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How to be content with your trial


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Hi All,

I've been struggling with the hardest trial in my life, my wife of 5 years has not had any physical contact with me for over 3 months, this has been her choice. She says she is not "in love" and the constant lack of affection is really painful.

During this time I have made major changes in my life coming closer to Christ than I ever have. I was baptized in June and have been deepening in prayer ever since. I'm struggling with all the aspects of this to ensure that I'm praying for the right things.

  • The bible says to stay happy in the face of your trial. Whether the day is good or bad, you are to rejoice because God made it perfect. I have started praying for this, but I feel guilty being constantly disappointed. I feel I have no control over the chemical emotions in my body.
  • The bible also speaks about being free from fear, because God is the only one that can take our soul. I continue to have a deep fear of my wife leaving me. I cannot stand to imagine her living her life with anyone else. It is a mixture of sadness and jealousy.
  • The bible says if we pray through Jesus Christ in a graceful way and not for our own lustful interests that our prayers will be answered. I continue to pray for reconciliation with my wife, but I know that it is his will for what will ultimately happen. I know that it is possible for my wife to leave me and that I should let her go. At the same time God hates divorce, and I just cannot imagine this would be the plan. Being stuck in this paradox is wearing my patience thin, yet I pray for patience every day.

I'm unsure if God is putting this pressure on me to seek another message or action. I ask every day what He wants me to do with my life. I have been loving unconditionally and being truly empathetic to others. I don't know what else to work on.

Each day I pray several times and also do several devotionals from the bible app for more inspiration and learning. Where else should I seek? What am I missing?

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Thw two conditions for divorce are: adultery and abandonment.

 https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-abandonment.html

I would suggest speaking to your wife. Tell her that you don't want to play at any kind of social dance and you would much rather that you two be frank and direct with one another. If she truly is not in love with you anymore and she wishes to leave, then allow her the exit. If she wishes to stay and you feel that it is right to do, then you can try to make it work. It would be difficult to let a woman you love go, but only a fool stays in his home while it's burning. It might rain now, but it won't rain forever.

As for the learning thing, it never stops. Just give it time. However, staying in place and doing the routine offers no new experiences and thus no new knowledge. Don't hold back from doing things, you know? Maybe try to find new friends, go to a few events or something.

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@onedirection

As Christians, we often have a disconnect between our head knowledge and heart knowledge.  Trials often cause this difference to show up.   For example, at the beginning of the year, our health insurance provider changed, and we could not get information about how to get hold of the new provider, and we found ourselves without active coverage.  I could say I trusted God to take care of us, but I had a couple nights where I tossed and turned worrying about it.   It worked out fine, but my lack of peace at night revealed that I really wasn't trusting God.  We just recently moved (involving the selling and buying of houses).  There were many situations which arose that at times caused me to lose sleep, but usually not too badly.   A couple weeks ago, a similar thing occurred with the insurance as providers changed again.  This time I've barely thought about it even though it still isn't completely worked out.  Similar situations, but completely different reactions on my part.  Given that the next year of our lives is likely to involve me starting a new business with no income, having real trust in God (and not just an intellectual opinion that I can trust God) and actual peace is going to make that a much easier road to travel.  Obviously, learning trust and peace has been something God's been working on me about this past year through these various situations.  It's one thing to say I trust God or know that I should;  it's by far another to just sleep soundly at night and not worry about things.

I once heard an interesting message which started with a real twist.  The speaker started off with a statement about what the most important thing is to remember to do to get through a trial....  remember to breath...   I think everyone listening to him was thinking what???   He went on to say that he was serious, that both christians and non-christians make it through most trials by just staying alive, so just keep breathing.   He then went on to talk about making the most of trials to grow and learn.   Often trials expose things in ourselves that we'd rather not see and that don't show up when things are going well.  If we're going to be in the trial, we may was well make the most of it and learn from it.   He said God's best for us often does not involve removing us from the trial but helping us to learn and grow through the trial.   He said that we often focus so hard on getting out of the trial, all of our prayers and efforts are toward ending the trial rather than focusing on our own growth so that we not only survive the trial but start to thrive in the midst of it.  Fortunately, I heard this message earlier this year so I realized those trying situations were opportunities for growth and saw the pattern of needing more peace and trust in those things.

In general, those sources of problems inside of us tend to come from a few different sources.  The first are those things that we simply don't know better and have to learn how to do correctly.  Those are things that we just fix by learning and then deciding to change something.  The second are those things that growth and maturity take care of.  Things such as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control are *fruit* of the Spirit which slowly grow in our lives over time.  The third are bondages and burdens and lies that God must deliver us from.  Sometimes we carry around spiritual and emotional wounds and injuries that God must heal.  Sometimes we carry around lies about ourselves and others that God must dispel from our hearts.  Frequently, beating ourselves up about how we are feeling is not productive.   If something inside of us is easy to change, our first efforts would have probably dealt with the issue.   We need God's guidance as to the best way to address those things that we are struggling with.

Sometimes fear can simply be due to a lack of trust in God; this will slowly disappear over time as our trust and confidence in God grows over months and years of seeing His hand in our lives and others' lives.   Sometimes fear can be a deep seated thing caused by deep trauma and hurt that God needs to heal us from.  Sometimes fear comes from believing lies about ourselves, others, or the situations we are in, in which case we need God to shine His light into our hearts to dispel that darkness.

One thing to remember about prayer is that it is not exclusively about asking for things.  It is about spending time with God and can include just resting, meditating, thanksgiving, requests, listening, and Bible reading.  Part of it is learning and growing and starting to find God's guidance for things.  Often we need to start with baby steps when trying to grow and learn.  We often start with the big question of "what do you want me to do with my life?" rather than practicing with smaller and easier questions  like "what do you want me to do today?" 

This may or may not be of any help, but here are some marriage resources my wife and I (married 30+ years) have found helpful.   "His Needs Her Needs" by Willard Harley.  He's an experienced marriage counselor with some good insights.    "For Men Only" and "For Women Only" by Shanti Feldhahn give some good insights into differences between men and women.  As my wife and I went through those, there were a few "are you kidding me??" moments as we learned things about the other we had no clue about after a few decades of being married.   Finally, the "Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage" seminars by Mark Gungor are great.  They are the only DVDs we've ever bought from a retreat or seminar.

Anyway, hopefully some of this might be some use. :)    Hang in there.  

 

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1 hour ago, dr3032 said:

As for the learning thing, it never stops. Just give it time. However, staying in place and doing the routine offers no new experiences and thus no new knowledge. Don't hold back from doing things, you know? Maybe try to find new friends, go to a few events or something.

 

Hi there onedirection, I empathise with you brother, and my prayer is that through this trial that God's peace will be yours, in Jesus Name. While I agree with the majority of dr3032 advice to you, the one question I would be asking your wife is, why don't you love me anymore?  It's in communicating, being honest with each other, is not only key, but vital in relationships, and with everyone. One of my brothers-in-law said to me, many years ago. Love is not a feeling, it's a choice, if I wake up in the morning and feel that I don't love my wife, that's not a basis to leave. Feelings are just that, they can be subtle, and deceive us into wrong thought processes, we don't rely on them. By following God's word, in it are All the Answers to life, and its problems, it's His "go to" book, know Him, know His character, apply it to your life. Live your life the way God wants you to, Jesus said, "follow me" and that's what we all need to do. Hope this helps you, God bless.

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That's amazing about the baptism and that you are drawing near to God. ?

 

 

Seasons change and for this season:

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you"
Isaiah 43:2 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/isa.43.2.ESV

 

Is your wife a Christian? Your relationship will be stronger when it is time for you to both sit on the shore. Someone said laughter is good for marraige, I think that is right and try and just smile - it does wonders.

 

 

Try different sorts of coffee togethor - iced lattes and cappachinos. ☕

 

 

Remember that you are not guilty. Your sin has been removed from you for good as far as east is from west (infinity if you think about it).

 

 

Shalom ?

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@dr3032

She is still not ready to leave. She is frustrated and confused as to why she feels this way. When I offer to pray with her or recommend the self-help books and bible passages that really helped me, she rejects it.

@GandalfTheWise

Thank you for providing that significant amount of detail. Last night and this morning I really worked on praying for that patience and faith that things will be fine and I've also been working on being happy in the face of my trial because God made the day perfect. I am turning my attention to seeking the growth in this trial instead of continually praying to end it.

By the way I spoke with Dr. Harley and he had good advice for me. After speaking with him he sent me His Needs Her Needs for free, I'm almost through it. I'll check out the other books you mentioned.

@Heybro

She does not know why she feels this way. Early in counseling she listed all the things that I did to hurt her. Not only did I eliminate all of those "love busters", but I've given her everything she asks for day-to-day. So now I'm just praying and waiting.

@Sharky and George

Yes, my wife is a christian, but she has told the counselor she is not relying too much on spirituality, it isn't as big of a thing for her. Back in June when I told her I was getting baptized, she was still very angry with me and said it was bullsh**. I know this trial is as much about me seeking Jesus as it is for her. As far as doing fun things, we do spend a lot of quality time together and we know how to have a good time. Unfortunately it always ends as platonic and there is always an awkward undertone because of the lack of intimacy. There is nothing I can do about it.

After our last counseling session where she reported she was frustrated and felt like she was wasting time, I challenged her to pray on this and let her know that each day I ask God for His plan for me and my day. I was hoping that leading by example would show her how to rely on faith.

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8 minutes ago, onedirection said:

She does not know why she feels this way. Early in counseling she listed all the things that I did to hurt her. Not only did I eliminate all of those "love busters", but I've given her everything she asks for day-to-day. So now I'm just praying and waiting.

One of the things about marriage is that each of us drags in all the baggage we've acquired in life.  Sometimes we don't even realize it's there and how it affects us because we are so used to dragging it around.

Many of us have picked up spiritual and emotional bondage and injuries (often from long before we became Christians) that require God's deliverance and healing to be free from.  Sometimes we pick up lies that we start to believe about ourselves and others.   Sometimes the most obvious problems we see (both in ourselves or others) are symptoms of a few things deep inside of us that God wants to deal with.   For these types of things, it's a matter of God's guidance and timing to figure out what to do.

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Looking back I have certainly seen the baggage and the lies be plucked off one-by-one out of my life.

I'm working on being confident that my wife will do the same in her own time and try not to be fearful if she fails and decides to remove herself from my life.

I guess we shall see which way this goes. I can't imagine things will continue this way past the holidays, she doesn't want to set a timeline, but also said she can't handle 6 more months of this.

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Quote

I'm working on being confident that my wife will do the same in her own time and try not to be fearful if she fails and decides to remove herself from my life.

Quote

Ephesians 3:20 English Standard Version (ESV)

20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, 

 

I had given up the other day and was laying in bed at the end of myself. The thought popped into my head that a 45 minute run would sort me out but then I thought that is so not going to happen at all at this rate. I always say a weak mumbled prayer at this point that takes the closest thing to an iota of a newton in power (very little force) and think of Ephesians 3:20, then guess what, I went for the run and felt great lol. So who's strength was that?

 

God is your strength too Brother and God is your wife's strength as well thus He can easily sort you both out to be happy together. He can do it.

 

Say a prayer like mine above (on your own) that you would in time both be able to constructively and peacefully pray together, as praying together is vital in a marriage and will be the cure for this situation.

 

Shalom ?

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Hi onedirection, having read your reply, I can see that while your wife may well believe she is a christian, she isn't dealing with the very issue in front of both of you. My wife and I work on the principle of "no blame game". You don't do this or that, I do this and this and this, we need to share, work on and in the relationship. As I said previously, communication is "key" when things rise up and cause consternation, talk openly, no blame, just talk how better can we do things, clear the air and any misunderstandings. Hope this helps, God bless.

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