I'm Still Alive

I have the urge to write - perhaps it's from the Lord.

I have been quiet for a long time. I haven't talked to my own family in weeks. Many of my closest friends, I've been silent with for months and they are hurt by my silence. When things are happening that I don't understand, I shut down to process without all the voices. I stop talking so there won't be any more probing questions from anyone. When I feel like others would not be pleased with my words, I keep quiet. When I see that I might offend, I hold back. When I am trying to process, I keep from sputtering out my opinion because it may take a month to figure out how I feel.

This post is probably going to fluctuate from topic to topic, bear with me. It will be unpolished. It will be raw. Here is what has been going on in my life.


Last night, as I drifted off to sleep, I had a dream in my first few seconds of rest. It was so powerful I felt the dream and can still feel its fear suffocating me. I was driving at night. I turned down our street. But instead of seeing houses, I saw nothing but branches covered with leaves. They came in close to the road as if branches had either grown or were scattered blocking the houses from view. It looked like a hurricane had come through, but I couldn't see the destruction, just the branches. I was having a hard time seeing the road in front of me. Fear gripped me. I put on my brights, and seconds later they became more dim.  Soon, I realized that I could see absolutely nothing. I had my foot on the gas pedal, but everything was pitch black. My eyes were opened wide, but there was nothing. I was terrified. I couldn't even see the lights on my dashboard.

My first impulse was to slow down because I didn't want to hit anything or anyone. I slowed some, feeling like I couldn't breathe. Why couldn't I see anything??  Then I realized that I couldn't possibly stay here. It was dangerous to remain here any longer. I had to get out of here to a place I could see. An urgent push of fear sent me forward and I floored it. I raced in complete darkness for a few eternal seconds. Soon I got to the end of the street and was able to see. My heart was still pounding from the darkness that had engulfed me only a few seconds earlier.

I had no idea where I was. I didn't recognize anything I was seeing. The ground and road were covered in snow (the endless winter of 2014 just had to make an appearance) I turned and didn't see a soul. The glow from the moon and amber street lights bounced around from sky to snow and back to sky giving me plenty of eerie light to drive by. I knew that if I kept driving that I would be even more lost. I stopped the truck I was in. (We don't own a truck, I have no idea why I'm driving a truck.) I stepped out and started walking toward a house or a small office building. I saw someone, a man looking at me through a basement door window with an expression that told me that I should probably not ever encounter this man at close range. I instantly felt a dagger of fear and that same push of "get out of here" once I saw his face. I was vulnerable and I had to get out or it was over. I walked backwards some and turned around. And there was another man in front of me as I walked toward the truck. I was in terrible danger. Two bad men, no one to save me, I couldn't get to the van, I was lost. My chest hurt with fear.

Then I woke up. I laid there trying to catch my breath and let my muscles relax.

In a couple minutes I heard a bang in the house. I sat up. I whispered to Jack, "did you hear that?"  nothing. "did you hear that?"  "what?"  He didn't seem to concerned when I told him, so I just stayed sitting up for several minutes knowing unless he or I went downstairs to check and go into our son's room to look, that I wouldn't be OK. After a long silence, he asked if I'd like him to go see so I could relax. "that would be nice." Turns out our son was sleeping perpendicular in his bed, so we figure he must have hit his head on the side of the bed or something. At any rate, we made it through the night and I'm alive. I'm still pondering the meaning and strong emotion of my dream. In order for you to understand, I may have to backtrack some.

I actually felt intense fear before I fell asleep. I tried to calm myself with "What time I am afraid I will trust in You."  Oh, yes, the Lord. He is here and He is watching over me. Covering me with His wings. But I have believed that before and have been subject to crippling pain multiple times from multiple places while he supposedly covered me with His protective wings. Enter fear again. Recite the verse. Enter thoughts and reason, I welcome fear. And the circular never-ending battle spun in my head creating a deeper crevice in my mind. The rut of my thoughts circulating in its regular fashion.

Sometimes it's near impossible to derail fear once you give it track. Once you dump in the coal. Once you light the fire and allow water fill to the brim. It perches on a hill ready to fly down at full speed until you can't answer your son's 5th "why?", or you can't sleep or keep your heart from racing. Until you feel so sick you're wishing for vomit. Until fears and memories you thought had been killed rise from their graves and push the already rushing engine over the next hill.

That battle rushed through me as I surprisingly fell asleep 

and had a dream that seemed to play out a simple allegory for the last 3 years of my life. 

I've had my world in upheaval as you know. Then 6 months later, there was more. I was advised to separate in hopes of a certain reaction. I did not receive that reaction. I received spiritual abuse from some that I went to for help. God told me to return before I saw what I had hoped for from my husband. I continue to not receive the full understanding that I have been hoping for from our new counselors who I do believe are really trying. And now, God has opened the door for another counselor and I am terrified to walk toward it. 

God clearly told me to leave, yet two counselors my husband has meet with have strengthened my husband's belief that I should never have separated. "He wasn't beating you."  "There was no physical abuse." Husband:"You abandoned the marriage" "You didn't follow Matthew 18".  My legitimate concerns were labeled as "unbiblical" by one counselor who said that my desire was to take things away from my husband. I wrote two lengthy emails to him explaining my distress and heart. He never even acknowledged receiving them. Family members were upset with me. I received letters from well-meaning friends telling me that the young girls were watching me and I needed to remember my vows. None of them had lived what I had lived. They didn't know what I had seen on my computer. They didn't know that the lawyer told me my son could be taken away if I did nothing. But even with all of this and my husband's mind unchanged on many things, I returned. I obeyed God in the separating and I obeyed Him in the returning. And I have been shamed for it all by some in spiritual authority. Our current counselors are trying but I feel a roughness toward me and a frustration with me over my having a hard time trusting my husband's words. I pray for God to save me from all of this. 

This weekend God opened the door for another man to meet with us. A humble and gentle man with a firm side. I was fearful every time my husband suggested him. I don't think I can take any more instruction from a counselor who is frustrated with me. From anyone who will compare our situation with someone else and say to me that I should be thankful and apologize for a fleeting desperate sentence spoken after my husband's new actions last month tore me apart again. 

So yes. There is great fear.  

So. Much. Fear. 

I prayed last week, "God, I really like this person. He seems very godly and perceptive. He seems very kind and gentle. But I don't know what he would say about me here, or here, or on this subject. What would he say to me about this? I'm not going to leap out of the frying pan until I can see where I'm going to land. Unless you want me to be in an institution, don't let this happen again."  

I teeter from feeling terrified to not caring because I know it will never change. No one will ever get it and I must just comply with what they think my sins are. Get some calluses where their sandpaper continues to rub my still throbbing wounds. Take it. Just get through and try to believe that they aren't blind to the things I see - but instead I'm just paranoid and they're trying to bring me back to the normal setting. 

Three days before my dream, something happened that only God could have brought about. This man, I'll call him Dr. Alex,  became alerted to something that my husband was getting ready to to. This something I had slight reservations about, but it didn't seem nearly as eyebrow raising as some of the things that I have voiced my opinion about and been pushed down as being divisive. So I don't say a thing since this seemed like a smaller matter.  Dr. Alex, knowing only a small portion of what has happened with us called me to share his concerns and advises against my husbands planned actions. 

Could this really be happening? Someone who is not me thinks my husband should not do something?  He was humbly sharing his concern and gently expressing that he feels awkward and very sorry to have to bring it up to me, but that he really must broach this subject. I sit down with shaking hands. The  relief floods my body along with a good dose of adrenaline. This is the sort of phone call that I longed for from someone else 2 years ago when I was in distress over my husband's lack of boundaries and transparency. This is the sort of reproach I also once despised but now after a couple years of having counselors and pastors try to normalize his past actions while my alarm system went on higher and higher alert because no one else was watching, I welcomed it. I felt attacked but I was thankful. I was hurt but I was thrilled. Someone ELSE - NOT ME - had a problem with it!  And for once this same person with their concerns and authority was going to speak to my husband. It's been a very long time since all of these factors were rolled into one person. Not since the beginning of our journey have we had a counselor who understood my pain, was gentle with me, firm with my husband to my satisfaction, and also had the authority to speak to him. I was not the police in this. 

I explained my thankfulness and relief and we continued to talk. 

Don't you know it? Everything I had told God that I was unsure of about this man was dispelled in about 15 minutes. It's like God took notes on my concerns and gave Dr. Alex the list to share his kind heart about all the things that I had been beaten up over before. He said words like, "validation" and that I had come back and "done beautifully" in my "forgiveness" to my husband. He didn't give me a pamphlet on forgiveness or tell me to pray against unrighteous anger or pride. He saw that I had already forgiven but was in distress. 

Hope. 

A little light in my dark world. 

Afraid to hope. 

Did he really say that?  Yes, but I'm sure he'll tell me I did that wrong and I need to straighten up here. He won't feel the same way when Jack tells him his side. 

I bring in doubt and fear comes in tow. 

God gives me light and I don't believe. The beautiful music he sends me gets drowned out by all the terror of past experiences. But I try to believe. It seems that God is saying, "Yes, this is the man I have sent to you, daughter."

Then came the pain over the next few hours. For the first time in a long time I saw our situation through someone else's eyes. 

Try this on for size:

My husband molested a teenaged boy in our pastoral care for two years. 

What did your face and body just do? Yeah, that. The ever so slight facial expression even if in check is what I see. It's that ugly truth hitting another person for the first time that tells me "yep, it's about as ugly and sick of a thing you can think of and you're married to that man and everyone knows it and they all look at you that way." Marked by the most foul label imaginable. Public. 

You know, the police could still come get him anytime they want? If anyone says anything. If that teen's family changes their mind…. it's over. Last month I was upstairs when a man came to the door and spoke to my husband. I couldn't hear what was being said. My first thought was "They've come for him." 

So I knew that it was going to be a bad night of PTSD junk. I was ready to ride it out because there's nothing else to be done. The nightmare plays again just as shocking as it was the first moment I heard. I can't breathe my chest is so heavy with shock. Then I relived finding more information, new activity, friends I wasn't comfortable with. Then the spiritual abuse. That feeling of being taken roughly by your bruised arm and dragged down a dark hallway where the man you fear the most waits for you playing the victim to a room of mesmerized authorities. "You want to do the right thing, don't you? You have to go home with him. You're being unbiblical. You're not bleeding, you should never have run away in the first place, anyway. You have to forgive him, it's a command. Trust God. You're being unreasonable." (No one ever said those exact words to me - I felt them, though).

Surf Facebook to try to get my mind on ANYTHING else. 12am. Icecream. Put on Scripture Lullabies except it also takes me back to all the places I've played it which then brings back those hideous memories. Rocking my son at night crying and begging God for answers. The hotel room where we met for counseling where I was told again that I wasn't physically abused so I should never have left. My bedroom at my parent's house where I cried on the floor as quietly as I could to not wake my son sleeping in his crib. I asked God to please let me die many times in that room. I fight through the memories that this music brings in order to hear the comfort of Scripture. 

Then there was the weekend conference I went to. A blessing in countless ways. I saw God's goodness toward me. I was encouraged to raise ebenezers of remembrance. Monuments of what God has done. There are many that are undisputed moments of God literally reaching down and making His presence undeniable to me. These last three years, He has done some things that I can't push away as being coincidence. And if I choose to believe that he still loves me and is intensely involved in every part of my life, I see even more of it in the mundane. He has shown his love toward me in strange and wonderful ways. He has given me personalized love notes through people at specific times. In all of this He whispers, "I see you. I'm here. I love you and hold on, honey."

• The day I found out about everything in August of 2011, only about 6 people knew what had happened. A lady that I knew but had never even had a face to face conversation with texted me saying that she was praying for me and that I was on her heart that day.

• A friend sent me a verse that was on her heart and ended up being a direct response to something I asked God about that day.

• After one of my worst nights, I had lost all hope and the emotional fear and pain was physically affecting me. I felt betrayed by the people whose house I was in. My husband had just torn me apart by his words the night before, and I was going to have to go home with him. My then, 1 year old son pointed to a wall decoration and said, "Wassat?" (What's that?)  I looked and I was so angry and hurt. I was so mad that he was pointing to a wall hanging that said in huge six inch words, "FAITH". I didn't even want to say the word. I muttered, "it says faith."  He asked again, "Faith, it says 'faith'". He pointed again. I was livid and did not believe that God would have the audacity to tell me to have faith after the previous evening. "FAITH!" I whisper-yelled.  Even though I rejected it, I knew in the deepest part of me, that God was obviously in gentleness trying to give me something to hold onto since everything else had fallen way under my feet. 

• One Sunday I was especially hurting after finding out something my husband did recently. A woman came up to me and told me that I was on her heart that morning and she had been praying for me.

• One evening I laid on the floor in a bedroom in my parent's house crying after midnight. One of the nights that I probably begged to die. Confused by God's direction and the counselor's advice, my parent's take, and my own gut reactions, I begged God to tell me if he saw me. I remember saying to Him. "Show me that you hear me. Are you hearing my prayers? Are you pleased with me? Am I where you want me to be?" When I was done sobbing, I got on the bed and read the selection from that day's scripture. Daily Light on the Daily Path is a devotional book that lays out phrases of Scripture along the same theme. What met my eyes sent me into more sobs. Verse after verse of:  "Ask and it shall be given you. ..This is the confident that we have in Him, that, if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us…The eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry… The Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles…Ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full."
I had said, "Do you hear me?" and He answered specifically, "Yes, I do."

• Recently I was having an awful time sleeping. The pain and nightmarish trauma was closing in on me. I asked God for help. I laid there and cried. I flipped through a bunch of verses on my verse app. But it was getting worse. In a few minutes my son woke up and called for me. He asked me for some music. I clicked on the Scripture Lullabies. The first song was "I Will Hide You Underneath My Wings". As I left his room, I let the song play in my mind. It was like God as audible as he possibly would ever become in this age, spoke to me what He wanted me to hear from Him. I was in his intense and intentional care. 

I tend to push away things that could be coincidence. I desperately want to see God's hand in a situation so much that it must be so obviously His doing. He has been generous to do things that are so unusually obvious that only He could have brought some of these things to pass. I feel like Gideon and the fleece. How loving and patient of God to show Himself to me in these ways. To answer my specific questions, to press my name on people's hearts who have no idea what's going on in my life.

Here are the monuments that prove that God is watching and involved and that He loves me deeply. However, I must choose to see them, and to focus on them as the darkness presses in, and the fear starts to take me over. No! I will believe what He has said even though I have no relief. Even though people shame me. Even though I am a little bullied or misunderstood. He knows and sees. He collects my tears. He gives me what I need to keep my head above the water.

I must choose to see Him working. 

Here's My Mess

I'm back in my home. I've been here for almost three weeks and since I've been holding my breath so long not knowing how to behave and what to do and how in the world to find normal, I've started turning a little blue. I feel depressed without much desire to pull myself out of it. I'm overwhelmed by the normal housewife responsibilities. Jack helps me so much around the house but I still feel suffocated by the mundane never-ending tasks that zap the oomph right out of me.

I am hiding. 

I've seen one friend and my husband's family since I've been back. I can't tell if I'm ashamed to be back or not. There are many who disagreed with me leaving, and probably just as many who think I've made a foolish choice to return. I feel the righteous thoughts of some who think I've finally gotten right with God by returning. Some think I'm heroic for leaving and returning. Some are scared for me. Some feel my choice to return will have a dangerous effect on my son.

I don't carry all of the fear to the extent many feel it. I also don't feel the jubilation that others have expressed. It's an odd flatline. I'm the undead tormented zombie who has been through too much trauma to identify with any of the ranges of emotion of those around me. I'm just existing. I don't want to see or hear their overjoyed reactions to my return because I'm still filled with fear and caution. I also don't want to be coddled like I'm such a "trooper" who has been a big girl this year... I despise every reaction to myself others might have. Probably because I've heard every one of them dismissed in my head by the projected feelings of others on every side of the situation.

I'm also hiding because I've gained so much weight since I've been gone that my wardrobe barely fits me. The rolls are showing. Shame pushes down on me and I don't want to be seen. I'm thankful for the coming fall and winter. I'll be able to hide under sweaters and beautiful scarves soon. Right now I can only use perfectly manicured toenails (minus my embarrassingly dry heals) and my wonderful son to take the attention away from my butterball physique. ("No wonder he wasn't all that into, you, Meg. Look at yourself"... says myself to me.) I dread seeing family that is coming into town this weekend because there's no way to hide my embarrassing changes. I'm actually praying for a cold snap.

I am full of fear. 

Who is this man that I share a bed with? In many ways he is the old Jack that I knew and loved, but for some reason I can't seem to erase from my memory the monster that took form when I challenged his distorted thinking. A monster that he says only ever existed because we misunderstood each other. And then my mind goes in circles again over my distinct memories that have no explanation or validation.
Dear Lord, where is the relief?

I am angry. 

I don't want to talk to God. After all, I'm not returning under the circumstances that I thought would exist when I darkened my door again. Instead of profuse apologies I understand the general feeling is that I was wrong to have left, but they'll overlook it all anyway (and I should be so grateful). But I know that God never signed the dotted line on my "if / then" contract outlining the perfect situation to which I would return. However we both did sign the "I will obey and He will lead" contract.   So I fulfilled my end even though I did it kicking and screaming in my heart. In my life, it takes a huge life shattering experience to even come close to letting my hand slip out of the Father's loving hold. To look at Him questioningly: "I thought I could trust You, Daddy. I did everything I thought you wanted me to do, but they're saying that I did the wrong things. What is happening and why do you allow me to be shamed for my obedience? "  Who is this God that I follow? Where are the blessings for my excruciating obedience?

A friend said to me recently that I was holding onto fear (understandably) and if I would let go of it and turn from it, trusting in God, that's where the blessings would flow that He so desperately wants to give me.

It seems that doing this would involve me embracing my husband without any reservation whatsoever in my heart. We've been doing a good deal of embracing, but I must confess that there is a thread of caution, holding back and eyes wide open. I hate that. I hate what sin has caused me to deal with and fight against. I'm completely jealous of women who have no reasons to doubt their husband's faithfulness. No dark past. No devastating past to hide from people. No reason to become nauseated at the thought of making love to their husbands. Nothing vile to clean up, no traumatic memories to push away... How do I get past all of it?

I don't want to run to Jack, and I don't want to run to God right now even though I know deep down that it's the running into God's arms that will free me of all of this. No one seems trustworthy at the moment - even though I know it's not true.

How long will I wait? I don't know.

Agonizing

My thoughts are a whirlwind of fragmented sentences, impressions, confusions, hopes and disappointments. It is agony. I keep hoping to see the bright sun break through the dark clouds so I can have a day of peace. But I just keep being teased. There is hope but it's like at the promise of rain and sun, the farmer must go out and work the soil and only by the sweat of his brow will he reap the harvest.

I am exhausted beyond words. Physically and mentally. I am drained beyond the ability to enjoy my son's sweet face. Mental and emotional rest and relief is all that I can think of but I see the rocky road stretched out before me and it's only by walking the road will I even hope to see glimpses of this rest.

Others who are not so close to me and don't know every detail react with immense joy and excitement as we have started to work through things. I feel like I should be jumping with hands raised in overflowing joy and praise to the Lord for His abundant gifts of hope.  But I find myself instead cautiously watching my husband and holding on to whatever is beside me while I try to catch my breath emotionally. Hoping and being disappointed with the progress, I know that I will have to revisit an issue when I have the strength to walk through it with him yet again. So forgive me for my silent processing, my watchful eyes, and my hesitancy to judge this a done deal while you praise God for "doing a new thing!!".  This new thing is killing me right now. It is not clear. It is not cut and dry. It is painful and it's a complete mess and most of it is totally out of my hands.

God please don't make me have to contend with him and explain everything and help him to see. Can't you just open his mind and heart for me? I'm so tired of this.

Our week of counseling was incredibly hard. And then it was incredibly good followed by the smack of reality. We'd worked through some things and it helped us to enjoy our time together. But I soon saw that so many things needed to be worked through. As we started trudging through it all I found more heartache with differences of opinion, different memories, and unresolved issues that will either just have to be dropped or approached at another time.

It is agonizing. Every step of it.

A friend texted me today in response to my confusion: "All of that is what goes along with the hard choice {to stay in the marriage} which is why few choose it and why it is hard to pray for it to go this way. I cannot even imagine how to get through it without agonizing." Such wise and strangely comforting words.

• •• • •• •

It's supposed to be a mess. 

• •• • •• •

In a way that's comforting. Accept the mess. Accept the stomach churning, nausea and the intense pain.

He held me tight while I sobbed. He wasn't angry with me. I was however incredibly disappointed in some of his other reactions. It is a strange place to be expected to and want to be so close to someone who still hurts you. To transfer my heart back to him is so painful when I'm not completely sure he is safe yet. There is no lightening bolt of change. It is gradual. This is not how I want it to be.

So we text and he calls every night and while we bond on surface levels we contend over other things. It is a dreadful mix of relief and pain. Hope and disappointment.

I wanted to be able to use a back hoe and get all of this taken care of, but instead I am down with my face in the dirt with paleontologist's tools. It is back breaking work and I have literally only begun.

The purpose of my life is not to have a happy marriage. It is to glorify God. And if people will turn to God because they have watched a desperate fight over what seems hopeless and unworthy of the effort only to see the end result of a restored marriage in every way, then I guess I'll have to say "so be it".  I must follow my Lord because HE is safe and HE is love. If I have to follow Him further into the shadows of death and pain to learn His ways, then I have no choice.

Two Angers, an Extra Large Angst and a Side of Guilt, Please...

The emotions. Oh, the emotions. Almost two years of swirling, twirling, stomach twisting, sickening emotions have dizzied me in its kaleidoscope of fiery reds, jealous greens and depressing blacks. Never-ending, ever-changing, fluctuating in extremes, these emotions take me down, fire me up, and then leave me exhausted but unable to rest. 

Normally, for me there is the deep hurt coupled with not being allowed to feel so hurt. When my husband minimizes his actions, then I minimize the hurt I feel. I'm not allowed to suspect I'm suffering from PTSD. I'm making too much of my pain. I'm a hypochondriac. I'm too sensitive. I've misunderstood him. He didn't mean to... So I minimize it, right after I share it with someone. "But I'm okay. . . It will be fine. . . I'm not the only one to go through this. . . " etc.  

But today, I'm angry. My Father is also angry and that somehow frees me from my usual side of guilt. 

I'm tired of the subtle manipulation. I'm tired of the secretive guilt trips I'm forced to take that are veiled in doing what's best for someone else or for the Lord's glory or for our marriage. I'm sick of the lying. Gag me with the word parsing and literalism. I'm offended by the rotten attitude and the antithesis of a contrite heart that seethes and boils under the surface. It looks inviting, but don't jump in. The water is not fine.

Tonight, I sat as far away in the house from my parents as I could and tried to focus on my dry reading assignment while desperately hoping to drown out the sound of my Dad's voice with a small stack of cookies. I should have chosen something more crunchy. 

My Dad and my husband have been communicating lately, and it hasn't taken very long for my Dad to become completely fed up with the charade. He's wasting his time, and he knows it. As he dictated an email to my husband for my Mom to type, Proverbs 9 rang in my ears at the same time.

"Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you. Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning." Proverbs 9:7-9

How do you know you've got a scoffer on your hands? When you correct him in a godly way and he doesn't love you in return or even thank you. We are actually commanded to stop. I've already stopped but I guess my Father wants to go at it for a few more rounds. I don't want to know the details. I'm quite sick enough responding to the emails that my husband and I are returning to each other.

I wanted to curl up and be distracted from the storm that is tearing its way through the house. I want to take my sweet son and cover him up and protect him from all the negative effects that his father might obliviously expose him to.

Dear Lord, this is the biggest mess in the history of messes.

BUT....
He knows the secrets. He knows what is at the root that, when finally dealt with, will cause all the symptoms and peripherals to simply fall away.

Until then, I have to just hold on tight and stay close to the Master while the storm rages on. I ride the waves of my emotions while being anchored to the One who never changes. I correct my thinking by His Word. I rebuke myself as He shows me my own sin. And I survive the next moment and the moment after that knowing that one day, the storm will blow over and I will be stronger and look more like Jesus for having held on.

Internal War Zone

Being the wife of someone whose secret sin has dominated most of his life is difficult on a million levels. I'm going to write about just one here, which probably encompasses a few other facets as well.

It's the mental and emotional tug of war 

between what you're hearing and what you're seeing.

You love the man. You want to believe the best. You want to see that he's completely repented. You search out his life with a magnifying glass looking for a pattern of true repentance. You don't see everything you are looking for and you are dismayed. But then. .  .you listen to his words. They tug strongly at your heart strings. But your friends shake their heads. Counselors say things like, "why are you still there?" Your head and your heart are at odds. You beg God for clear thinking and an accurate view of the truth, but even with times of clarity here and there, it remains a continual battle to see straight.

Your friends and family can see right through it but you reel them back in because you think maybe they're being too harsh on the man and, after all, they are only hearing your slanted words. You even soften your words about him so they won't automatically mentally vilify him.

His parents, however, don't see right through it. In fact they may feel the heart string tug much stronger than you do and they are part of the magnetic pull of confusion between what you're seeing and hearing because they can't see his inconsistencies and they are sucked in by his tears, words, and half hearted actions.

~

This is some of the mental noise that has spun around in my head this week:

I know it looks like he waited two weeks to call the counselor until an hour before he and my Dad were going to have a conversation, but I'm sure it was just a coincidence. 

He was told to go to this counselor, but he says he never was told. I'm sure he just forgot, or maybe I didn't actually tell him, or he didn't get that email or the counselor and I were both wrong to think we'd both said it to him. . . 

He's still texting with people I've asked him not to be in contact with. But he says he loves me deeply, will do anything I ask, and can't wait until I choose to come home. He did give me some money to help with expenses like I asked, and he sent me a card last week. 

~

Honestly, this is what I have been recently struggling with. Most of the time, however, in the parts where I defend him, I don't hear actual words in my head but I feel the emotion. And that's why when I actually say it out loud to someone I suddenly see myself as the wife in denial that I am. Before I get the words out, I know how stupid I sound. But it's near impossible to not battle with this.

I've come to learn that it's just something that many betrayed wives deal with. 

It's your job as a wife even if no one else is standing next to your husband to be the one who is still there. So when your position at his side is made unsafe by his actions and you have no choice but to remove yourself, this unnatural placement puts you at continual war with yourself, your mind, with others who don't have all of the information but still use God's Word to rebuke you, others who do have the info and want to remain in denial, and yet others who think you should be taking even a stronger stand than you are already taking.

In addition to all of the hurt you are already feeling, this is a continual internal war zone that is a real threat to your sanity.  So center yourself on God's Word, in prayer, in confessing sin, in desiring to please Him, in waiting on Him to fight the battles for you and to reveal the secrets.

I've been reading a book by Meg Wilson, Hope After Betrayal. She is a fellow betrayed wife (I must come up with a better, victorious term for us women) who writes her story while weaving in the stories of three additional ladies throughout.

This portion was so helpful to me as just earlier in the day I was conflicted yet again by this mind/heart tug of war.

"Write down your husband's behaviors apart from his good intentions, promises, or explanations. What he does is the truth. An addict's words don't mean a thing at this point. The addict wants to keep you in the subjective arena of feelings and emotions. Try to stay in the objective arena of truth. His actions are observable. If he continues in unhealthy behaviors, then he is still unhealthy. .  regardless of the one good thing he might have done last week."  

(Whether you say your husband is an "addict" or "in bondage to sin",  for this quote I believe that they can be interchanged.)

Look to Him:
It is the loving thing to not be naive. It is the godly thing to stand up against sin - especially your husband's sin. Your husband's relationship with God is at stake. God's name is at stake if your husband professes to be one of His children.

When I feel dizzy from being dragged around by his words, my feelings, his actions, and other's opinions on it all, I have to quiet myself and remember that there is One who knows all the secrets of my husband's heart. He sees the way ahead. Even though it is good to hear from a host of godly counsel,  His is the only voice I need to listen completely to. His is the only opinion I should seek hard after. He is the only One who I need to please.