods precious bonds......