My husband believes I’m committing adultery when I am not

Question:

Hello,

I am writing to ask for advice in desperation of saving my marriage. Around one year ago, my husband accused me of adultery. I did not commit adultery, or any type of action that would be questionable. This came on out of the blue, and my husband said he just "felt it". I denied his accusations.

Over the next few months, my husband began recording the house when I was home caring for our infant child. He used hand-held audio devices and left them in different places in our home. He would then say he heard something on the recording. Sometimes a man's voice, sometimes a man playing with our baby, or whispers that sounded like words to him, for example. He would then accuse me further, but with very detailed renditions of scenarios based on the recordings and sounds that were hard to hear, yet he was hearing. He never took into account that we have neighbors close by (sometimes the recorder was outside), or that there could be other explanations for the sundry sounds.

He began to change into an angry, mean person, always suspicious of me no matter what I was doing, always questioning me and putting me down. We have several children altogether and they witnessed fights and crying often. He left us several times but came back. He never gave me the respect or love of believing my honesty and didn't care about my desperation in trying to convince him I was innocent. Our relationship turned into a nightmare.

Finally, after months of torture, I became distant and withdrawn. I began dreaming of what it would be like to be free of his cruelty and lack of appreciation for who I am.

A year later my husband now lives with his mother a few hours away. He is very withdrawn and cold-hearted to me most days. He has filed for divorce. Since he left us three months ago, I realized I simply cannot bear our marriage falling apart due to something that did not occur. He believes it is a scriptural divorce because of adultery, yet there was none, so it is not. He will not hear me when I talk about the destruction of our family, submitting our marriage to God, or that love trusts, believes, and has faith. I pray daily for him to realize what he is doing, yet it continues to get worse. He says God is telling him not to come home.

My children and I are losing our home and are going to have to move in with my mother here soon. He thinks that is okay. He thinks I need to concentrate on myself and get better with God and love myself. He also says if I would just be honest and tell him the truth, he would come home and we could go to counseling. It is the ultimate torture since I've already been honest. Also, there are whispers on his recording that he recently sent to me, but they are not what he thinks they are! He says he has already given our marriage to God, I say if he had then he would be home working with me instead of against me.

I'm so lost and scared and stressed. Please help.