My marriage is ending in divorce because of my anger and I need advice
Question:
Hello,
I have a marital question and I am desperately seeking God's guidance, hopefully through your advice. I have been married for about five years now. We are a young couple in our early twenties. Since the beginning of our relationship, we have always had a special bond and got along great prior to marriage. My wife, though, had multiple sexual partners and I did not. I was a virgin when I met her; however, not when we got married because we both fell into fornication prior to marriage. Our marriage then happened quickly since we found out she was expecting. We both decided to get married. I was a believer and she was not. She decided to give her life to Jesus Christ and repent from her previous life and so did I.
It has been about five years now. I have seen in her great attributes, and I truly have developed great feelings for her. She knows me very well. She's is a great mother to our children.
But since the beginning, we argued a lot, from bad communication to money trust issues to her not being interested in initiating or having sex or showing affection toward me. Of course, I would always ask her how come she is so dry with me yet she has had multiple sex partners before me. This sex situation is a big issue for us because I feel rejected all the time. It even led me to become physically abusive to her as a result of the constant fights we had. This is another big issue. I even went to jail and I almost lost my job as a result of this.
Midway in our marriage she even started talking to a coworker inappropriately, who had recently gotten married, and my wife and I had attended his wedding. That hurt me a lot! After that, multiple breakups and make-ups happened. A lot of disrespect issues arose after that. Our relationship was deteriorating. We had a huge fight in which I approached her with a hug early in the morning while she cooked, and I told her "let's have a great day baby," but she wouldn't hug me. I battle with rejection issues from her, so I felt rejected again. She defended herself saying I was acting like that because I only wanted sex. The situation escalated to me pushing her, and her leaving the house with one child. Two weeks later she involved the county court and took away my other child as well and has served me with a protective order. Finally, she has filed for divorce.
I am devastated! I am lonely. I miss her because, in spite of all, I still have feelings for her and this legal debate is happening so quickly I am afraid I am going to lose her and my family for life. I don't want to fight her legally, as I don't want to divorce and I am emotionally beat! I have seen my mistakes, and I regret them deeply! But it seems she overlooks everything she has done to me, and how she has hurt me as well. I still believe in God and His perfect plan for marriage.
At this point, I don't know what to do. Many people advise me to follow through with the divorce and move on. Others tell me to fight for her and get her back. Is this relationship irreparable? Is it better to just let her go?
Answer:
The potential for repairing the marriage is there, but whether you'll even have a chance to do so depends on both of you wanting to work on the marriage. Without her wanting to work in the marriage, there isn't much you can do. There were things you could have done prior to this point to turn things around, but we can't fix the past.
I only have your ear, so I'm only going to focus on your issues. I'm sure your wife has problems, but most of what I see has happened in your marriage is due to you.
Fights are usually due to one or both people wanting to have their way, not getting it, and since they don't have control they try to make it happen with arguments or physical action. While you state that you see her good characteristics, I suspect that you rarely if ever told her of these things. From her point of view she was getting constant arguments, no appreciation, and at times being physically abused. "A merry heart does good, like medicine, But a broken spirit dries the bones" (Proverbs 17:22).
Even your complaint about her being dry during sex follows the same pattern. A woman isn't able to turn on and off her lubrication. A lack of lubrication usually indicates one of two problems: either a fear of the person she is with or that the man is not spending nearly enough time in romance and foreplay to cause her body to respond. In other words, your complaint was really against yourself about what you were not doing properly when it comes to sex. Yet, you blamed her and you kept dredging up past sins that should have been forgotten since they were forgiven. Love "keeps no record of wrongs" (I Corinthians 13:5 NIV).
The difficulty you are going to run into is proving that you really have changed. Everything you might say is going to appear to be self-serving. What has to be done is demonstrating a complete change in how you behave with her. What you do matters far more than what you say. "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them" (Matthew 7:16-20).
You can talk to her about whether if you going to counseling and learning to be a proper husband would help the situation. Actually, I would recommend it anyway just for your own sake because you need to get back on the path to heaven.
