Christianity Oasis Forum

[Dora]

Listening.....

I don't have much words. I know...weird...right?

What came to mind was can you feel and hear the Holy Spirit in each situation?

Praying for you both.

[dema]

Actually, I hear God a lot and do get God hugs. Sometimes still sometimes confused. But, I am not alone in that department. (That's ambiguous - but I think it is correct either way.)

[Dora]

I don't get God hugs very often. But He does seem to enjoy sweeping past to take my breath away. It's often when I'm not thinking about Him during a struggle. I all of a sudden find His spirit passing so closely I can't breath for a moment. Then I laugh and I am very certain He laughs too.

I have you in my prayers. May His will be done and may the difficult times pass swiftly.

God loves you and so do I.

[vahn]

Hello Dema

Sister , what I have to say may hit hard . But Truth was never an easy pill to swallow sometimes . I am writing this as a concerned brother about the the spiritual well-being of a fellow Christian , with the hopes that with I have to say - based on observation from your earlier posts - would give you something to think about .

Sister listen , in my opinion ? I think he will be all too happy to learn of your decision . I strongly advise , in order for you to understand how I came to that conclusion , to go back and reread all of your post once again for you to see for yourself .... not one of them lacks a smash-down on your hubby , everything is his fault , If I were to believe your description of him , I would say he is a complete moron .... but ... here's what I am thinking instead , what are you doing being married to such a person ???

Luv ya
In Christ , our Lord
vahn

[dema]

Our counsellor calls it codependence - but it is a teacher/student codependence from my perspective and I believe a son/mother one from his. His mother didn't touch him unless she needed to to respond to a need. No cuddling, no hugs, no caresses. His sister described the way they were. And they all adored their mother. The all despised her mother, their own grandmother. And in their adulthood blame her for their own mother's lack of physical affection. She was also a society belle - was president of everything there was to be president of. And she disciplined her children into letting her entertain in their home with shame. This is the mother. She would bake a cake for her social event, and not bake one for them. If there were leftovers, fine, but if not, too bad.

He also has severe ADD. And he is the oldest. and she served food family style. And with the whole cake thing and all, food became a competition. Their mother was a decent cook. And they were jealous of her cooking for others. SO he was a fat kid whose mother didn't touch him who didn't sit still. And he was forced to go to catechism (not Catholic) every Saturday and miss cartoons for a year. And the guy teaching him was a strict guy who managed to keep him in check.

I think he may have fallen in love with me the day I had to bake a cake for something. He went in the other room and sulked. And I took him the bowl and he got a glazed, happy look in his eyes. And when I called him in for cake - he was totally amazed. My mother taught me that if you make a cake for someone else, you have to make one for your own family. That probably set the pattern right there.

His mother would see me train him and ask me how I was doing it. I trained him to be neat. (Really, that is a total falsehood. He is very, very messy. Before he was subhumanly messy. I trained him not to be a pig.) I trained him to pay his bills. And I don't nag. When he wouldn't quit leaving his underwear by the front door - he would strip as he walked in and go take a bath - I refuse to fold his towels any week I found clothes in the living room.

I taught him not to be paranoid. That people were just selfish, not out to get him. And sometimes when people were out to get him professionally, he should take it as a compliment because that meant he'd kept them from ripping someone off.

He got off of Prozac. When he quit going to church, I wrote devotionals. I will post a few in a moment. He bragged about it to people and I ended up with a distribution list. It got up to several hundred before he went back to church.

He lost 60 lbs, gained 20 and lost 60 more. All this time he was still self-medicating with pot. I had started trying to get him to take ADD medicine. The pot turned on him. (Made him violent instead of mellow and hermit like) and I wanted out. So we went to a counsellor. We sat on the sofa and read books together, chapter at a time. Beauty for Ashes, The Love Languages, many more. I bought two copies. But, I won't nag. when he quit responding to gentle reminders to do that, we quit.

[dema]

I started cleaning up his credit before we married. He had had a business go under 6 years before and had been hiding from them since. They found him right before the wedding. Over the years, I gradually taught him how to do it - never sharing a single bank account with him ever. I am the mother and he is the son and I do not trust him to handle money. Actually, I wanted to. I helped him with his books for his company. I gave him good advice. He got a family member involved and the family member wouldn't let me help. I was livid. Foaming at the mouth every tax season. "If you won't look at your books, let me look at them. You have no idea what is happening with your livelihood."

2 years ago we found out that the company owed over $300K in back taxes when hubby only made less than $35K a year. And if he'd let me do any of that mothering, it wouldn't have happened. I would have stopped it multiple ways. And I was the reason it did stop. Finally after years of my telling him it was bad wrong, he was going to get it audited and the culprit fessed up.

I have been writing a sister on this site twice a day for many, many months. She had some college psychology. She says it is an abusive relationship with abusive cycles, they just don't include physical violence. And she says that they were taught in her college class that many times it continues not because one person is weak, but because the person believes the Bible too literally and believes they must forgive every time there is a repentance. But she said that this is a fallacy. That it would not continue if there was a repentance. I have other people I have written every other day. One of the others independently told me something less technical but the same thing.

(And I have to admit the guy is a sexy dude. He swims a mile a day, works out with weights, and is pretty much an ideal weight. He also brings me flowers regularly - at a certain point in they cycle - and takes me dancing no matter where he is on the cycle.)

There's a lot more. But, I think that's enough. I'll post some of the devotionals.

[dema]

God has been opening my eyes. I see Eddie Haskell now on the good cycle. Do you know the character?

But, i still want to take care of him. I want to make sure he picks a good place, and gets his kitchen all set up correctly, and gets his utilities handled and sets up his bank account for autopay - I can't say that I'm healthy in this relationship. I know that is crazy.

[dema]

I have some 500 of these I think????? Four books of them.

Day 2 – Failure

Sometimes it seems like things just go against us. We’ve gotten up and gotten knocked right back down. We’ve tried option after option, but it just hasn’t worked out.

Macy failed 7 times before his new York store caught on. John Creasy, an English Novelist, got 753 rejection slips before he published 564 titles. (How can one write that much?)

The best way to success is to follow God’s lead.

2 Corinthians 3 (New International Version)
5Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God.

God created us and He alone fully understands our strengths and our weaknesses. Our job is to keep trying. To seek to fulfill God’s plan for us.

Philippians 3 (The Message)
12-14I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

And to not forget that God can help us to do anything.

Philippians 4 (New International Version)
13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

Know who you are.

2 Corinthians 5:21 (New International Version)
21God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

You are the righteousness of God if you believe. Your identity is in Christ, not in your work, though it often seems otherwise. You are spectacular in Christ. And He came that we might have life more abundantly.

God wants us to have abundance. But, we have to keep on keeping on.



Day 3 - Receiving

God promises to strengthen us – as we believe. And as we are willing to love, we will be filled with God’s abundance.

Ephesians 3 (New American Standard Bible)
16-20That He would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that ye, being rooted and grounded in love ...that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.

Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.

Please note, we are told to grow spiritually first and then we are told that God is able to do exceeding abundantly according to the power that worketh in us.

We need to grow spiritually to get the power working. Then we'll see results.

We are also promised health and prosperity, conditionally.

3 John 1 (New American Standard Bible)
2Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.

The point is - your intangible needs to prosper before one can expect God to make the tangible to prosper. Prosper is superlative. It is not mediocre - not average. One needs to work on developing spiritually. To the extent that we develop spiritually and claim and act on the promises of God, we will receive.


Day 4 - Testimony

There are some fortunate plays on words in Christianity. One of these is the word “Testimony”. The root word of testimony is ‘witness’. But, in order to witness, one really needs to have passed a test and seen the results in order to have something to tell.

Matthew 6 (New American Standard Bible)
25,27 Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you shall eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food... Who of you can add a single hour to his life?

We’ve all been tempted to worry. We’ve all been tested as to whether we will have faith or fear. And, if we have had faith, we should have results to talk about.

Philippians 4:19 (New International Version)
19And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.

It has been described to me that these promises are a signed check handed to us by God. We endorse and deposit them by claiming them and thanking God for them. Repeat the promises to yourself followed by a thank you several times a day. Let your faith and lack of fear be a testimony to others. And soon you will have the promised answers to tell about.

[vahn]

Sister

"I trained him " .. ???... "Shame and blame are the devil's tools" ....sound familiar ? ... Do the math .

That sums up where the problem REALLY lies .

[dema]

I don't and didn't use shame or blame as "training" methods. I would consciously try to give him a certain number of sincere compliments a day and to touch him a certain number of times a day. I would drop what I was doing to look him in the eye when he wanted attention - with ADD that was the toughest thing. I have consistently wanted him to get better.

I'm not claiming to be perfect - my role here wasn't healthy for a marriage. I said that a number of times. And I have gone over the top a number of times. I've used bad words and a loud voice. He would yell at me for weeks when I hurt his feelings. I get over things quickly most of the time. 10 minutes later I am frequently over an issue if he wasn't still yelling about it.

His daughter thought he was a demon. Hubby thought children were horrors. If a baby cried in a restaurant, he would get up and go to the car and leave me to finish eating alone and pay the bill. I helped them repair their relationship. It is pretty shaky now because he tried to use her against me in this divorce and to convince her to stay away from me. Her children have two active grandparents - and I am one of them. She refused. I've encouraged them to mend fences. At holidays, he doesn't help and spends most of the time in his basement office.

You really have no idea.

Why am I in the relationship? I couldn't help my first husband when his world came tumbling down around him. And this man welcomed being "trained". He was talking about this recently and wishing that I had been harder on him and made him learn certain things and listen to certain things.

I told him that I don't nag. And I definitely don't guilt, shame or blame.

I refuse to accept. If he leaves his stuff around, then I move it. He has to go get it. And/or I don't fold his towels or do the other positives that I did for him. I was a nervous wreck when I went to the counsellor from doing all these lists of positive behavior to him.

You are right that it wasn't healthy for me. Was it healthy for him? Well, he now has a successful business with checks and balances to keep someone from ripping him off again, he looks good, he isn't paranoid, he doesn't have shifty eyes anymore, he knows a lot more scripture whether he uses it or not, he has a relationship with his daughter - they were estranged 18 years ago and he only shows up for other family gatherings for a short time usually, and for years only did that because of his mother. He has great credit. He calls credit card companies when he needs to. He calls insurance companies when he needs to. He took a problem to the insurance commissioner - he has changed so much. He is on ADD medicine instead of pot.

When I was a little girl, I told God that there were lots of people who wanted to be evangalists and help the masses, but I didn't think there were many people who would stick around and really help one. Maybe the little girl was part of this thing.

I don't know - but lately, God has definitely been showing me that my husband goes through an abusive cycle. Over the years it has gotten to be a mild abusive cycle, but it is still wrong. And that I AM codependent, and that this is not what a marriage is. And I need to get out. His repentance is not real, it is a means of perpetuating the cycle. Though he does appreciate the changes that he has made to improve his life in the past.

And, we don't have a marriage. We have something, but not a marriage.

[Dora]

You really have no idea.

No one really does do they?

Doesn't matter what our situation is, it is hard for anyone to really completely totally understand what it's like.

But God chooses to come and enter into our deepest most secret parts and allows His spirit to feel what we feel to the point He may even grieve over us and for us. Because His love is just that HUGE!

God loves you dema and so do I.

Prayers for you remain.

I know you are offering your very best which is at times so difficult in this hard messed up world.

Breathe! Everything will be ok. Keep praying and listening.

[xxJILLxx]

Dema,

I am praying for u sis, divorce is never easy. I've been there in my own circumstances of divorce years ago And Pine highlights it so beautifully that no one has any idea unless we are walking in your shoes. Nobody needs to stay in an unhealthy marriage, especially abusive. God knows your heart and circumstances.

God bless
Jill