I've never been alone. I went from my mom and dad's, to living with my exwife, to living with susan. I mean there's been short periods of time like when I was in florida for a few months, or when susan would go to ohio, but I have never had the ALONE in my forseable future.
Alot of people are alone.
Am I hanging onto my marriage so I don't have to be alone? Am I better off without everything that comes with that marriage? I am weighing the benefits and drawbacks of *loosing* my wife alot lately. This woman has left me 4 times now. I have never had the security I should have had.The deciet, the lies, the double standards, the financial irresponsability, the cold heartedness, the lack or spiritual support and partnership.... who needs it.
Now someone else gets to inherit all that. Lucky guy. Man i thought my first wife was bad.... yeesh.
So as a husband how was I? Would she have been a better wife if I had been a better husband? How the heck will I ever know that? I can guess the answer is yes... but I may have been a better husband if she had been a better wife. I ended up with her under very bad circumstances, wrong circumstances. I have madi and sammy now, thank God for them, but maybe this season is at an end. This all just seems so unreal, like... this cannot be MY life. no way could this happen to me.
I know what I did wrong and what I did right. I won't make the samemistakes again. I'll just make new ones, of course. but I'll sure try harder. How long is it going to take me to heal? How long will it take to find someone new? I thought I already did... but that's another story. I know I am not the greatest guy, I know I can be arrogant and self centered. I know I can go off in my own little world.
I always liked alone time, to get away and do *my thing* well, haha....now that's all I have. I was distant too often, too often about myself and not INVOLVED.
I am paying a very high price for alot of wrong decisions over the last 8 years. So are my kids. all of them. My wife started out a young sweet girl. Now she is... gone.
I have all these pictures on the walls around me of how things used to be and could have been and should have remained. Part of me wants to take them down,part of me wants the reminder. That was a huge part of my life. I'll never get over her by turning away from what was. I have to face those demons head on and feel all the emotions and not hide from them. God give me the strength to let go and heal. and let me cry.
If you haven't already, you might want to consider retaining an attorney. I don't know the laws of your state, but in kentucky, if there isn't a custody agreement, you don't HAVE to let them go with her. Of course, working together looks better in court, but your situation can also be twisted to look like, "See, Alex let the kids go over to Phil's house."
Divorce with custody/visitation arrangments are terrible for everyone involved. Just remember, someone HAS to have the kids best interest at heart; sounds like that HAS to be you.
While I was with susan, I had to... exemplify and live out a certain kind of Love. I am not talking about feelings. It took a very deep level of commitment to extend love to a person who continually hurt me, at times on purpose, did things to drive me away, never reassured me, rarely, if ever, responded favorably to how i treated her. Every time I kissed her and she would just sit there like a dead fish, I had to give it to God so it didn't hurt, also, anytime I would lay down to hold her and she would turn away, any time I would do something really romantic with little to no response, everytime she told me she wasn't "in love" with me anymore and was only staying for the kids, everytime I saw her emails to her ex boy freinds, or new guys she was talking to *behind my back*, everytime she left, everytime we argued about how we should raise the kids, the constant negative things i had to deal with around the clock for years, even the good times were tainted with doubt and I was always just waiting to hear *I don't want to be with you anymore* the next time. I was not happy, I was not content, but I loved. and I loved, AND I LOVED. I took it ALL and I kept loving her. I never let it affect how I viewed her or treated her. I had to put an enormous amount of energy into just dealing with negative things all the time, compartmentalizing, giving it to God, letting him handle all the disappointment I felt EVERYDAY.
Through it all, I still loved. I took care of her, provided for her, I romanced her, I prayed for her constantly, I tried to nurture her, I rubber her back, whatever she needed, I gave, asking nothing in return.
That was a kind of love I didn't know existed. I was bound and determined to show her how much God loved her by being his vessel and instrument to do so. My prayer was not *Please God, fix my marriage* I was primarily concerned that she get right with Him and yield to his will and his ways. I had completely taken myself out of the equation, no matter what it cost, I was going to love this woman until she either changed, or wasn't around to love anymore. This was all done through the power of God at work in me. There is no way, as a human, I had the resources to love anyone in that capacity for a single day let alone for years.
So that's pure love. That's the kind of Love God extends to us, that while we were yet sinners, and had nothing in us that was loveable, God loved us, and gave up his son to save us. I am not on the same level as God, and because He was the one who was doing all the work, I can take none of the credit other then the simple fact that I was willing to submit to him and be his vessel, no matter the cost, I was, and I did.
as a side note, susan often told me that I loved her *too much* and that she felt completely unworthy to have me, that she didn't deserve me, or the kind of love I have/had for her. She told me she would never be able to love me the way I loved her. And it made her feel guilty. She told me I would have no problem finding someone else who would love me the way I needed to be loved because most women were in love with the idea of who I was, that I was most women's dream of what a good husband should be.
So back when susan left me for this guy she is with, she had been talking to him on my space and on the phone and left after talking to him for a few months. The a week after she was gone, I asked her if she would come home (don't ask, I was very sick and not quite in my right mind) and she said *No, I love so-and-so, alex.* and he is saying he loves her too, already.
Now, having been that person that basically forgot himself and everything else other then how to love his wife in the hardest of times when she was completely unloveable, that made me laugh my tail off. Yep, that's love alright. How can you sit in the pure sunlight for years and then mistake candle light for sunlight? you get me? She sat face to face with real love, day in, day out, then gets infatuated with another guy, doesnt even see if the relationship will stand the test of time, and is already dead set that she *loves* him.
I am sorry, but I know what real love is, and what it is NOT. Real love will NOT occur between a woman who leaves her husband and moves in with a some guy she just met and they begin an adulterous relationship. God is the originator of love, he gives love and he sustains it. I KNOW THAT FOR CERTAIN. So, they are infatuated, taken up with a *worldly love*.
See, in this world there are God given emotions and character, this is what we call God's communicable attributes, things that exist perfectly in God, but are also communicated to his children through the spirit of God at work in them. I am talking about things like Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control, etc etc. Mostly emotions and character traits that involve action or actions. Love is the primary of all of these.
So God is at work in his children to see these things flurish in them. Now the world also has these traits, and many people who are not in the kingdom of God appear to have them in differing measures, but they are only a shadow of the real thing. Now, don't get me wrong, they are real, in a sense, like how a shadow is a real projection of that which it represents, but the shadow lacks the actual substance of the thing it trails behind. these non-God given emotions/traits are dependent on the individual to exhibit them and the person is the one ultimately responsible for the degree to which they show love, and patience, etc etc. and they will most certainly never measure up to the degrees to which God's children can exhibit and live them out to the fullest degree.
My love was given, empowered, and sustained by God ALONE. No person who lacks a relationship with the God of the universe through Christ could even come close to touching the degree to which love was pouring through me for and to susan. And that love was permanent, it would have never gone away. So she gave up something she could never loose for something she cannot hope to hold onto. My love, being from God, was eternal. SO anyway, enough about that. basically, she cannot hope to find that kind of love from another source. C'est la vie.
So, move onto the next and certainly the last person I will be with in this life. Will I have the same kind of love for her I had for susan? I some how think it will be just as intense, if not more, but that different aspects of Love will be predominent in it. I don't think there will be anywhere near as much need for the selfless determination to love dispite all adversity and rejection. I have a feeling it will be on a level playing field, that I will actually be loved in return. I know her source for love is the same throne I kneel before. Things won't be perfect, but we have a commonality that I have always lacked in the past. I think I will be much more free to simply express love through kindness, gentleness, in a beautiful partnership rather then feeling like an opponent of my wife. I can even imagine allowing myself to feel the emotions that accompany real God given love. I was denied that for years and years. I had my emotions bottled up to protect myself for so long that I hardly remember what it's like to just have someone look and you and be able to feel love pouring out over you.
I would preffer skipping the intitial butterflies in the stomach stage and get to the reality of things. But maybe butterflies would be nice for a change. who knows. it's been forever.
So we see 3 kinds of love, a christian with someone who is not capable of loving them in return with the same kind of love, two people who are mistaking shadows for reality, a counterfiet for the real, and now two people who Love God and hope to try to out love one another, out give one another, sacrifice for one another, etc etc.
I am glad I am finally in the end game of love here now. I don't think I have much more in me when it comes to the other types. I am done with immaturity, I am done with doubt, I am done with people who take take take and give nothing in return, always ask for more, get mad when they don't get thier way, drain you dry, kill your hopes, rob you of the joy that should accompany the best years of your life, and basically bring death to your life.
It's time to move on. I think my on has already moved anyway. The last person I will ever be with will be the luckiest, they will get all the benefits of the experiences I have had, the practice I have had, the depths to which I understand the way the Love of God really works in the heart of man for the woman he is INTENDED to be with. I can offer alot of things, house, home, security, a commited walk with christ, knowledge, experience, maturity, parenting skills, etc etc, but the greatest of all that I have to offer is Love.
Hey, Just read this.... I am up late tonight, slept in today so now I can't sleep. I am sure I will be paying for it tired tomorrow.
Just wanted to acknowledge that a midst all the pain atleast you are being real which is huge in the healing process. Not just acknowledgement of what we did wrong but also the pain, wanting to face things head on.
I guess I get that the most as I am one to face things head on also.
You talked about worshiping with your kids in your profile and being a musician. What a wondeful gift to be able to escape into that expression before God on your own time. I allowed my pain to take me higher into Him during that season and not only was it the best medicine for the healing process but I felt I got to know Him in such a greater depth of surrendering and abondonment in that place that I will never again be the same. I guess what I am really trying to say is, though I never dreamed I'd say this at that time if that is what it would take to know Him in such a powerful intimate and life changing way, I would go through it all again.
I am sure you already know this but God uses everything even our mistakes and if we are just willing and yielded before Him He will take our ashes of mourning and turn them into something beautiful and holy. Only God can do that.
I think sometimes people have no love for themselves - they are so buried in their sin that deep down, they don't feel worthy of love. Reading about the number of times that Susan left, along with the last time - being "in love" with a guy she's known for two months...it just sounds like she feels she doesn't deserve to be treated well, to be loved, to be cared for. She doesn't understand that this is how God wants us all to be loved - because of His love for us. She doesn't understand forgiveness and what it is to be set free from the weight of the world that holds us down from where God wants to bring us up to. It's like she sets herself up for failure - that way she will never be hurt, because she knows it's coming. What she doesn't know is that she lives a life of hurt - and being with someone like you showed her how much she is lacking. And she doesn't want to face that.
This is of course only my opinion. I was that person years ago. I had to accept God's love before I was able to accept love from anyone else.
I'll be praying for both of you - for her salvation and for your continued healing.
Thank you, both of you, for your replies. I am doing better now, I have been orbitting around this cituation and seeing it from so many angles. At this point, God has fullfilled my needs, I am fine being along for the time being (living alone) and the lord has brought an awesome woman of God into my life to talk to all the time.
In the end, this will be good, i just have to be patient and let it play out according to God's will, and not try to press my own agenda.
Just a tidbit 4 u to ponder...Just remember that your walk with the Lord will reflect on your children...Just as the silversmith refines his silver...He knows it's perfect when he can see his image in it...God also is refining us to be able to see his image in us...walk with God ..JB
