Well, this issue seems to have brought up a lot for people.

Let me see if I can better explain where I was coming from, at least.
I'll start at the end. Today I believe that there is no way for me to "fix" or even tolerate this relationship. It cannot be saved except by miracle(s) and I'm not asking or holding my breath for one.
At the time, more than a year ago now, I wanted to be able to look my D in the eye and telr her
with no reservations on my part that I had tried my best to make things work out with her mother. My expectation is that my D wants a home with both parents in it, with the unspoken assumption that she wanted us to get along also. We had the first, but the second wasn't happening at all. I wanted to do this for my D, not to make her responsibile in any way for my decisions and behavior. If there was any chance that my W and I could work things out and provide that happy home together for my D, then I wanted to find out. Well, I did.

I wasn't necessarily trying to keep the family together, but trying to find out whether there was any hope at all. I was still coming out of my brain fog, so you'll just have to accept that I was NOT thinking clearly at the time, and THAT is a huge understatement.

It is clear to me now that there never was a relationship of marriage or even caring between S and I. She used me right from the start and I didn't have the ability to discern it until recently.
As for Christianity promoting these ideas... I don't think that was the case. In this case it was me totally projecting all kinds of my old crap onto God/Religion as a way to avoid really delving into it and dealing with both God AND my stuff. I was not only projecting "no divorce," but ALL kinds of other generalizations about people, the world and the universe. Sheesh, I'm generally pretty aware but this was a real long dive off the shallow end for me. I absolutely had all the wrong ideas. It seems likely to me that a lot of other people might be doing the same projecting onto God/Religion for much the same reasons. The good news is that I realized that God has been trying to tell me that he didn't support this marriage for a very long time by not answering any of my prayers to "fix' it. Now that I know what to (not) listen for, I'll be much more aware from now on.
One of the things that I was projecting was that I was somehow not worthy or good enough to deserve (positive) attention, caring, blessings, happiness, etc. What crap! That was all my parents' messages. It was never me! That is why I was so confused growing up, because their messages didn't fit with what I knew inherently. For the first time in my life, I really believe that I deserve good things, and that I will have all those good things. I don't have to be perfect or struggle mightily just to "earn" a few crumbs. Still, old habits die hard and it will take some time to really get used to this new way of seeing myself.
I've been down some tonight. I had made tentative plans to have supper with my D tonight, but she hasn't been returning my calls the last coupld of days. There is still a part of my old brain that jumps in with all types of terrible scenarios, but I am fighting it by reminding myself that none of those things has ever actually happened and that I trust my D and my relationship with her. In the current situation, the thing that comes up most often is that her mother is subtly feeding her "plausibly deniable" criticism of me. I'll remind myself of the trust as many times as I need to. If I'm still here and trying then I'm obviously more stubborn than that old part of my mind.
