Growing closer to God together

faith · Newbie Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Ohio

In serching for Godly help for our marriage, I recently came across this website... thank you for being there!
I was wondering if anyone had advice for helping my husband have a desire to grow closer to God. I have a strong desire to learn from God's Word, and grow in His way, and although my husband is a Christian, I don't think he has that desire. He seems to have doubts, which I understand can help to grow your faith in time. But we are at a struggling point in our marriage. We seem to lack the communication that is needed for a strong marriage, and we're having issues with trust and priorities. We've been married for almost 7 years and have been blessed with two wonderful daughters. My husband is a wonderful man, and a wonderful father, but he seems to feel pulled in too many directions and I'm afraid he's growing bitter. We recently went through a miscarriage, and that was an emotional drain for me. He wasn't ready for another baby, but I was so thrilled, then we lost the baby. I felt alone in the pregnancy and then so alone through the miscarriage. I'm trying to be understanding of his point of view, but I don't feel like he's been there for me.
Anyway, I believe that God has a plan for us, and my prayer is that my husband will gain a desire to go to Him with me to get us through these struggles. Any advice????
Thanks so much...

webacus · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 1:15 pm Post subject:

Hi Faith

Welcome and thanks for posting

Sounds like you've been down some challenging roads recently.

Are you guys involved in a church? If so, to what extent?

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

Welcome and we are so glad you joined us.

I know in my marriage that it needs to be God #1, husband # 2, kids, #3 and work #4. When I have messed up the order of this formula, things usually go rather nuts. The same goes for my husband. We walked through rough times when work was #1, kids #2, spouse #3 and God #4.

We've come to realize that being involved in a vibrant worship community- church, small group or bible group and having a board of directors for our marriage is essential to our growth as a couple and as individuals.

There is a great book out by Les and Leslie Parrott called Love Talk. When you get the book, there is a code on the inside cover to take an online assessment. You'll need to get a book and a workbook for each of you. This way you can each take your own assessment. It will definitely show you the areas you are strong and the areas where work needs to be done as an individual and a couple.

I know there are support groups/chat rooms for people who have gone through miscarriage. My heart goes out to you for your pain and loss. Also, when my husband and I have been at an impass in our marriage, sometimes we need some fine tuning with the help of a Christian counselor. You mentioned issues with trust and priorities. Perhaps, that may be something to consider. We all need to pull some weeds once in awhile and plant some new flowers in our marriages.

I know as wives that we all have this deep desire for our husband's to be the spiritual giants of the home. It sometimes means we have to step up a little bit with encouragement to pray together, to read a devotional, speak words that build up in love, etc. - kind of that iron sharpening iron thing. We have these huge expectations for our husband's spiritual growth that are rather hard to live up to. I know I had to work on my relationship with God quite a bit before my husband saw the benefits and changes that come in following Christ.

Christian guys need christian guys to be close to for accountability, for talking, for fun and for growth. If your husband is isolated from this time of interaction with other Christian men, it could be why his spirituality is lukewarm.

Carebbean · Posted: Thu May 05, 2005 8:21 pm Post subject:

Hi Faith

I also want to welcome you to the “community” here on GT!

I agree with Sam in all that was offered to you without knowing many more details.

I’m discerning that you both may need to have a Christian marriage counselor (one who specializes in communicating and grieving a loss of a loved one) spend a few sessions with you.

That’s not a bad mark or indication that your marriage is on the rocks – my wife and I, along with many on this “community” forum have received help from these professionals. They can hear both sides of your differences and make recommendations that are Bible-based while offering secular advise as well.

What ever you decide to do, Faith, I urge you to seek healing for your feelings of loneliness during your pregnancy and miscarriage of your precious child. That pain alone may be blocking your ability to deal with your issues of trust and priorities in your marriage.

Be assured that we all will be praying for you and your husband during these next few months.

Look into the suggestions that Sam recommended to you. They work to help relieve the tension while encouraging you to wait on the Lord as you calmly listen for His guidance.

Extra Blessings on you and your husband, Faith. Let us know how God’s hand works in your family.

faith · Newbie Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Ohio

Thanks for all of your thoughts... we have a church home that we're very happy with. I'm anxious to get more involved and have started to do that (teachingSunday School, was going to a Bible Study), but my husband doesn't have an interest in getting more involved. We go to services as a family, and that's where he's happy, as far as commitment. He's just not to type to be open about his faith, to communicate about it, even with me.
Again, thanks!

faith · Newbie Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Ohio

Hi again... we desperatly need help. The trust issues I've mentioned are getting to be more of an issue for us. There is another women, and though my husband hasn't been phsyically involved with her (he says, and I do believe him) I am afraid that he is very emotionally involved with her. The bigger problem is that he seems to be in denial... like it isn't a problem and our problems in our marriage are what is the issue. I certainly agree that we have our issues, but another woman being emotionally involved with my husband and him not seeing that as a threat is an issue, isn't it??? Is this how affairs start? I'm terrified, lost and so sad. I've been praying for him, but his denial is making this so hard for me. Maybe I'm overreacting, but I know we need help!!! Any advice???
THanks so much!

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

You are not overreacting in any way. There is such a thing as an emotional affair. An affair of the heart may be another term. It is a mind or heart connection with someone other than your spouse. Just because it isn't physical, doesn't mean it is not an affair.

Sometimes there have been childhood/college friendships with someone of the opposite sex that are known about, agreed upon and healthy.

But, when one spouse is connecting to someone outside their marriage through work, through a hobby, etc. then this issue needs to be seriously looked at. This can become the first step toward emotionally exiting a marriage and finding justification for leaving it, or becoming involved in an affair. Because things are fun with this other person, because they can talk and communicate, because this other person listens - all the things that are difficult in your marriage become magnified. This so-called friendship needs to end immediately.

I have a book to recommend - Avoiding the Greener Grass Syndrome, How to Grow Affair Proof Hedges Around Your Marriage by Nancy C. Anderson. I recommend reading this together.

Have you started counseling or have you met with your pastor? Where are you at in praying together and developing a oneness and connection to God as a couple?? This cannot be a solo effort - it has to be done together.

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

Have you both had your coffee this morning?
Your husband needs to wake up and smell it.

Let's get very honest and real here. Accountability is needed and this needs to be brought out into the open and discussed with your pastor or an elder at your church. Both you and your husband need to be present for this meeting. He needs to sit before another Christian, other than yourself, and explain how he justifies this other relationship even though he says it is not physical.

FallenKnight'sWife · Newbie Joined: 23 May 2005 Posts: 10

Faith, PLEASE go get help NOW! If I'd done this a year ago my marriage wouldn't be in the mess it's in now. My husband found himself getting "too close" to a female friend we go to church with and for months he justified it by saying they were just friends, that she was close to our family and that made it ok, that he was secure in our relationship and didn't "need" anything from her. I blindly believed him. Six weeks ago today he told me that the emotional affair he had with her wasn't just that. After months of a close friendship, Satan opened the door for it to become a physical affair. He had been in denial about any physical contact for a LONG time. Any "connection" is a threat, plain and simple.

Go today, NOW to a spiritual advisor and get yourself into Christian counseling. Tell your husband that it's going to ruin your marriage if he can't realize that your relationship is not a four-way street. You only have room for one other "third" party in your marriage, and that's God! Getting that close with a member of the opposite sex isn't just dangerous, it can be DEADLY for one's soul. DON'T WAIT!!!!!!!

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

Amen -
FallenKnights Wife!!

faith · Newbie Joined: 05 May 2005 Posts: 10 Location: Ohio

Thanks you to all of you... FK's Wife... my prayers are with you and your husband, and I commend you for your ability to be so strong!

My husband and I have talked about this (what I consider to be an emotional affair) some more, and it seems as though doors are opening. It helps that we have friends who have recently been through similar issues, and they've both been there to talk to/listen to each of us. He did finally say that what he's done is "terribly wrong." Though I don't know what he's willing to do about it, and I don't know the details of the relationship they have/have had. (Do I want to know? I feel like I need to to be able to get past it and back on the road to trusting him again.) I do believe that Christian counseling would help us get through this and other issues in our marriage, but I have to admit that even I am a little uncomfortable with the thought of counseling. And I have no idea if my husband would go for it or not. I hope to talk to him about that, and encourage him to either read one (or all!) of the books you've recommended or at least consider counseling. I am so ready for my husband's eyes to be opended to what's really going on as God sees it! Once we get through this issue though, my concern is how do we prevent it from happening again? If he doesn't see the threat to our marriage, what will keep something like this from coming up again? He works in a hospital with many more women than men, and many come to him for advice or just to talk. I know that a strong marriage will help, but a persistant woman....

Another difficulty (and this is hard for me to say since I'm not too good at even thinking about it) is his feelings concerning our lack of physical intimicy. (He doesn't seem to understand my value of or need for non-physical intimacy.) he feels that my lack of physical intimicy means that I don't love him (at least not as much/the way I used to). But that's not it at all. For one, I've never ever been an overly affectionate person, possilby because I didn't grow up with affection and/or because I'm so self concious. I do love him dearly, as much if not more than I ever have. But he has changed, as all of us do. And I have this pain in my heart from our miscarriage, his lack of attention to that situation, and his attention towards another woman that even when I physically feel like I'm ready to be affectionate with him, my emotions come to me and my heart just isn't in it. I am just not the kind of person that can "fake it" with all of this pain. And what hurts more is that he's not at least trying to be more understanding. So obviously we have other issues besides this emotional affair, and it's all very overwhelming. I think without the affair to deal with though, we'd be able to talk through things.

We don't have a spiritual relationship with God as a couple, and I truely believe that that can be our saving grace. I As a person who's still coming into a stong faith, I'm not sure how I can encourage his faith without overwhelming him and pushing him away.

Your thoughts/advice have been very helpful, and I thank you, for just "listening"!

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

All of the issues at hand - let's sort them out.
1) emotional affair or connection to someone outside the marriage
2) lack of intimacy - emotional and physical
3) inability to communicate needs
4) having a hard time considering counseling
5) lack of intimacy with God as a couple

The marriage you desire cannot occur without God being at the center of it. There needs to be a personal decision to ask Christ into your lives. This is simply done through prayer. Asking Him to be the leader of your life and the forgiver of your sins.

The intimacy and oneness that is missing in your marriage may be Christ.
I know this is what was missing in my marriage for many years. It wasn't until we each made the decision to accept Christ, that our marriage began to change. There is a book written by Lee and Leslie Strobel called, Surviving a Spiritual Mismatch in Marriage. It has wonderful insight into a marriage where one spouse believes in Christ as savior and the other does not.

One thing I have learned in my marriage, is we are called to be mutually submissive. This means sexually as well. Men are wired so differently than women when it comes to sex (no kidding) and this is usually the love language that speaks to them the most - physical touch. It doesn't always have to be sex, but most of the time that is what it does mean. If I am responsive to my husband on this account often (more than once a week), he is a very happy, happy man. It doesn't mean I always feel like it, but sometimes a quicky makes him very happy for a couple of days. I don't consider this a chore, I consider this what God calls me to do in my marriage. Many friends/ladies on the boards just don't grasp this concept.
Honestly, we need to pray for God to open our eyes!

When we turn this need off for our husbands, when we make excuses not to have sex, when we tell them they are not romantic enough, they don't do this and they don't do that, what guy is going to want to even continue trying? I think it eventually sinks in that they don't do anything right, so why even try? If we don't work at this in our minds and our hearts - then I feel it is an opening for the Evil One to walk right into our marriage and he does it with great delight. This doesn't mean offer ourselves up everytime our husband feels like it, because that can be demeaning and take any ounce of intimacy right out of our marriage. What it means is loving and serving our husbands with the heart of Christ. Giving of ourselves openly and freely with everything He has created us to be.

Every Heart Restored by Steven Arterburn gave me tremendous insight into the sexual wiring of men and where the hearts/minds/bodies of a wife play into this in marriage. Avoiding the Greener Grass Sydrome by Nancy Anderson also addresses the issue. I know many of us struggle with keeping ourselves sexually pure before marriage and have no trouble being sexually active several times a week, but once we are married sex can become non-existent. That is the great irony, when sex was intended for marriage only to begin with, it should be celebrated and enjoyed often. That is God's design.

Counseling will add great strength to a marriage. It is not a weakness but a strength to walk into a counselors office. When we try to do the self-help thing we often mess it up and we are so deeply imbedded in the issues and pain, we cannot see beyond the end of our nose to fix it. A counselor helps us sort it out, make sense of it and gives us exercises to work on. Sometimes we are able to talk things out that we never thought of, but the counselor sees it in us.

This may be a very challenging question - Nancy Anderson brings this up in her book - If it is a choice to protect the marriage and put protective hedges around it, will you change a job? If someone is surrounded by others of the opposite sex in their job and it is leaving the door wide open for temptation, do we walk away or continue to surround ourselves with people who have the potential to damage our marriage?

FallenKnight'sWife · Newbie Joined: 23 May 2005 Posts: 10

Faith, I don't feel like I've got much more to add to what SAM said, but I did want to tell you a few things from my own experience. Start praying NOW for God to prepare you for the task at hand, and that task is fixing yourself so you can be prepared to fix your marriage when your husband is ready. My husband wasn't ready to confess what had gone on with the other woman until he hit what he penned as spiritual "rock bottom". It was only then that his eyes were opened and he was able to see out of the pit Satan had him trapped in for so long.
Another very VITAL piece of the puzzle is that yes, you DO need to know what happened. Lingering doubts will eat you alive emotionally. But all in time, as your husband is able to face what has happened. Until now, let God prepare YOU. God did a lot of prep work on me prior to my finding out about my husband's affair, and he says now that he KNOWS that preparation had everything to do with me being able to respond to the news calmly and coolly--if I'd not had months of conditioning by God, I'd have blown my stack, taken the four kids and left him and never looked back. But God worked HARD on me and I had to eat my own words when I realized that all the teaching I had done with the other woman about true forgiveness and Christian fellowship was actually God paving the way for what I was going to need to hear myself.

I'm praying for you.

Hey SAM, got my Every Heart Restored book today, and I'm devouring it. Wonderful recommendation. Hubby's Every Man's Marriage book should be here tomorrow.

SAM · Veteran Joined: 03 Mar 2001 Posts: 2051 Location: Chicago

I'm so glad that you picked up the book. I believe it will give you amazing insight into the world of men as well as walking the road of forgiveness. I've recommended it over and over again. Each woman that reads it has told me they have walked away changed.

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