Let's start a discussion!

Pamela responded to my last blog post and I'd love to talk more about it.

Here's her post:

I'm sorry. Life is confusing. You have to ponder, meditate, pray and trust yourself. Your post is a little confusing to me because you talk about leaving but not divorcing. So you would separate and not divorce? You want your children to see a good marriage - are you thinking over time your current marriage will become that? If your wife does not have the courage to face her fears, it seems that will not happen. Do you think she ever will have that courage? Can you help make that happen? If not, yes, tough decisions come. And while I respect your beliefs, I wonder at the interpretation of God's word sometimes.

I don't understand this para: Some people might argue that he gives victims of infidelity a way out of their marriage, but I disagree. I think He only gives a 'free pass' from future infidelity for those victims who do end up divorcing. For those who commit the crime, so to speak, even if they got divorced and married again, they'll continue to be unfaithful to their first spouse. The only way out of that is to never connect with someone at that level again, or remarry that spouse. In my case, I wouldn't always have to ask for forgiveness every time I had sex with my next wife.

I know you are just trying to sort things out by writing, and that's good. Continue to do so.

Lots of stuff to discuss! I love it!

And now that I read back through that paragraph, I'm even confusing myself.

I believe God works miracles. Major miracles. So yes, I do believe that our marriage can recover. As for how I feel about that, my gut is telling me that we won't recover. And a lot of that has to do with my fortitude. I'm totally fed up with the distorted view she seems to have of certain things.

For example; Last night, I was making a shopping list and asked her if there was anything she needed. (I've pretty much cut her off from direct access to my money...a long story.) Her typical response is, "Sure, there's lots I need, but I'm not going to tell you because I don't want to be a burden." It has been my typical response to say, "But your my wife, it's really not a burden." She seems unable to accept the idea that I'm willing to assume these so-called burdens because of the simple fact that she is my wife.

The purpose of the separation is for a number of reasons. One is to just get us apart from each other and away from annoyances and those frustrations we associate with each other. Give us time to think apart from each other, so to speak. Another is to show her what she would be missing. Wyoming is not so hard on husbands as some other states are. They usually don't award alimony, just child support, and even that's based on how much time the kids spend with each parent. As long as they live under my roof and I feed them, I don't owe her a thing. (Forget the fact that she has a full time job and doesn't pay anything but her astronomical cell phone bill and a couple of measly credit card bills. Anyhoo...)

Will that succeed? My gut tells me no...but "I can do all things through Him who gives me strength." So that's why I've not decided to divorce...yet. Maybe it's my meager, superficial way of trying to leave the door open for God. Even though I'm afraid I've already shut my heart out too much.

And about the infidelity thing. There are a lot of people, most probably, that say Gods Words says it's ok to divorce if your spouse cheats on you. I don't think that's what it says. God flat out says, "I hate divorce." And there is at least one story about a husband (Hosea) commanded by God to marry and repeatedly take back a very wayward wife.

What I believe the Bible says about the subject is specifically about the sin of adultery and how it relates to each spouse after the deed is done.

For the wayward spouse, there is no out. There is no way for that spouse to continue having inappropriate relationships with someone other than their first spouse, without continuing to commit adultery against that first spouse. Even if they got remarried.

For the other spouse, I believe God allows for that person to have a proper marriage relationship with someone else, without committing adultery against their first wayward spouse. This is assuming they got divorced and remarried. If they have a sexual relationship with someone they're not married to, then it doesn't apply.

Does that make more sense? Any arguments?

I'll try and do my homework tonight and come up with proper references.