When I was in trying-to-save-my-marriage mode for that fifteen or so year stretch, I asked for a lot of help and advice and read a lot of books and prayed a lot of prayers and I put several things in place in an attempt to turn things around. Things like:
*I was counseled to praise him every day for thirty days. To which I added, serve him and pray for him every day for thirty days. He told me a few days in to stop, that it was insincere. So I stopped.
*The infamous-among-my-friends 3-Day plan. Day one, we would have sex; day two, devotions; day three, break; then repeat the whole thing over and over into marital bliss. Yeah, this petered out fairly quickly as you can probably imagine, though I held up my end of the bargain.
*The season I attended a recovery group and went through the twelve steps and did my amends step and how small and sad, and oddly not freeing, it unfortunately made me feel.
*And my personal favorite, when I did the Love Dare. You know, that little book that was an off-shoot of the movie Fireproof? A few days in I was told to “stop love-daring me”. O-kay. I must admit that I took sick pleasure in burning my copy of that book and never looking back.
I have two theories why none of this worked to save my marriage.
First, and I’m embarrassed to say this, but heck, I say a lot of embarrassing things here on the blog, so why not, right? My motives were overall impure. Yes, I wanted my marriage healed, but when I would go to ask for advice, I was always, always hoping I’d really get some pity and then an intervention of some kind instead of another list of things for me to do. So when given a list, in the back of my head, I thought, “I’ll show you. I’ll take your list and raise it a prayer and an act of service. I’ll prove that it won’t work; that none of this that you keep telling me to do will work.” I wanted everyone to know that I did all this stuff to try to fix my marriage so that someone would hopefully see I wasn’t this horrible wife that was keeping us from healing. Horrible, horrible motives, I know. I have since repented of that. And if this resonates with you, you might want to talk with Jesus about this. Your heart needs to be in the right place for you and for Him.
And the second reason I don’t think any of my efforts to save my marriage single-handedly worked in the least is that – and I say this with all humility – I wasn’t the one actively taking down our marriage. Yes, I was a mess, and yes, I was not a good wife, and yes, I had a huge part in our downfall, and I own that. But I wasn’t the one not engaged; I wasn’t the ending-party. I was in counseling and reading every book out there and asking for advice and begging Jesus to heal us and wasn’t the one with the addiction (though I was uber-codependent to be sure)… But I should not have been the one making the amends step first. I should not have been doing the stupid Love Dare. I should not have been trying to muster up trust on my own without new reason to trust.
DO NOT GET ME WRONG: if you are in a difficult marriage and your husband is the “main culprit”, per se, through adultery or abuse or addiction, this is NOT a free pass to do nothing, or to sit around pointing your fingers. You have work to do.
But hear me clearly: if this is your situation, I fully believe you are not the one who should be trying to win your spouse back. You just have another list.
So, if this is you, if you are trying to win your man or convince him to change or to love you or treat you better or get help for some kind of addiction, stop, sweet one. Just stop. Because that is not your job. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. You cannot change anyone but yourself.
Here, however, are some things you can do for starters:
Pray. Yes, I will always, always start with pray. Because God is bigger than your problems and your sadnesses and the pain you carry with you every day and the lost marriage dreams. And because he is the only One – truly the only One – who can fix what is broken in your husband and in you and between you. So beg Jesus to fix this, to make you stronger and healthier, and to help you be kind.
Ask for help. Not just any help, as I’ve talked about before, but make sure you ask for the kind of help where the person truly understands the depths of pain and doesn’t shame you or make you feel to blame. If you’re handed a list that consists of pray more/cook more/have sex more/respect more/submit more/shut up more, this person does not understand what’s truly going on and you need to keep asking until you’re understood.
Work on yourself. Read books. Get in counseling. Find a coach. Do the hard work of becoming the most healthy, whole, Jesus-y version of you that you can be. No matter what happens in your marriage, you will be glad you did this part, and you will be held accountable for this.
You cannot win your unfaithful or abusive or addictive husband back by love-daring him or ultimatum-ing him or luring him with sex every three or however many days. You just can’t. And that’s okay. You don’t need to…because it’s not your job.
If this post helped you, and you would like to go further in your marriage healing, I would love to work with you. Here are my best resources:
Free marriage assessment
http://bit.ly/marriage-assessment
Free Detaching with Love webcast
https://elisabethklein.com/detaching-with-love-1/
Surviving in a Difficult Christian Marriage e-book
https://elisabethklein.com/books/
STARTING IN FEBRUARY! Marriage Methods e-course
If you are in a difficult marriage and you’re planning to stay put (at least for now) but want to learn how to stay in better and more whole ways, you are invited to spend three months honestly assessing your reality, your emotions and your role in your marriage, and learning tangible tools to help you feel better and relate better and stay closer to God through your pain in my e-course, Marriage Methods https://elisabethklein.com/product/marriagemethods/
STARTING IN FEBRUARY! Decision Time e-course
If you are in a difficult marriage and you are trying to determine whether to stay married or leave, you are invited to spend five weeks learning to detach with love, steadying your ever-changing emotions, and learn to think more clearly and biblically about your current situation and decision in my e-course, Decision Time: https://elisabethklein.com/product/decisiontime/
I have been thinking about this very thing the past couple of days. What you shared is confirmation to me. And yes I am accountable too, and I am working on my issues. But I have realized I can’t make my husband change, I can’t even make him want to change. Only God can do that. Thanks for being open Elisabeth, it is helpful!
So glad to be of some help, Rebecca!
I LOVE this post. I know none of that was easy to share…but I was so there. I was given thing after thing after thing to try…from others and from all the crazy amounts of reading I was doing. I didn’t do the Love Dare book, it wasn’t even out yet, but in the works, I think. I couldn’t make myself watch Fireproof…took a few years after before I could. But I was in a class at church for women, called Love and Respect…and while the challenges in that class worked for everyone else, they bombed in my house. I was full-in trying…but it didn’t make a difference and actually left me crushed when he walked away without looking back (and for us, it was the second time he left).
I so appreciate the way that you share. To know that there are other people who have gone through this, makes a world of difference. I am grateful for God’s timing in my story, because He got my girls and I out of there before things got worse…and they were headed that direction quickly. We are thriving in this new safe that God has provided for us, even though nothing is the what we ever expected.
So happy to hear you and your girls are thriving, no matter how your expectations were upended. Keep walking!
So, if this is you, if you are trying to win your man or convince him to change or to love you or treat you better or get help for some kind of addiction, stop, sweet one. Just stop. Because that is not your job. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. You cannot change anyone but yourself.
THIS IS SO TRUE!!! I’ve told MANY folks that the ONE thing I have learned through this whole mess is that I am not God! I can’t hope to do what only God can do!! AMEN and AMEN!! This is a brilliant post! I, too, have had to repent of much in all of this, and I have found forgiveness. Praise God!! BUT until my ex admits to his porn addiction and asks for help, he is on a deadly path. As much as I pray that he will turn away, I have to leave that it God’s faithful hands! HE ALONE IS ABLE!!
Thanks so much for this most excellent post!!
Thank you for the super kind words, Kim. I appreciate it so much.
Wow.
Just wow.
I’ve been coming to the place of letting go for a year now…
Knowing if I died tomorrow the issues were things he’d still have to deal with…
Busying myself with my own authenticity…
Getting to know God. Not in order to do things ‘right’ or to ‘fix’ things. But to seek out this One who was supposedly the lover of my soul…to ask Him the hardest questions – like Why pain? Why sin? Why do You forgive? Who are You? All the while knowing I’d already rejected the Sunday school answers.
Oh how intimate I’m becoming with Him. It’s scary.
And exhilerating. And the vulnerability can be excruciating. But HE is always engaged. Every day HE shows up to do the hard work. HE grapples with the hard questions…HE always has the time and the motivation to ‘work on our relationship’. And I truly believe His heart breaks when we aren’t close. He misses me. He wants to know about my day, my thoughts, my misgivings, my dreams.
When I let my husband live in his own dysfunction, in his lack of motivation for connection, when virtually he went on living a single life – I had the time and opportunity to find Someone who really really wanted a relationship with me. My Father.
…still in the process of it all but I so agree- we can’t win them back. That’s their journey we have our own.
I love this line…”busying myself with my own authenticity…” I’ve been doing that for years but you put words to it. Love it!
“HE always has the time and the motivation to ‘work on our relationship’. And I truly believe His heart breaks when we aren’t close. He misses me. He wants to know about my day, my thoughts, my misgivings, my dreams.”
How very encouraging to read this!!! Thanks!
I so tried the love dare in my marriage to and guess what? It didn’t work for me either. I thought that it was a magical potion that would fix everything and that if I loved him enough for the both of us, we would be ok. This was not the case and the more I did to fix my marriage and be a better wife and person, the further away he got. I tried taking more of the chores onto myself to alleviate his stress, I tried not fighting with him even if I knew I was backing down on a point that was important and right. He finally ended things and when I begin to get into the “what if i had done more or done things differently” mindset I remember that he will not accept God and thinks its just something us Christians make up because we are weak or stupid. Don’t get me wrong he is a good man, with a great set of morals, work ethic and very smart. He even loves and wants to see the boys every chance he gets. He has even been working so well with me through this whole process and making sure I get to keep the house and that the kids and I are taken care of financially. But there was something missing in his heart and that is the guiding hand of the Lord. So I remind myself of this every time I feel like calling him and just begging him home just to ease the pain. I did my fair share of screwing up in our marriage but I can ask my God for forgiveness and know that I am released from this commitment knowing that the Holy Spirit will not change his mind because he will not allow it and I couldn’t continue loving someone who doesn’t truly know what real love is.
Thank you for this post! I needed it today
“…if I loved him enough for the both of us…” I know that place of sadness, Stephanie… But I’m so glad to hear you at a place of peace and resolve.
LOL. I HATED the movie and the book “the love dare”. I was so burnt out after trying to do everything to save our marriage. Right after he left for good, I took out every “obedient wife book” and “steps to a good marriage book” out of my bookshelf and tossed them in the garbage. I think I had every book out there written on the topic. I went to counseling and begged him to cherish me, only to get more to-do lists. I wish someone would have grabbed hold of me and told me to let him go. And it was not until the end when a different counselor said to me, “have you released him fully to God”. I kept thinking well, yes I have prayed and prayed and prayed for him. And the counselor said, “No step away from the situation and get out of God’s way, and let God do whatever He needs to do”. And that was so freeing. I had to get out of “fix-it” mode.
Yes, let God do whatever he wants…that’s so good. It’s his job, not ours.
Good stuff as usual Beth! Haha, no kidding, I bought at least 3 copies of the Love Dare book. I bought so many because I would inevitably end up ripping it to pieces!
Oh snap! That’s hysterical. Yeah, gotta admit, burning that thing was super cathartic.
You mean it wasn’t “Fireproof” 😉
I tried years of praying more, respecting more, cooking more, cleaning more, submitting more, only to finally wake up one day and realize it wasn’t changing anything – that nothing would ever be good enough for him. I had “professionals” tell me this would work – that one person working on the marriage would make a difference. HA! My ex told me I was the one that needed “fixing.” Boy, is that now totally laughable. As the years went by and I continued to grow, and get healthier and stronger and finally found good counsel I made the decision to leave the marriage. And don’t get me wrong, I played my part. I made some poor choices along the way. I surely wasn’t perfect. But I do know this, my only job now which is so very freeing is continuing to be the best possible version of myself.
Kim, keep walking with Jesus and letting him transform and heal you.
This post is so true. I fought so hard for such a long time and i also feel all that stuff doesnt work until we completely give all of it to God!!! Now as I am focusing more on taking care of myself and working on healing I feel the Lord taking over as Ive stepped away. Some days are better now some are just as bad but the difference is God is changing me!!! I finally learned to take the focus off of my spouse!!!!!! Thanks Elizabeth!!!!
Jamie, changing our perspective from our husbands to ourselves (not in a selfish way but in a how-can-God-work-in-me way) makes all the difference. Keep walking, sweet girl.
Thank You!!! I have been seeing or reading lately to pray for healing for MY heart! I can pray till I am blue in the face for him, however the true healing is going to benefit me so much more.. I do still have hope my marriage will work and will continue to pray that it does. Only God knows what will happen!! If I am thankful for anything from this affair I am Thankful I am closer to GOD and he loves me so very much!!!
Thanks you !
Yes, Kelli, keep praying for your to heal and become whole…I believe God loves answering prayers like that.
So much YES, Beth! So very much YES! Beautifully, boldly, bravely worded wisdom, my friend! (I wish it hadn’t taken me a decade+ to get it through my thick head.)
Thank you, Laurie!
Yup. Love Dare failure here, too. The harder I tried, the bigger bully he became. I think most telling was when we were in mediation for separation. We were asked what our plans were during the initial 3 month separation. I said I would continue with individual counseling, attend weekly bible study, and meet with my pastor. He said he would continue in his leadership role at church and scout leader. The mediator asked if he thought he needed to work on anything. He got quite the puzzled look on his face and said “No. Why?”
Yes, that is definitely telling…proud of you for doing the hard work though.
I think The Love Dare is for the one who is the problem to do if he repents and I think it is mostly for men, because men and women are so different. I would not recommend The Love Dare to a woman who had an unloving husband, because the book would not work for that at all, in fact, it might actually enable his bad behavior by rewarding him for his unloving behavior. When a person is rewarded for bad behavior, he will continue to do and perhaps even put more effort into it or do it more freely, because he is getting such a great response from it.
Cynthia, agreed.
I wondered if that was the Cynthia I knew. 🙂
Hahaha! I forgot about the 3-day plan. Is it wrong I’m laughing? Oh well, you know my heart :-).
No one can say I didn’t give it the ol’ college try! 😉
Thank you for this.
I relate to so many of your attempts to fix your marriage. I have a new motive to add to the list: I hated divorce more than I loved my husband. I remained in the marriage with clinched fists, determined to STAY MARRIED, while ignoring huge red flags that said my husband was in trouble and needed tough love, not a wife with her head in the sand. Like you, I suppose I was trying to win an award for toughing it out, but in doing so, I actually violated my vow to love my husband…rescuing, ignoring serious problems, living a lie…those are not love. EIGHT YEARS later, when I found out he had been nursing a serious addiction, so, so, so much damage had been done.
James 4
“Ask for help. Not just any help, as I’ve talked about before, but make sure you ask for the kind of help where the person truly understands the depths of pain and doesn’t shame you or make you feel to blame. If you’re handed a list that consists of pray more/cook more/have sex more/respect more/submit more/shut up more, this person does not understand what’s truly going on and you need to keep asking until you’re understood.”
Amen! So true! Thank-you for saying this!
Thanks for reading, Lynn!
Wow, i also did all those things that you mentioned and including the love dare. Story behind that was all God, so i did in fact do it.
I dont think anything you did was stupid. All of those things, if you look at them were also tools for yourself, which could help you in other relationships, romantic or not.
And you are correct that we have to work on ourselves.
The struggle i am having right now, is with prayer.
I dont know how to come to peace with it. As long as the free will of man is involved, how effective are our prayers? We all prayed for our marriages to be healed or at least to remain amicable, but the other party (with their free will) chose to not be a part of the solution. Is it our selfish motives? i dont know, my struggles continue.
Bill, all I know is that prayer changes me and my heart. And so that’s why I do it…it reminds me I’m not in control and a good, loving God is.
Wow thank you for this post Elisabeth! I’ve done all the same things wondering why I never get good results but truth is I won’t since I am the only one that has tried over and over to “fix” and “help” our marriage. By doing these things and allowing him to get away with mistreatment I now realize that all I’ve done is reward his bad behavior and cause him to treat me worse. He has made NO effort to try or change and there is nothing I can do about it. I have to work on myself and find my strength again. Your post has really been an eye opener for sure! Thank you for your amazing words!
I wanted a list or things to do, but not so that I could prove anyone wrong. I wanted the list(s) to work! I thought *I* could win him. I wanted him to see Christ’s love in me and respond and change. He didn’t because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want a Lord. He doesn’t want anyone to be the boss of him. Learning that only God can change a sinner’s heart was an absolute release. My abuser knew how to manipulate my desire to have a God honoring marriage. He would make me doubt that I was honoring God. He would mock me when my faith kept me from giving in to his perverted demands in the bedroom.
I also wanted to be able to “encourage” others and I smugly though that if I could tolerate/endure my abuser, surely they could too. Oh there are some things I thought, said, and did to other victims, that I so regret. I’ve called some of them and apologized for my cruel words and they’ve graciously forgiven me. Praise God for His grace and mercy.
“But hear me clearly: if this is your situation, I fully believe you are not the one who should be trying to win your spouse back…
So, if this is you, if you are trying to,,, convince him to change or to love you or treat you better…., stop, sweet one. Just stop. Because that is not your job. That is the job of the Holy Spirit. You cannot change anyone but yourself.”
1. Thanks for calling me “sweet one.” I seriously related to this so much that I could feel your kindness in that statement. 🙂
2. This is so true for so many women dealing with all kinds of marital issues. It is the curse of Eve~we will long for Adam. We will seek control over our lives in a relational way. We will work ourselves into the ground fixing and saving and trying….and letting our sin of not trusting God with our lives imprison us in our circumstances.
3. We all must learn this valuable lesson about what we have control over–not others, not the past, not the future. When we learn it (and especially if we are also learning to deeply experience the gospel of Jesus’ love and acceptance in the midst of our sinful reality) we are freed. We are empowered. We see clearly.
4. That is the answer. Trust God with our lives. Grow in relationship with Him until trusting Him is our knee-jerk reaction to whatever life gives us. That is abundant life!
5. Thanks for the encouragement!
This really really helped me. Our marriage has had issues and I’ve been trying everything to make it better. I didn’t realize the depth of his issues, but I thought if I was better, he could get better. SO WRONG. He finally confessed his issues and there was not one “plan” I could have done at any point in our marriage to make him change bc he has major issues.
Its so hard to realize that there probably is no way of coming back from this. I never wanted to give up on my marriage, but I feel my only choice is to walk away.
It makes so much sense to hear someone say that I shouldn’t be trying to win him back. Yes! So freeing to hear that. I need to let it sink in.
For ten years l havebeen praying for a change in my husband’s life and our marriage but things are not just working why? Because l tried hard to be a good mom and wife. By this through out these ten years l have responsible in paying our three children school fees, light and ware bills and also providing meal on the table everyday. My husband claims he has provided accommodation, car n a shop which l manage and for reason he has done what no man on earth has ever done.
Before l thought by performing this much will change things but no. Friends, never try to win a man’s heart by your performance you only break yourself down. With this l agree it is only God who can change situations.
Elisabeth….I’m going to share this on my blog, if you don’t mind?
There is so much wisdom here, women (and men) who are doing back flips so their spouse will “get it” and work with them to change the marriage really need to read this!
My husband and I went to TWO Love and Respect seminars…I read all the books, did the women’s devotional, even bought the leather bound couples devotional book…we never used it, I ended up giving it to my married son!
I bought the Love and Respect cards and slipped them in my husbands suitcase when he left on business trips, or put them in his car the night before…all to no avail.
I’ve read just about every book out there, trying to change myself into the kind of woman who would entice my husband to change into the Godly man I so wanted. It didn’t happen.
At this point in my marriage, I’ve accepted that I can only work on myself and my relationship with God. I cannot change my husband, only God can do that.
Thank you for this wonderful message in a very dark time for my family. I have been working on me and will continue to do so while God works on us both. I am geared for self help kind of stuff so stepping back is not easy for me but I do realize it is the best way. Thank you!
Thank you. I’ve just come to the place where I realize that my 20 year project to create a good marriage has completely failed. He tears or family down, yes, but I try to rebuild it over and over exactly like you describe. It’s like trying to build a stone fortress out of cotton balls. We never had the right materials. Of course it takes time to realize that, but this post adds clarity to the questions of “now what?” that I am struggling with. The process is so hard. It’s so hard to have friends with different building materials than you have talk about the great success they had with programs and books and look at your own failed attempts and wonder why it doesn’t work for you. Well meaning Christian loved ones who just can’t understand, they are everywhere. What I am starting to realize though is that I myself do have good building materials. With or without my husband. I can do a good work whether or not he chooses to join me. Praise God for that.
I so enjoyed this. It gave me clarity and peace. I think that i am still in denial to a degree and have yet to fully accept that i choose the wrong man. It is painful and confusing and stressful in part because i feel like i have to fix it. From reading this, i see my job is me. I can not tell you how freeing i feel and that this one post has blessed me tremendously. I have work to do and so does God. I have been getting in tge way but not after reading this. I thank all of you fir sharing your stories and ask God ti continue meeting us at the place where we need it most.
I think in Dobson’s Love Must Be Tough he advocates not chasing after a spouse who doesn’t want to engage in the marraige. I gave up trying avoided the love dare. I do try to treat him with respect and thank him when appropriate (and I can do so genuinely thankful). In my mind I’m already seperated because of his choices, actions and abuses. He thinks he’s perfect anyway and everything is my fault so there’s no effort on his part to change things but to blame and gaslight. So I go along with my life as much apart of him as I can while still living under the same roof. At least until God gives me the green light to seperate for real. I read Clay Crosse’s book “I Surrender All” about his battle with pornography and I think he demonstrates beautifully the actions a man of God needs to take to win back the heart and trust of his spouse. Without any admission or willingness to accept responsibility for his actions in our marriage, I lose hope that this kind of reconcililation could ever happen. I’m not holding my breath while trying to remember that God is a God of miracles. The miracle will be for me to survive and thrive in spite of my marriage, not because of it. God can and will be glorified as I lean into Him. He’s the One I’m to chase and love first anyway. Great post.
I’m one of the many (sob!) out in this world who are finally coming to the understanding that no matter how much they try to do better and be better, there’s just no magic pill that makes them the perfect make-believe wife their husband wants. Your books, your blog, they have helped me regain my focus on God’s love for me, and my role as a woman and a Christian — not just a Christian *wife* — in dealing with my difficult marriage. It’s important for me to walk through these trials (even separating or divorcing) with grace. Thank you for speaking so openly about your experiences.
Such a true blog. How many abused women, (and I was one of them), turn themselves into pretzels trying to “do” or “be” the perfect wife so he will just STOP the abuse? To many thousands/millions to count. And as you said this DOESN’T WORK! WHY? Because the harder you try, the more he believes you really ARE the problem, and the harder he makes you work! It’s a vicious circle, and one that never ends. Thanks for the great post.
I am so great full for dis post. It came at the right time when I really needed help. All I have to do is to forgive and release my husband to his creator to work on him while I depend on the Holy spirit for my healing and recovering.
SO what did you do to save the marriage? Im in therapy, got a job, and he still finds me very attractive (even at 8 months pregnant) I haven’t begged for him back but he is well aware that I don’t want a divorce but that I want him to get therapy. I’m planning on moving out within the next 2 weeks, already asked him to move and he claims he can’t until October 1st, so not what? I’m killing him with kindness but not being “overly” kind just staying civl so what else can i do? I don’t mope around any more, and I’m getting involved with more activities in the area. Am i doing everything i should or is there more? Help! I don’t want to bring a 3rd child into this world in the midst of a divorce. I truly value our marriage and value him but i know he needs mental help. I pray daily for about 15 minutes and spend time in God’s word for an hour! Please help!
I have walked this journey of fighting desperately to save a failing marriage and your blog resonated in a deep, real way. I too followed the advice of many, friends, counselors and clergy. I tried to Fire-prooof my marriage and it met with a scoff, I complemented and sexually enticed, and it met with “the face”, I called and texted in a limited way, so as not “to bother him too much”. Eee gads, he was my husband; limited communication? I prayed, I begged the Lord to save my marriage, but it was not to be. He eventually went on to divorce me and marry his girlfriend.
I must say that your soul searching for ungodly motives caused a stir. I would agree that I shared them, but within those motives you call etched with wrong, there certainly was the desire to save a blessed, covenantal relationship. I would add that I wanted to save my marriage because I thought that the Gospel would be boldly proclaimed in a marriage saved from the ashes – as if God needed my opinion and my marriage to add to His infinite Glory. I also wanted it saved for the future – future moments, future holidays, avoiding future hurts. The fruit of our split has indeed paid the anticipated negative dividends of stressful schedules, loneliness and hurt for my children. God knew and He has covered these moments in His grace, but it has not been easy.
In the nearly six years since my divorce has been final, I have become an observer of marriage in the public eye. I watch my family, friends and strangers interact with their spouses and, through this, have learned one overarching truth. You mentioned that your were a “bad” wife – and my reaction was one of incredulity. But then I thought, the word “bad” is too simple to cover the complexities of a marriage. In truth, there are no “good” wives, husbands or marriages. We are/were all “bad” wives. Marriage is two flawed people working together in relationship to make a marriage work. Work. Commitment. Covering. Grace giving. Sacrifice. By both. Marriage is the amazing earthly example of Christ’s laying down His life for His bride, the church. We need that focus, that model, rather than a black and white excel spreadsheet of good and bad.
Blessings to you on sharing your heart in an honest and real way. We need this iron sharpening iron to grow to be more like Him.
This is just what I needed to hear. It helped me let go even more realizing that what you said is true. I’ve tried to say it to myself but I think I have now accepted it coming from one who also walked it. This was my story. I did it for 10 years and when he left there was no credit for trying, or for working through his infidelity. He still tried to slander me to everyone. Years of counseling, changing all I could…at the end I knew it was no way to live when I was sacrificing my very soul to try to make someone else happy; someone who would never be happy with me. I almost lost my faith in the madness. I, also, had all the marriage books, practiced it all. And yes, at the end I ripped them up and threw them away. I had many years of practice and I am happy to now be in a healthy marriage with a man who makes the life of being a wife a joyful one. There is no striving, there is working together. The loving, adoration and respect comes naturally. I am so grateful for what I now have.
Thank you for your honesty. I did all those things to try to save my marriage too and they didn’t work because he was not willing to change or to invest in our marriage.
The Church needs to hear this message!! Keep speaking the truth.
It bothers me though when you say that you had a part in the failure of the marriage. If you could go back and re-do everything, do you think you would still be married to him today? I doubt it. He wasn’t invested. Stop beating yourself up. I think it sends the message to the rest of us that we are somehow responsible for our failed marriages. I did and said things I shouldn’t have too. There’s no woman on this earth that can say she was a perfect wife! But I tried, you tried, most of us who follow you have tried…or we wouldn’t be here. But it’s not my fault that my narcissistic abuser is who he is.
If my narcissistic husband of 36 yrs miraculously changed sincerely I am afraid I am way past wanting our marriage to continue. I am his third wife
and 72 yrs old now and he has pretty much brought me down as low as a person can go But I do know that I still have a lot to learn as to how I could behave more as Christ wants me to and actually my husband is getting worse and worse and angrier toward me of course. Just saying there is a time when you know that you just can’t keep going on. 😢
Deborah, I’m just now seeing this. And I’m so deeply sorry for your continued pain.