Deciding on divorce (long)

[daylily]

I have to keep reminding myself that I am not behaving without examination.  That is the force that keeps me moving.  I'm not where *I* want to be yet.  One of the other bumps here for me is the fear that if I get a divorce I will be acting out, JUST LIKE MY WIFE HAS TO ME ALL THESE YEARS.  I will be sinking to her level.  Well, even if that is all true, I need to stop thinking I'm any better than her and accept my faults along with my positive traits.  After all, if I can forgive her, surely I can forgive myself.  (Actually, that latter seems harder than the first, which was no cakewalk!)

Longtire,

You have even more of my admiration for your thoughtful approach to this final leap.  However, I think you may need to remind yourself, over and over again, that you are not "acting out" by choosing to move on wtih your life.

One thing you may want to think about:  Aren't you living in emotional divorce now?  How could you be supportive of / useful to your wife if you stayed married to her in name only?  I know there will be financial ramifications to legal divorce, but I'm sure the courts will consider those.  My point is simply that the marriage already seems to be over for you, and so I'm not sure that staying in it out of fear or guilt masquerading as moral uncertainty is (a) good for you; (b) emotionally honest (which you have tried so hard, and so successfully, to be); or (c) a really honorable way to behave toward your wife.  I include the last only because you wondered in your original post whether it was "OK with God" to divorce your wife.  I don't know.  I do believe, however, that it is not "OK with God" if we behave less honestly and honorably than we know how towards those who are, or were, supremely important in our lives.  Maybe they won't understand it; that's their problem.  Our responsibility, I think, is to behave according to the knowledge we have worked so hard to gain.

So in my opinion, I think you owe your wife more than staying in a loveless, lifeless marriage that you cannot bring yourself to inhabit physically, let alone spiritually.  You owe her the honesty of saying that your feeling for her has changed to the point where it is no longer the love of a husband for a wife.  You owe her the same chance you want for yourself--the chance to find another, more suitable partner with whom to share your life.  In my opinion, the fact that she may not appreciate your gifts of honesty, opportunity, charity, and forebearance are no reason not to give them.  Your concern is with your behavior, with how you feel when you look in the bathroom mirror.

I do believe in God, though I've strayed a long way from my Catholic upbringing.  I've struggled very long and very hard with my relationship with my mother, who is a champion N.  Her other children are either completely incompetent or have, out of self-preservation, put enormous distance between themselves and her.  So I'm left holding the bag.  How much do I owe her?  How much of myself should I sacrifice in order to do what I perceive as my duty?  After a long quest, involving many books, a few psychologists, and more than one confessor, I have to say that my final answer is this:  I have a duty to see that she is OK--and by that I mean safe, adequately provided for, set up with good medical care, etc.  I do not have a duty to see that she is happy--that her social and emotional needs are filled.  Not only is that an impossible and thankless task, it is the point at which I would sacrifice my self to hers.  No one has the right to ask you to give up your self.  Even Christ had a hard time doing that.  The only will to which we must be subservient is God's.  If someone else asks you to deny your self for their happiness or comfort, aren't they assuming a role in your life that belongs only to God?  The usurpation of self is therefore--to me at least--the critical point at which the balance of a relationship tips.  In seeking to take away one's self, the other commits the sin of pride--placing the self above all, including God. 

I only mention this because this is the struggle I have tried to play out in an ethical/religious context, and this is the resting place I have reached.  Perhaps I'm just arguing in circles, and if so, please ignore everything I've said.  These are extremely difficult questions, and so I would not presume to offer anything except my experience.  If nothing else, it can serve as an example of how not to think about these issues.

peace,
daylily

[Brigid]

longtire,

Daylily said:

One thing you may want to think about:  Aren't you living in emotional divorce now?  How could you be supportive of / useful to your wife if you stayed married to her in name only?  I know there will be financial ramifications to legal divorce, but I'm sure the courts will consider those.  My point is simply that the marriage already seems to be over for you, and so I'm not sure that staying in it out of fear or guilt masquerading as moral uncertainty is (a) good for you; (b) emotionally honest (which you have tried so hard, and so successfully, to be); or (c) a really honorable way to behave toward your wife.  I include the last only because you wondered in your original post whether it was "OK with God" to divorce your wife.  I don't know.  I do believe, however, that it is not "OK with God" if we behave less honestly and honorably than we know how towards those who are, or were, supremely important in our lives.

This is beautifully said (as you always manage to do, daylily) and I agree with every word.

Brigid

[longtire]

Wow, great replies that really get me thinking!  Thanks all!   I thought about these replies most of the day and it brought up some good stuff for me.

write, I think my daughter already sees the need to end relationships more clearly than I do.  She has ended a couple of unhealthy relationships in the last couple of years after trying to work things out when she saw that she would not be treated well no matter what she did.  I hope to live up to her example.   I also hope to show her that I can behave well in ending this without anger or hatred toward her mother.

Mati, glad to see you posting more again.  If my wife had been honest about how she would behave when I first knew her, I never would have married her or even continued to see her.  Of course in this case, the dishonesty and denial IS the problem itself.  This is not an issue where we can work together to find common ground and work out a compromise.  That IS the problem in itself.  We couldn't ever find common ground because she was too busy dumping on me to keep from feeling so bad herself.  It was certainly a mistake to get married.  Myabe if I were a saint, I could stay, but I'm not a saint, and I'm glad for it in this case.  By the way, what do you mean about being sanctified by your suffering?  I have heard this before in passing, but don't know what it means.

Brigid, I already have a lawyer and will double check with him before transferring my paychecks.  What I remember him saying before was that as long as the bills, groceries, etc. get paid, the courts will probably not care exactly where the money is in the meantime.  I will definitely check before I do anything, though.  This lawyer told me that he is not willing to take actions just to cause problems opr be vindictive, that he will only work to resolve issues as cooperatively as possible.  I liked him right away.   I did warn him about the situation with my wife, but right now I am working on the assumption that my wife and I will work out the main points.  If that doesn't work out, then I can pay him the retainer for a contested divorce.  We will see...

Sela, I like your "new" name.  I'm moving toward option #2 to just end it.  If by some sequence of miracles we were to get back together, we could always remarry.  Not likely from my point of view, but one possibility.  I'm not worried about going to hell for doing this since I'm saved, but more about what it does to my relationship with God.  I hope that thinking about this first and not as an afterthought counts for something.  I don't believe that God had a hand in causing this marriage and understands that I am not "perfect" enough to survive it if I stayed.

daylily, you hit it on the head.  I really am not doing my wife a favor by staying.  I am not willing to do ANY work to be her husband or her partner anymore.  I'm not using that as a cop out or excuse.  Honestly, that is not the main reason I am leaving.  However, my staying, even as a distant receptacle for her blame and garbage, does her no favors.  Ultimately, it comes down to the fact that I cannot be in this relationship willingly and wanting to be there anymore.  My presence past this point would only be an act without any possibility of substance.  I am already emotionally divorced right now, I'm just trying to comprehend what that means for me.

Ultimately, I'm trying to approach getting divorced by working on my issues ahead of time, instead of being the ping pong ball again.  I'm getting little pieces every day and have a deeper understanding already.  Getting other peoples' diverse viewpoints helps me to step outside the situation and look at it from different angles.  I realize at the end of the day the decisions and responsibility are mine alone.  That doesn't mean I have to *feel* alone during this time, though.

[OR]

Hey long

That doesn't mean I have to *feel* alone during this time, though.

You know we are here for you and we have all felt the deep aloneness felt from broken relationships.

I can tell you have sorted alot of the painful thoughts out and found a great peacful perspective on most of them.

Once the heart has harden for the other it's over.
You could have difficulties, even adultry and over come them if both are willing to forgive and work things out.  Why does the heart harden towards the other?  what ever the reason GOD said divorce in this case was allowed. I know you know all of this, I have been sorting these thoughts out too and have been leaving it up to GOD to figure it out for me.
I don't want to be someone with answers to give when I don't know them myself. I wonder if the personality disorders are just more than anyone can imagine, the mind is very complicated. There are so many books some of it is so text book.

I know my relationship had many failures but IM not a failure and will not look at the lies and manipulation as anything I could control.
I know my heart was in the right place no matter what my H tries to tell me.
I thank GOD for this site and all who have shared their pain so that people like me could grow beyond the darkness I was in.
Longtire, I think of how you would tell me that what I had to say was worth saying and not the crazy stuff from my H.  I have used this thought many times since then. Thank you YOU ARE MY HERO!!

Take care...............OR

[write]

few people are 'themselves' at the start of a relationship...we all want to be our best selves at that point; it's only natural.

The difference between personality-disordered people and everyone else is that there is no 'let-up', no showing a real self to make a real relationship with.

When someone has a pd they act out ad infinitum, and it reaches a stage where the other people engaged don't know what's real or not...

And sometimes by this time we love the good points and personality and ( if you're anything like me ) find it hard to disengage.

After all: if only a few factors could be altered, everything would be perfect.

***

the last guy I dated started off by telling me he was estranged from his wife.
We got closer, then I realised- they still lived together.
Finally, after a few weeks, I realised he had several women like me, trying to make a half-assed relationship, hanging on, stringing us all along.

But at NO POINT did he recogniise that this was weird, even when I challenged him, and there was no closure for what he was doing.

That's the difficulty for most of us- we want to know for definite what is happening.

People with personality disorders aren't able to let us know;
they're so busy with their own issues we don't even count.

This is the time for us to take charge of our lives and get rid of the parasites...

[Mati]

"Mati, glad to see you posting more again.  If my wife had been honest about how she would behave when I first knew her, I never would have married her or even continued to see her.  Of course in this case, the dishonesty and denial IS the problem itself.  This is not an issue where we can work together to find common ground and work out a compromise.  That IS the problem in itself.  We couldn't ever find common ground because she was too busy dumping on me to keep from feeling so bad herself.  It was certainly a mistake to get married.  Myabe if I were a saint, I could stay, but I'm not a saint, and I'm glad for it in this case.  By the way, what do you mean about being sanctified by your suffering?  I have heard this before in passing, but don't know what it means."

Hi longtire and thanks. Yes it was a mistake but one in which you were kept ignorant of the full facts of the person you werre commiting to. We can only make a decision on the fact we have presented to us and your wife hid her real self and her problems which cannot be changed. You cannot be held responsible for being deceived. It is not His will that we are abused. Well obviously we can move out but stay in the marriage. That is between you and God. My nH ended the marriage so I am going ahead with the divorce as a legal thing.

God does not force us to do anything against our will. His will is that marriage is for life. But each case is individual. You need to hear Him on this.

I wanted out of the marriage for a long time and used to fantisize hearing that H had died. I felt so trapped. I believed that God gave me a choice. He said that I could get out if I wanted and that it would not mean that my relationship with Him would be affected.

But if I accepted His will, then He could use my unhappiness to produce deep spiritual growth in me which in fact happened. I had to dig deeply in the hillside to find silver to counteract the despair. But it had to be with my consent all of the way.

The process is described in "Hinds feet in high places" by Hannah Hurnard a wonderful analogy of the spiritual path to full union with Christ.

If you are having doubts about the divorce then I would delay a while until I was sure what God was saying. But leaving the home is the right thing. Staying is enabling your wife to continue to abuse you and therefore sin.

[longtire]

OR, I don't so much feel that my heart is hardened toward my wife.  These days its softer toward her than it's been in many years.  I feel like I kept trying to stay open and connected with her but she kept chopping off the connections with an axe and just got ahead of me and cut the last one.  Mati, thanks for the explanation.  I'm getting the book, probably Friday this week.


A lot of stuff has been coming up over the last few days.  This is not directed at anyone here.  I trust the people here a lot, which is why I feel safe enough to let this out here.

I don't want to be a saint.  I don't want to be sanctified.  I am sick and tired of hurting.  If this has all been God's plan for me, then his plan sucks!  Where has he been for the last 17 years?  Where was he in my life before that?  I tried to seek him out, but couldn't find a connection.  I cried out for his help through my life and for the first few years of this marriage, until I realized that God wasn't going to move in any way in this relationship.  He hadn't before.  He still hasn't.  He was there to keep me from killing myself and from hitting absolute rock bottom and dying in my own life, but he has never done anything helpful in this relationship.  Does that mean he didn't intend this?  Does his absence in this mean that standing up for myself is something I had to learn to do for myself?  Like a parent forcing their child to tie their own shoe when they know the child can, to teach them independence?

I rejected God as useless for not responding to the things I suffered as a kid and in this sham of a marriage.  I wrote Him off for a long, long time.  He came back anyway and let me know without doubt he really did exist and is really there.  I can't ignore the truth of that.  The relationship I have with Him now is of love and acceptance and wanting me to be my best.  He hasn't said I'm supposed to stay in this marriage.  I prayed and he answered that it was OK to move out.  Instead of opposing a wrong move, he made a way for me in that.  I don't want to hurt this renewed relationship any worse that I already have.

I think one of the reasons I want to get a divorce now is I'm afraid that if I wait, I'll find out that God wants me to stay in this marriage after all.  I can't live with my wife now.  I don't want to waste any more time or energy of my life trying to find a way to tolerate her behavior.  If God snapped his fingers right now and she were immediately whole, I still don't want to be with her.  I just don't have any desire to have her in my life any longer.  I don't see any point.  I remember reading somewhere that hate is not the opposite of love, both show very strong connection.  Apathy is the opposite of love, of connection.  I really understand that now.  I didn't sit down and decide to change the way I feel, it just is how I feel now.  I can't even put my finger on exactly when it happened.  Its like feeling hungry or tired.  It is just a natural feeling that happens without conscious decision.

I think there is something underlying real relationships that is beyond conscious and even unconscious motivations.  I don't know what to call it.  Grace, maybe?  I'm not sure if that word fits here or not.  A connection of some kind that is there even when consciousness loses sight of it.  I feel like that is gone now.  There just IS no connection anymore.  Is this God's way of ending the relationship and letting me out?  Is that just wishful thinking?  I just know at this point that there is no way I could even fake being a husband in relationship to my wife ever again.

Is this one of those things where God won't respond until I'm willing to listen to what he says?  That if I refuse to consider going back, he won't talk until I accept whatever he says, even if he had no intention of telling me to go back?  I don't know how else to word this.  There is probably a better way to express this concept.  Do I have to give up my own will in this before God will talk to me about it?  Maybe that's a better way to say it.  I don't like what he let happen for so long, I'm not sure I like his will in things.

I haven't brought this up to people in church because I just don't know how I would react getting the stock, "Every marriage can be saved, marriage is forever and no divorce except for adultery" line.  There is no "Love your neighbor" in that, and I'm afraid my reply probably wouldn't have much in it either.  Am I supposed to suffer for the rest of my life, because I was deceived and made a mistake in youth and ignorance based on the family that I was born in and didn't get to choose?  What possible reason could God have for wanting that to continue?  Is this just a rule for the majority of people who would feel like cutting and running when things get a little difficult, but are still solvable?  Does God not give a shit about abuse?  If we were back in biblical times, would I just be expect to beat my wife into line or stone her if she didn't obey?  I eat pork and have worked on Sunday before.  Am I screwed for that too?

If God knows everything, then he must have known I would be where I am today, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.  He must have known that I can't tolerate this marriage anymore.  He must know that I am not willing to choose to suffer further without seeing any point.  Maybe at this point he will let me out of this marriage for my wife's sake.  Maybe he has been waiting for me to finally get tired enough of this marriage to help me get out.  Something is broken.  Something is gone.  The ONLY reason I am even thinking about this at this point is my relationship with God.

My wife will never divorce me as long as she gets a lot of money from me every month.  She will never have an affair because from what I can tell she is sexually anorexic.  She would continue to leech off me and suck me dry until one of us died.  I should be so lucky for her to file for divorce.  I would give it to her in an instant.  She won't do that as long as she can use me for money and as a respectable front of a married woman to not have to face her issues and shortcomings.  Mati, I respect that you chose to stay with you H until he filed on you.  I truly do not believe that my W would ever do that.  Besides, it is my role to be the bad guy with her, so I would have to file.  Is it possible that she really does want a diorce, she just needs me to be the bad guy by filing?  I hadn't considered that.

I feel like I'm rambling and doubt this makes any sense.  If it does, please explain it to me, because it doesn't make sense to me.  I trust that being aware of my feelings, feeling them fully, expressing my feelings and exploring will get me to the truth eventually.  I feel a lot of weight with this right now, though.

[Stormchild]

Good luck with this, Long. I've wrestled for decades with the same issue. Can't say I've made much progress - or found much help or understanding, either - although I am very grateful for the help and understanding I have received from a few people, here and there.

I've come near to losing my faith over this.

The only thing that ever helps me is to think about Christ the Man, living the way he lived. So poor he had only the clothes on his back. Dusty, hot, tired, hungry, houseless... alone more often than not because not even his disciples understood what he meant, much of the time. And even knowing what he had to go through - that awful darkness, that absolute aloneness, that Eloi Eloi lamach sabachthani utter black despair - knowing he had to, and would, and what it would bring to the world - he still felt the despair, he still had that moment-longer-than-forever of absolute hopelessness.

Only remembering that allows me to go on living, some days. Only that.

[Mati]

longtire (very appropriate)

I trust that being aware of my feelings, feeling them fully, expressing my feelings and exploring will get me to the truth eventually.

Yes I think so.

I am sick and tired of hurting.  If this has all been God's plan for me, then his plan sucks

I do not believe it was His plan for you to commit to an unsuitable marriage. I know that at the time of my marriage, I was far from Him. If we are close to Him then we will be able to choose somone we can be one with and have His blessing. I married in disobedience as he was not even a Christian. But I made a decision so ultimately even though I was not aware of the full facts, I chose to marry.

I can easily relate to your spiritual struggles. I have spent many many years feeling that God did not care, had deserted me, had given me far too much to cope with. I nearly threw my Bible out at one time. The worst of it was that I could not talk to other Christians about my feelings and my isolation and my feeling that I was the only Christian ever to feel like I did. I was very angry with God for allowing so many bad things in my life, from sexual childhood abuse to marrying a compulsive gambler (another divorce) and for me not having the thing I craved for ie a loving close family. And I was stuck in a marriage where most of the time was spent in despair with a little gratitude for the plateaus inbetween.

Is this one of those things where God won't respond until I'm willing to listen to what he says?  That if I refuse to consider going back, he won't talk until I accept whatever he says, even if he had no intention of telling me to go back?  I don't know how else to word this.  There is probably a better way to express this concept.  Do I have to give up my own will in this before God will talk to me about it?  Maybe that's a better way to say it.  I don't like what he let happen for so long, I'm not sure I like his will in things.

Yes. I think that what God wants from us is the choice of His will over ours whatever it will cost us. And once we make this choice, then we can find that He only wanted this from us, then He will have the freedom to choose what is good for us which may well be what our choice was. But we must take that step out into the dark for us to develop the trust that will transform us. He is good and He loves us and His promises can be relied on. He says that ALL things work for the good of those who are in Christ. Without this trust, then we are living our lives in our own way, and all things will NOT work for our good, well not to the extent of good that He wants for us. God had to let me go through hell and listen to my constant complaints against Him in order to bring me to the point where all of the walls I had built up during my childhood, could be broken down and I could open my heart to Him. I had caused my own suffering by closing up on Him. The times I had cried out in total agony, and thought that He ignored me, were hard for Him too as He wanted to ease my pain but I had to go through it for Him to be able to put right what was wrong with me. It is not about being rarified 'saints' it is about us being whole and living life in abundance. I hope this makes sense.   

it is my role to be the bad guy with her, so I would have to file.  Is it possible that she really does want a diorce, she just needs me to be the bad guy by filing?  I hadn't considered that.

Yes it could be so. My H ended the marriage but wanted us to continue to live together so that he could 'look after me' (good guy) So he was saying that I want out of this unhappy marriage caused by this woman, which is obvious because it is me saying I want to exit, but I am going to be a good guy and do the right thing. What he really wanted was that he could do whatever he wanted (including making the payments on a huge debt he ran up behind my back) and I could have no say. But he wanted me around to mop up his mess and take responsibility as usual for everything and he come up smelling of roses again. I walked out. The funny thing was, that I now found it unbearable to be away and wanted to be back with him (Stockholm Syndrome I expect).

I think one of the reasons I want to get a divorce now is I'm afraid that if I wait, I'll find out that God wants me to stay in this marriage after all.

Yes I can understand that. But what do you want? Do you want union with Christ? Is that your motivation in life? I know you want out of this mental agony. But Christ can release you from it now by giving you a new and fresh way of seeing your life. It is your thoughts which are causing your agony.

I must say that I am going through this with you and learning myself about my relationship with God which has been pretty bad these last two years. Before that I had grown a great deal through my pain, in unimaginable ways.

But it is up to choose if we want to go on this path. And God has mercy towards us and does not beat us up if we choose not to. He wants willing servants not slaves. All I can say to you is that the narrow way is worth it. But we must weigh up the cost. All it costs us is to give up the right to ourselves, and it can happen in an instant and when we do we will be released from our pain. But it is the hardest thing in life to do....death to self. The flesh screams out for us not to do it.

The step out into the dark is terrifying but He is there with His arms out waitin to catch us even though everything in our life before this looks like He will not be there. I believe that for those who will go this way, it has been necessary for the dark night of the soul (or 40 years in my case). It would help you perhaps to read about others who have gone this way.

[Brigid]

longtire,
I'm going to choose to get a little tough on you here, so I apologize in advance.  I must say that your struggles with filing for divorce seem very similar to those of moving out of the house.  When all other reasons have been dispelled the question of whether God would want this becomes the last excuse.  I don't know what faith you practice, but church doctrines are just that--interpretations by humans of what they think God wants from us.  Doctrines vary greatly from religion to religion and you would not have members of many faiths saying that only infidelity or abuse is a reason to end a marriage (although in your case, abuse would be a factor).

IMO God will not come down and lead you by the hand to make a decision about this.  Trust me, when all is said and done, it doesn't make a darn bit of difference who filed the papers.  In my case, I did not want the divorce, I would have hung on to the bitter end, I would have sacrificed my entire self to keep it together and would have been doomed to a life of mistrust, worry, lonliness within the relationship, and a loveless union.  I refused to file and made him do it since it was his quest.  In retrospect, I should have been running so quickly in the opposite direction and filing the moment I found out all the lies and deceit.  I know I did not at that time because of my great fear of abandonment, but those kinds of things can only be determined once the smoke has cleared.

At the time he left, I thought God had abandoned me.  The truth was that my xH had abandoned Him and God entered my life and is leading me through the process.  I have felt His helping hand in many things that have happened in the last two years, but I would not have seen that if I had not been open to it.  My xh claims that God would want him to be happy and therefore he was justified in what he did.  The truth is that he turned his back on God so he could do whatever he wanted without fear of retribution.

You did not come to this point without much consideration and effort.  What more can you do?  You know that your wife will not change and your marriage could potentially last another 30 years or more.  Once your daughter is out of the house, what then would there be to keep you together.  As my therapist has told me on many occasions, my marriage was doomed for years and it was only a matter of time before it collapsed.  Once the kids start leaving, (my xh left 2 months after my son left for college) many couples begin to realize that they haven't had anything in common for years and there is nothing to talk about and they don't enjoy each other's company.  If you did not have a good relationship when the kids are around, it will only get worse when they're gone.  I am seeing it all around me now with new divorces being announced weekly.

Wishing you peace and light.

Brigid

[mudpuppy]

Hi long,

Do I have to give up my own will in this before God will talk to me about it?

I believe God speaks to us all the time in many ways, but if we place our will above His we won't hear most or any of what He says.

Maybe that's a better way to say it.  I don't like what he let happen for so long, I'm not sure I like his will in things.

What He wants to happen in our lives and what He allows to happen in our lives are two different things. If God's will was being done on earth at all times He wouldn't have told us to pray that His will be done on earth as it is in heaven, right?

I want my daughter to be perfect. I do not try to force her to be, so I allow her free will to choose right from wrong. My will is for her to choose correctly, sometimes her will is not. She then suffers the consequences. If I shield her from those consequences she learns nothing and never grows up. But she also knows that if her choice is truly bad I am always there to pick her up and to comfort her when it goes wrong.

It was probably not God's will that you marry your wife in the first place. You made a bad choice (for whatever reason) and you are going through the consequences of it. He's not going to give you a spoon full of sugar and tuck you in. He's our Father in heaven not Mary Poppins. He doesn't desire our cozy comfort, but our conformation to His Son, and unfortunately for us because of our nature, that usually only comes about through suffering. Most turn away from the suffering because it hurts so much, and lose the blessing of what He is trying to do in our lives.
Why do we wish that God would do for His children, what we would think harmful if we did it for our own?

As I've told you before, I'm not advising you to divorce or not. Whichever you choose though, God will be there alongside. He may be smiling or He may be shaking His head, but He'll be there.
If your choice is not His will, He will let you know eventually and will foregive you if you ask Him to. If it is His will, He will also let you know that eventually.

In the garden Christ fell on His face and prayed, "Oh Father, if it is possible let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless not as I will but as You will." Just prior to this He said His soul was exceedingly sorrowful even unto death. Finding and following God's will is usually not easy or painless, if it was the way to it wouldn't be narrow and hard.

The only advice I have, is to wait. As you said, you're wife isn't going anywhere. If you're afraid that if you wait God will show you His will and it won't be what you want, then it sounds like you are not committed to doing His will. Be still and know that He is God.
 
The great thing about God is, if we blow it and follow our own will rather than His, His own Son has already paid the ultimate price for our missteps, because, unlike us, He always did His father's will.

mudpup

[bunny]

I think one of the reasons I want to get a divorce now is I'm afraid that if I wait, I'll find out that God wants me to stay in this marriage after all.

I don't think God is this big a control freak. He will accept whatever you do. You are his child and that's it.

bunny

[October]

The big reason I'm in the middle right now is trying to figure out whether it is OK with God that I divorce my wife.  Please, don't tell me not to worry about it or anything like that.  If I could have done that, I probably would have by now.  Whether you believe in God or not doesn't matter. 

I feel for you in your struggle, Longtire.  It took me four years with my husband and a further three after asking him to leave, before I divorced him.  During that time I wrestled with the question of whether it was right to divorce or not.  I kept hearing people on the radio talking about how you had to work at marriage, and I thought, how much harder can I work?

Eventually, at the end of those painful years, I came out a little wiser.  What I learned was the following:

Marriage is there to protect a relationship between two people.  If there is no relationship there is no marriage.  Whether you have a piece of paper or not, the marriage only survives as long as the mutual love and understanding and support survive.  If you never had those things, you were never married.

If you had a piece of paper saying you are married, but do not have the love and support of a partner, then as far as God is concerned you are not married, and never have been.  As far as he is concerned you are in an abusive relationship, and he will never support you in trying to make that work.  He will not lift a finger to support a relationship which is a blasphemy against the sanctity and holiness of marriage.  Marriage is a sacrament.  My marriage was founded on lies, built on alcoholism, included theft, slander, abuse, manipulation; and I prayed to God to help me sustain this.  No wonder he didn't answer my prayers.

As I say, it took me a long time to understand why he did not help.  When it finally got through, and I got the divorce, the silence from God stopped, and I heard very clearly; 'And about time too!'

I did not stop loving my ex, but I divorced him in spite of that, because he used my love against me.  I had to stop letting him do that, and protect both myself and my daughter.  There is no need to feel guilty if you do the same.  Divorce is not a sin.  Abuse of the sacrament of marriage is the sin. (imho)

[Stormchild]

I kept hearing people on the radio talking about how you had to work at marriage, and I thought, how much harder can I work?

Yes yes yes, October, absolutely. We work until we have nubs where our fingers should be... the thing is, those talk shows so rarely finish the thought. They never point out that BOTH parties have to be doing the work. And there isn't an N on the planet who's going to lift a finger to contribute to any relationship.

And "it took me sooooo long to find out (I found out!)"

[Sela]

Hi Long:

Sorry you are feeling so confused and alone.  I'm glad you're posting and trying to make your own sense of things.

Here's what I don't believe:

I don't believe in a God that sits on a throne and makes nasty plans for anyone.
I don't believe that's what He does.
I don't believe He gave us free will, only to take it away and dictate stuff for us.
I don't believe He chooses what happens to us or what we experience.
I do not believe in a God that punishes us for mistakes that we regret and take responsibility for/try to make up for/make restitution for/or are unaware of.
I do not believe the horrors/errors/pains of this world are God's will or of Him.
In other words, the evil in this world is not God's but the good....is.
I do not believe in a God that condemns repenting sinners.
I do not believe God starves us in this world.
I do not believe God leads us into temptation or evil.

Here's what I do believe:

I do believe in a God that waits patiently for us to come to Him.
I do believe He knows what will happen and is there for us when it does.
I do believe He gave us the gift of free will and allows us to use it and that He is there for us, when we make mistakes, or use our free will to make bad choices (and when we do well too).
I do believe He allows us to decide what to do, who to be with, what to learn from experiences.
I do believe He forgives us for our mistakes/poor choices and expects us to do the same for those who "trespass against us" (and he knows this is dificult sometimes).
I do believe there is another world in which there is no horror/error/pain...another world in which God's good is the only thing present...no evil.
I do believe God welcomes all who repent for their mistakes/errors/sins.
I believe God feeds us with love while we are here in this and in the next world.
I believe God leads us not into temptation/evil but delivers us out/away from it, with His love.
I believe God loves us and we have only to accept His love.
I believe His plan for us is in regard to another life.

Therefore, I think your choice to divorce will not effect your relationship with God.  He is waiting for you, He knows what will happen and He will be there for you when it does.  The gift of free will He gave you is yours and He will be there for you, whether you make a good or bad choice re divorce.  He will forgive you if it ends up being a bad one, by chance.  I also think He did not abandon you, ever, but has always been there for you, even in childhood, but you may not have been aware of it. 
I think God's love for you extends far beyond your human imperfections/ability to act perfectly/to always choose right and He knows how impossible that perfection is for you or any of us.

(((((((Longtire)))))))) 

Sela