Husband was kicking our cat

[bornagain2011]

I feel numb and scared right now. One of our cats was about to pounce on our younger cat and instead of my husband picking her up and removing her he started to kick her against the wall, he kicked her 3 times I think.  Not with all of his strength but she was freaked out and so was I. 

Right afterwards my husband came over to me and didn't say anything, but  was calm. I said "really?!" And he said "she was going to attack him" I said "you could've picked her up and moved her" and hesaid "she won't do it again" . Our 3 kids were in the living room so they didn't see, but one of them said "what?" and I said "nothing" and went into the bedroom to try and process what I saw and what to do.

I came out to go into the bathroom and my husband was like "what's wrong?" As if nothing had happened, and I said "really?" And he said "you think I kicked her?", I just said wow. So already he is going to try and deny and gaslight.

Here is the thing about my husband. He is a "nice guy", also passive aggressive. When he gets caught watching porn he always swears he will never do it again and says he is disgusted by it. When I found out a few months ago that he was watching things on his work computer he was like "I wasn't even tempted I don't know why I did it", he tries to act like he never struggles with sin, that he is perfect and just struggles with a bit of anger. I have caught him in lies that he would keep denying for so so long. 

I honestly don't know what to do right now. What sucks is that he is the typical "nice guy", he can be very loving, and reads his bible daily, but I get a peak sometimes at the condition of his heart (deceitful, lying, prideful) and it seriously makes me want to divorce him and be single.

What should I do? Can't afford counseling. 

[BK1110]

Sounds like the counseling he needs is from a pastor, which shouldn't cost money? Are you guys attending a local church? Does he have male Christian friends who can lovingly rebuke and guide him and hold him accountable?

[bornagain2011]

5 minutes ago, BK1110 said:

Sounds like the counseling he needs is from a pastor, which shouldn't cost money? Are you guys attending a local church? Does he have male Christian friends who can lovingly rebuke and guide him and hold him accountable?

Yes, we go to a local church. I was thinking about texting pastor's wife because we are good friends. My husband doesn't want pastor counseling us because he wants pastor to remain as a friend.

My husband unlocked the bedroom door and came in while I was in here. He said he didn't kick the cat he was "pushing her back with his foot", I said pushing or scooting something back is when your leg or foot already had contact, whereas his leg didn't have contact at first. Then he said "no a kick is with all your might!!" I said no, there are different levels of force to kicking. I told him that I didn't want to talk to him because of his arrogance and pride. 

He only wanted to talk to defend himself and make me see his way. I won't let him gaslight me into believing I saw wrong. He did finally admit to kicking her because she needed to learn. But he still defended his actions. 

I don't want to make a big deal about this. He didn't kick her hard, but with some effort. She was scared and trying to get away. And my husband doesn't seem to care how traumatizing it is. Why do I keep thinking about divorce all the time? I don't want to live like this. I can't even trust him. After ten years I feel like he will never change.

[BK1110]

A pastor's job is not to be friends with his congregants, but to be their guide and shepherd. Have you told your husband these things? That you are fed up and question his dedication to the Lord, and are having thoughts of divorce? He needs to know how seriously he's damaging your marriage. If he still won't agree, you may need to seek out the pastor's help on your own, hopefully he can approach your husband.

[bornagain2011]

5 minutes ago, BK1110 said:

A pastor's job is not to be friends with his congregants, but to be their guide and shepherd. Have you told your husband these things? That you are fed up and question his dedication to the Lord, and are having thoughts of divorce? He needs to know how seriously he's damaging your marriage. If he still won't agree, you may need to seek out the pastor's help on your own, hopefully he can approach your husband.

There is a lot to the story, but we were doing a marriage mentoring program which I finished and he still has a week left. I though we were getting closer and things were doing a lot better, but sometimes I don't know. My husband doesn't really have accountability, he doesn't tell people about his struggles (he doesn't have any supposedly), he has talked to Pastor about some of the sins he has committed, like the pornography, only because I blabbed about it to Pastor when I was upset once. 

Also, I don't think Pastor would be the best person to counsel us, I wrote about him in a previous post in here. Pastor is only 34, this is the first church he has pastored, and has only been doing so since last December, and he doesn't have any accreditation for doing marriage counseling.

I kind of feel trapped. I don't have enough of a reason to divorce, plus it isn't THAT bad, but I feel like he will never change and I can never trust him. So my only option is to just suck it up and work on it. Sometimes I just wish the rapture would happen or God would just take me home. I also feel manipulated into staying with him because he said if we ever separated he would just watch porn whenever he wanted then. I don't want our son to be around that, or around any female he decided to bring home. I feel like my husband only "behaves" because we are married and I say certain things are not ok. 

I hate airing my dirty laundry on here, but I don't know what else to do. I want to talk to my friend (pastor's wife) so badly about this, but I don't want to burden her with all of this or seem like a drama queen.

[BK1110]

6 minutes ago, bornagain2011 said:

I also feel manipulated into staying with him because he said if we ever separated he would just watch porn whenever he wanted then. I don't want our son to be around that, or around any female he decided to bring home. I feel like my husband only "behaves" because we are married and I say certain things are not ok.

Then he has admitted essentially that he has given himself over to that sin and is not repentant about it. That level of hard-heartedness absolutely calls one's salvation into question. Again I ask if you have confronted him with how desperate his situation and his failures as a husband and leader of his household are?

And it might go without saying but of course pray fervently and daily for God to soften his heart.

[bornagain2011]

1 hour ago, BK1110 said:

Then he has admitted essentially that he has given himself over to that sin and is not repentant about it. That level of hard-heartedness absolutely calls one's salvation into question. Again I ask if you have confronted him with how desperate his situation and his failures as a husband and leader of his household are?

And it might go without saying but of course pray fervently and daily for God to soften his heart.

I have talked to him about his actions before and how much they damage our marriage, but not with the same words you have used. I have doubted his salvation at times because of how flippant he can be about his sin, how I have to PRY it out of him, how he can sit and read his Bible each morning, read marriage books, but then I find out he has been talking to a female co worker and watching stuff on the computer, it's like he is two different people. Most of the time 90% of the time, he is a great husband and father, so selfless, the type of husband who would come home from nightshift, but let ME take a nap before he goes to bed (this was when our son was a baby), he makes coffee for me each day, he lets me talk and talk, and is so forgiving of MY sins.

But then, every few months like clockwork, I will find out he has done something else to break our trust. I feel like I don't know who he is, he is so quiet and private, he doesn't share his thoughts and feelings very often. Every time I have asked him if he was struggling he would always say no, and that he pushes sinful thoughts out of his head. He said the temptations catch him off guard because he pushes the thoughts out of his head so much. That didn't make much sense to me. I would rather him tell me "yes, I was really struggling and gave in, it was wrong, I am sorry", but he just says "I don't know why I watched it, I honestly wasn't even tempted". And I had threatened after the last time that I would leave him if he watched porn again. And now for the last few months he keeps getting porn/dating spam to his phone, even after changing his number, but he swears he hasn't looked at anything. We don't use smart phones, just flip phones.

I feel like I am incapable of trusting him, every time he fails he swears up and down that he won't do it again, I have told him how much it hurts me, he has even cried etc. How can someone just have no conscience unless they are caught?

About 5 years ago I had discovered deleted texts between him and a 19 year old co worker, he still says he deleted them to avoid the inevitable argument we would have, but that they were innocent texts. His last text he sent her after he was fired said "I will miss you.... all"... and he STILL says he meant nothing by it and can't figure out his own motive for sending it. I told him what it would mean if I sent that to someone. But of course, he is innocent. Before he was fired there was an investigation done on the two of them, all of the paperwork was sent home and I went through it, there was some suspicious things like them playing tag, or disappearing for hours, which he denies by saying they would go into the lunch room with other people in there and there were no cameras in there. He worked nightshift security at a data center, so imagine a very large vacant building, a man and a woman having to sit in a small room together all night long, one of them is supposed to go on patrol at a time, but my husband and this 19 year old woman would go together.

This was just one of a few instances that have called his honesty into question. Now, I am not perfect by any means, but I confess my mistakes, and I am very open with my husband about my struggles. At our last church I became emotionally entangled with another man, I decided we needed to leave, I removed myself from that situation and from all situations that would call me to stumble. But either my husband doesn't know himself deep down inside and doesn't realize he struggles, or he is some kind of prideful sociopath. 

But I have no other choice but to forgive. 

I went out a bit today to bring some paperwork to my kid's school, it helped me to calm down. I feel like I can forgive my husband even if he doesn't say he is sorry. I just want to have a good day.

Sorry for this long post. I know we need counseling, I just don't even know where to start.

[Riverwalker]

did he move the cat with his foot, like putting his foot under the cat and moving it away, that sounds more likely,  no hurting the cat but moving it, correcting it and perhaps shocking it

[BK1110]

You do indeed need counseling from a strong, Godly pastor. If you feel your current pastor is not up to the task, you might need to ask yourself if he is up to the task of leading a congregation. A pastor that cannot give Godly, Biblical counsel to see someone to repentance of sin...is that even a pastor at all?

[bornagain2011]

3 hours ago, Riverwalker said:

did he move the cat with his foot, like putting his foot under the cat and moving it away, that sounds more likely,  no hurting the cat but moving it, correcting it and perhaps shocking it

no, I had to show him what he did, and he admitted he kicked her, it wasn't hard (which I guess is how he defines kicking), but he kicked her. He likes to act like he doesn't know what things mean sometimes. Like "flirting", he has double standards about things.