its_Chet

Hi there Noche Glad to hear you're taking this step to take care of yourself, and that you are not willing to quit on your husband. If everyone took marriage as seriously as you, there'd be a lot less divorce. Your resilience, strength, and courage cannot be denied. Never, ever, ever regret the patience you've shown your husband, and your willingness to forgive and heal your marriage. The ideal solution is always to restore and heal a marriage if at all possible, rather than to throw it away like garbage. People make mistakes and need forgiveness, and I congratulate you on knowing this without having to even be told. I do not envy you the struggle inside you must feel as your desire to forgive is weighed against your desire to have your suffering acknowledged, with your very soul serving as the fulcrum upon which this tremendous weight is balanced. I guess in my own way, I understand the pain, stress, and discouragement you feel. Do you ever feel like you're carrying a mountain on your shoulders, and that you can often feel yourself beginning to sink under the strain of it? Does it ever feel like the burden you bare is ridiculously beyond your ability? The Lord has chosen to assist me with this trial by sending people to support me, encourage me, advise me, and in some cases even challenge me, such as with extra callings, etc. My Bishop has advised me to throw myself into service, which can be very difficult when it seems some days all I am capable of doing is staring at the walls and crying. He also told me that "Inch by inch, life is a cinch." So I'm taking small steps towards what seems to be a mountain of responsibility that I face. Can you relate? I suspect you can. Something I've been noticing for quite some time, both directed toward me and also towards you and others suffering as we are, is this tendency some people have to berate the victim, or practice what is called "tough love". I just realized that with crazypotatoe's post right above this one, it might be inferred I'm accusing her of that, and I want to be clear that I'm not. But my point is that some people can be very blunt when advising someone that they need to adjust their behavior or thought process in some way. Some people can be downright mean about it. I remember when Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped, a lot of people blamed her Dad for hiring the guy who kidnapped her, and a lot of them were remarkably ugly about how they did so. I don't know why, but some people are just like that, blaming the victim and giving the guilty party a miss. Noche, you already know, or are going to discover in the meetings you've correctly and freely decided to attend, that the mistakes your husband made have placed him in a position where he has a tremendously difficult task before him, to repent of so great an offense, to heal you from all the pain he has caused you. Such a monstrous task has got to be intimidating. He cannot do it alone, and would never have made it this far without the encouragement and support you've already shown him. He needs your help, which may seem unfair because with the pain you're in right now, you probably want someone to help you just as much as he does. I don't know enough about what you're dealing with to know if you can help each other, or to what extent, but I pray that the love between you, which obviously has survived, can continue to recover and grow strong, to pull you two back together and shrink the distance that has been growing between you for much longer than either of you realizes. I suppose if I asked you if you desire for your husband to take you in his arms and hold you, and somehow make this weight on your shoulders go away, you'd say yes. I suppose if I asked him if he desired for you to take you in his arms, tuck his head under your chin, and hold him in your arms and make this awful shame slide off of his shoulders, to not only completely forgive him, but take that shame away from him that will be there until he forgives himself, he'd say yes. You both are carrying an awful burden. I may be venturing out of my depth right now, given that I'm still going through my own trial by fire, but I suspect that the only way any of us is going to be able to emerge out from under these mountains we carry on our shoulders is to appeal to the Savior, to somehow succeed in getting Him to remove all that weight and trouble. He has removed some of it from me, but there still seems to be so much left for me to deal with. Maybe it's nothing more than I can handle, maybe it's only a portion of what was there before, or would be there if it weren't for all the support I've received from friends and relatives. I believe I'd have pulled the plug on all of this by now without that support, if you get my meaning. And I've heard it said that God does not remove our burdens from us so much as He shapes our backs to bare up under them. That seems to be more in line with my concept of the purpose of mortal life. If I can survive, I will emerge stronger at the end of this fire. I have to rely on my Redeemer for my survival. I cannot do it without Him. He may choose to manifest His assistance through the hands on involvement of my fellow mortals, or my deceased ancestors who have been guiding me from the other side of the veil my whole life, but the fact that He is delegating support of me to others doesn't change the fact that His atoning sacrifice is being applied in my life, to succor this weakened, battered, bleeding soul in his darkest hour. I may not have been the one to destroy my marriage, but I still avail myself of the benefits of the atonement. It is not primarily sin that is being washed away in the blood of the Lamb, but that helpless feeling that the pain is greater than I am. The Divine aid I am receiving strengthens me enough to survive, even if it does not remove this cup from before me. The bitter dregs remain for me to drink, but I am strengthened to survive. Someday the accumulation of such trials will make me worthy of the crown I will eventually wear. I am a Prince of the Universe (in training). I am a son of the God of Abraham, kid brother to the Savior of the human race. I am not forgotten. I am loved. I am on Their minds, in Their hearts, and They will save me.

Iggy is just suggesting the possibility that you are a bot, or in some way not "on the level". It doesn't look like anyone agrees with that suggestion. Hope your day is going well Noche. I hope you and your husband find yourselves continually growing closer, that the pain you both feel is continually fading and shrinking, replaced by new and invigorated love, that your marriage will bounce back even stronger than either of you ever believed it was before. For what it's worth, I am thankful I do not bare on my shoulders the shame your husband must feel. I can't imagine what that's like. Hopefully he takes comfort in trying to make it up to you, in order to redeem himself. But then, we all know there is only one true Redeemer, and that there is no absolute and complete atonement without His assistance. How thankful I am for Him! How it pains me to think that my sins made His sacrifice necessary! How much I wish I could be perfect so that I could claim no responsibility for what He once suffered, or maybe even lessen it to some degree! Again, God bless, Noche

Thank you both, crazypotato and mirancs8. You both have made excellent points and I agree with you both (not to imply that you're disagreeing with each other). After my wife left me, I began analyzing the last 14 years of my life, particularly the final year before she left, in order to better understand what happened to us, to what I believed we had together. I realized fairly quickly that I had made some mistakes that contributed to her decision not to come back from her visit out there. Beyond that, there were a lot of things I did that were not necessarily wrong, but she didn't like them. They might as well have been wrong, for in her mind they were. I could have changed a lot about who I was, and maybe it would have further prolonged my marriage. But the question remains, whether or not that would have been fair, or wise. If I had the last two years of my life to live all over again, I'd do a few things differently. I know this would have prolonged my marriage. The key word here is "prolonged". I have instant messenger conversations, letters, etc., proof in black and white of her failure to appreciate me. I can take the easy way and blame my own mistakes on that, and I know it's true that at some point, to some degree, I gave up trying because of the rejection I felt. But I also know that my future happiness depends on me transcending my own mistakes, however justified they may have felt to me at the time, or whether or not the disintegration of my marriage was inevitable, which it was. It was inevitable for the simple reason that my wife failed to appreciate me, for several years. You cannot please or impress someone who has decided it is impossible for you to do so, and is as stubborn as she is. When she makes up her mind about something, her prejudice and assumption become the reality. What she decides is impossible becomes impossible. What she decides is necessary becomes necessary. I am not perfect and made mistakes that hastened the end of my marriage, and for that I am culpable. But on the other hand, I have learned from painful experience that you cannot protect another person from their own bad decisions, as I had tried so hard with my wife. I also learned that despite what I had always believed, you cannot singlehandedly preserve and keep alive a marriage, at least not forever. I tried very hard, and I had a LOT more success than most who are married to people with Borderline Personality Disorder tend to have. But in the end, I discovered that I could not keep my marriage alive on my own. You cannot cause someone to love you. You cannot cause someone to respect you. You cannot cuase someone to honor you. You cannot even cause someone to reciprocate the love you give them, at least not for more than a brief moment in time. These are decisions others make for themselves, independent of anything we do. The value of the love we give to others is determined by them, not us. This is the painful reality many of us have to learn the hard way. The fact that you are a son or daughter of God does not guarantee that you will be treated as such, even by one whom you shower with affection, attention, honor, love, respect, kindness, friendship, care, and loyalty. And sometimes a person will love you back for a while, but cease after a time. Sometimes love dies, after all you can do to keep it alive and nurture it. And that alone doesn't make it your fault. Bad things sometimes happen to good people. My marriage is going the way of the people of Ammonihah who believed the Gospel that Alma and Amulek taught them. It's not any more an indictment of me than it is of the believers who were thrown into the fire. As a child, I swore this would never happen to me. I mistakenly believed that if I just tried hard enough, or married someone I strongly enough believed was the right woman for me, my marriage would be fireproof. It never occurred to me that it takes two people, devoted and committed to each other and their marriage, always allowing Heavenly Father and our Savior's Gospel a place within that marriage, to not only make it thrive, but just to keep it alive. One person can destroy a marriage all by himself or herself. No matter how hard Heavenly Father and the spouse try to hold on, no matter how long they succeed in doing so, free agency guarantees us all the ability to destroy our marriages. I have prayed so many times for my wife to be made to see what I once meant to her, that her heart be softened and that I find myself back inside it again. But her agency prevents that. Again, crazypotato and mirancs8 both make oustanding points. Both are correct.

KerryShirts, I wouldn't waste your time on Barter Town. That user got banned. He kept beating the anti-Mormon drum, even after many warnings to knock it off. I doubt he even comes here anymore. Obviously, you would agree with me when I say that Hugh Nibley was an exceptionally intelligent person. In my own estimation of his style of discourse, I would say that he was a lot like a talking doll hooked up to a car battery. He just never could seem to talk fast enough to convey all the things he knew. I've watched him go on and on about some ancient ruins he'd personally examined, and it seemed there just wasn't enough time given to him for him to tell all that he knew, hence, he spoke so quickly. I hope it's not inferred that I'm measuring his IQ by the velocity of his speech. I'm just trying to make the point that this guy accumulated more information in his brain than the vast majority of people ever have. He was nothing less than a genius, in my view.

Hang in there Noche! If the man you fell in love with still exists, hold on to him and help him find his way back (remember that he needs support and kindness too, because he has a lot of shame on his shoulders and is only gradually coming to realize how much). If that man does not exist anymore, know that you are justified in the eyes of the Church in splitting. You'd be encouraged to try to save your marriage, but the Church will not stand in your way if you decide to pull the plug. Heck, my wife's Priesthood Authority out there where she's living now don't seem to have a problem with her having left me, and I didn't cheat on her. If anything, she was emotionally unfaithful to me, in various ways. Like I said before, Heavenly Father told me that He will support whatever decision I make in my situation. I would be surprised if He has not also told you the same thing. But there is abundant precendent in your case. Basically, you are free to proceed however you see fit. But only you can answer the question of how you should move forward. No one could answer that question for me, and even Heaven Father declined to do so, telling me instead He wanted me to decide for myself, but that He would support me either way. All any of the rest of us can do for you is to listen, to share our own experiences, to offer perspective, and to encourage you. You are in my prayers, as I'm sure you are also in the prayers of others in this thread. God bless you noche!

With all due respect, would you consider an appeal from me to stop putting everyone on the couch? The first thing people like noche tend to hear is how they need to apply the atonement. Given that the most commonly associated purpose of the atonement is to make possible the gift of repentance, such a suggestion directed toward people like noche tends to smack of accusation and criticism, even if, perhaps, that is not the intention. Noche isn't perfect, and she knows this. Some of us are trying to gently suggest to her that she will have to bend a little to accommodate her husband's need to perform reasonably at work, and that it may prevent him from being able to call or text her as often as she would like. We are trying to alert her that her need for reassuring contact with him may be getting out of hand a little, but we're all generally very quick to assert that because of the pain she has suffered and continues to suffer, it is entirely understandable that she feels the way she does, and is behaving the way she does. Let's not make the mistake of implying that her reaction to what was done to her is in some way as bad or worse than what was done to her in the first place. That is, in addition to be ludicrous, quite hurtful and destructive. That's not the Lord's way. The Holy Spirit isn't afraid to alert us to our faults, but He does so gently, without making us feel condemned, despised, or derided. If noche needs help calming down from the intense emotional trauma from which she is obviously still trying to emerge, let that help be gentle and understanding. Don't condemn her. Don't equate her reaction to the infidelity with the infidelity itself. That's comparing apples and oranges. The last thing she needs is to be told that she is a bad person. Her husband (intentionally or not) has already done that. What they both need now, both of them, is to be encouraged to be the best they can be, to treat each other with all the love they can demonstrate, and to try to heal each other and themselves, both of them, each of them. They have both paid a terrible toll, and the last thing either of them needs right now is to face the peanut gallery of the Jerry Springer show. I think we can all agree that noche needs to take a deep breath and relax, but most of us who are commenting also know from personal experience that she needs a lot of healing. She may not be able to back off of her demands on her husband until she gets that healing. It's true that the atonement works for the victim as well as the transgressor, but let's just be as clear as we can about this: Noche = victim, not transgressor. EVen noche's husband needs encouragement and positive support. Can we not also offer it to noche? How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! -- Isaiah 52:7 Let's follow the advice of Isaiah, not Jerry Springer. What noche needs is someone to listen to her vent all the pain within her soul, and when she's ready, then she can be gently told how she can make things easier for her husband to complete his repentance and together save their marriage. I have come to learn for myself that the way the atonement is applied to the victim of such a painful situation can very likely be through the help of our brothers and sisters here on this side of the veil. I intend to be one of those helpful brothers. I encourage you to do the same.

Holy schnikes! I can absolutely relate to this!

Thanks crazypotato. You may be correct on all counts. This much I know. She used to complain that there was too much "man-bashing" going on in the Church, even during General Conference. I remember a conversation I had with her on the phone back in September in which she was talking like the most embittered bra burner I ever met. Her mind has always been very easily swayed, and I can tell someone's been working on her. It's interesting to note that she has listed her current psychiatrist, the psychiatrist she was seeing before she left me, and a friend of her mom's who is allegedly qualified to testify about "general mental well being", all as expert witnesses at our divorce hearings. I'm hoping that when the judge sees that she wants virtually every piece of furniture in the house, without a house of her own to put it all in, that she wants alimony, that she wants full custody of the children, and that she's accused me of emotional, verbal, sexual, and physical abuse of her and physical abuse of the children, he'll take her with a grain of salt.

Can someone bring me up to speed on the mojo couple? I can't seem to figure out where the last couple of pages in this thread came from. Without understanding what everyone is talking about, just let me say that you're all in my prayers. I can say this because my every prayer includes a request that Heavenly Father bless and comfort everyone who's going through anything remotely like what I am. Noche, what happened the day you posted in all caps? I thought things were looking up! Are you on a kind of roller coaster? I thought your husband was beginning to understand the pain he'd caused you. Are you still having trouble working out an agreement on how often you can call or text him when he's at work? If you want to talk about it, we're all here for you. As others have said, it really helps to vent. I have been blessed. My best friend's dad is a very talented pychologist, and does consulting with Bishops and Stake Presidents all over the country on how to deal with members who have behavioral disorders. A lot of what his dad knows has rubbed off on him, including fundamental counseling skills. My friend and I work at the same place, are in the same ward, and live about five minutes away from each other. I eat lunch with him every day and I get free counseling. Most of it involves him just listening to me whine about everything until I'm sick of hearing myself talk about it. I don't know how he's had the patience to listen to me day after day for six months now, but he's really been there for me. Through him and numerous other friends and relatives, Heavenly Father has ministered to me in this seemingly unending dark time in my life. I am sustained by a symphony of support, each voice contributing a vital and unique part. But the most helpful part has been my best friend, and his suggestions that I write down "pros and cons" lists, and rely on them to make my decisions instead of going on emotion. My emotions continue to spiral downward through pain and darkness. For example, last night I got copies of my wife's version of what property belongs to who, and just how rotten a monster I am and what a victim she has been from my lawyer in the mail. She is accusing me of emotional, verbal, physical, and sexual abuse of her, and physical abuse of the children, and she is also requesting alimony, and virtually every piece of furniture in the house. Just when I think I've become acclimatized to the pain, it gets worse again. I hope that's not how things are for you Noche. I hope things are continuing to improve. I hope your marriage is continuing to heal and grow. I know it can, if you both decide it's the most important thing to you, and that your love will never die. "Funny" thing. I thought mine would never die. And last night when I read what my wife said about me in a deposition that my lawyer will have to protect me from in court (which won't be until late July, meanwhile she still has all our kids), I honestly felt the last bit of love I ever had for her vanish. If I do still love her, it's hidden from my own heart. I had to fill out the same papers, and I did not dare use them as an opportunity to crucify her in court. The only reason I ever filed was to keep from losing my children. I visited them a few weeks ago and saw very little of my wife while I was there. When I said goodbye to her, I kissed her hand and told her yet again that I love her. I do not think I could do that now. I'd love it if I never saw her, ever again. Noche, I hope your marriage continues to head in the opposite of mine, as it seemed to be last time I heard from you. I've said this before, but I want to say it again: There is a member of the Stake Council in my ward, and some time ago, he had an affair and almost left his wife. They are still together and he has obviously turned his life around. They are happy, and their marriage is probably stronger now than it was before everything happened. I'm not suggesting infidelity as a method for strengthening a marriage, don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is that the trials that come with it, if passed, can make us better people and strengthen our marriages, both husband and wife. Of course, this is only possible if both husband and wife are willing to wholely devote themselves to each other and make Heavenly Father an integral part of their marriage. I think of it like husband, wife, and Heavenly Father all holding hands with each other while skydiving, in sort of a triangle shape. If husband or wife should let slip their grasp on their spouse's hand, if they remain holding on to Heavenly Father's hand, they can, in time, regain their grip on their spouse's hand. But if they let go of Father's hand too, that opportunity is gone. He can reunite any husband and wife, in my opinion, if they will at least hold on to Him, and keep reaching out to their spouse. I suppose he could even save my marriage. But today I don't care anymore, for the first time ever. I married what looks to me now to be a monster. She has crushed all the respect I ever had for her. She has destroyed my love for her, and I never would have believed it to be possible. No one deserves to be treated like this. Noche, it looked to me like your husband is a better person than that. I hope I was right, and I hope that your marriage has the chance mine does not. God bless you all, and may He manifest His grace in your lives to the healing and salvation of your marriages the same way He has manifest His grace in my life, to the guidance and comforting of my soul during an unending, painful maelstrom of a nightmare.

Sounds like you know what you need to do Noche. But it does help to vent anyway, doesn't it? I have to say I'm impressed that he will hug or kiss you out of the blue like that. Guys tend to think in neat little chunks, moving from thought to thought only when one is completed. At least all the guys I know are like that. Keeping everything balanced can be difficult. For him to take the time to be sweet like that for you, I think really shows effort on his part. Clearly, you have recognized that you want to encourage that. Good for you both! I too was once addicted to certain magazines and videos, but I gave it all up in one day for a woman I was in love with; it was a deal I made with God. I didn't get the girl, but I did get freedom from the addiction. And now I know why it's called an addiction, and what kind of damage it can do. It's not a harmless taboo. It is destructive poison. It takes over and consumes a person. It dominates and controls. It alienates the Holy Spirit, and turning away from it invites the Holy Spirit. Maybe this is naive of me, but I like to think that in a healthy marriage, a man would have no need for that kind of external stimulation, that his needs would be fulfilled without him feeling any need for that poison. I perceive that this kind of healthy marriage is something you are both reaching for. Maybe it will just take time. Maybe all you need is patience. You have hope, I can see that! Hope is very underestimated in this world. It's a powerful thing, and I commend you for it! You're both doing a lot that is right. I think if you both just keep it up, you'll get there. Here's an idea, and please consider it nothing more than just that, an idea: What if you and your husband work out an agreement on how often or when you can call or text him at work? He could let you know if there are particular times of the day when he has more time available to respond than others, or when he is typically too busy to be able to respond. Maybe you could work out some kind of rationing plan on how many times a day you can contact him when he's at work. It seems to me like a lot of things that require human endurance are best dealt with by establishing inflexible quotas and limitations. For example, when exercizing, I find that it helps me to think of my goal as not being an option, but that I have to do so many push ups, or ride so many miles on my bicycle or for a given distance in a given gear. Having the goal lets me bend to meet a requirement instead of giving in to the temptation to bend the requirement to suit my comfort level. Know what I mean? It might be easier to contact him at work fewer times in a day if you rationed them, I think. What do you think? What would your husband think? Again, maybe this is naive of me, but I was wondering if maybe that might be a helpful approach to you getting through your days without stressing out your husband as much. Mind you, I'm not suggesting you don't have a right to feel the way you do, and I think you know that. I'm just saying that he needs your support to be the man you want him to be (especially in his weakened state), and unfortunately, the demands you place on his attention when he is at work may be more than he can deal with right now. You both have to constantly strive to meet each other half way. You're doing great so far. If you both just keep getting better, at a pace that isn't more than you can handle, this can all be an unpleasant memory, buried underneath years of genuine happiness. Consider this -- there's a guy on my stake's high council who at one time was having an affair and intended to leave his wife. But he came to his senses and repented. He and his wife are very happy now, and they have a lovely home and great children. What you and your husband are going through does not have to be an ending. It can even be a challenge that, in the end, draws you both closer together, as perverse as that might sound right now. I get the impression that if you keep building your man up, he will reciprocate your love and devotion. Sounds like he already is. And you both seem to understand each other better now than ever before, it would seem. That's where it all starts, I think -- understanding. Well, enough for now. Again, God bless you Noche! Hang in there! You're on the right track, and if you both keep it up, you'll both be happier than ever before.

Hi Noche Sorry to hear you're still having all these ups and downs. In a way, I can see your husband's frustration in dealing with your insecurities. That has to be hard for him to handle. But he still has to understand that he caused this. His mistakes made you this insecure. Maybe with some counseling you both could move past this, and maybe without it your marriage is doomed to inevitably fail, but there's just no getting around the fact that he opened Pandora's box and now he has to accept what has come out. He of all people shouldn't expect perfection from you. I also find it a little hard to sympathize with his frustrations with his brother in law. Yes, the guy sounds like a jerk, not appreciating his wife and flirting with other women. That's not acceptable behavior for a son of God. It's just plain evil. But, like you said, what your husband did was even worse. It's ironic that he now throws stones from the balcony of his own glass house. It's almost laughable if he is as sanctimonious about it as you make it sound. Upset over a futon? For real? I'll let my kids sleep on a futon if that's what it takes for them to get to sleep at night, if it doesn't cause them any real problems, or if for any reason it seems necessary. A futon is a perfectly acceptable place to sleep in my opinion. But then, I sleep on the floor (carpeted), next to my king size bed. Frankly, I'm grateful to have a place to sleep at all. Some folks aren't so lucky. Could it be that your husband just needs an excuse to hate his brother in law more? Given the brother in law's behavior, I'd say your husband doesn't need any other reasons. Sounds like he's obsessed. Sounds like he could afford to (odd as this may sound) be a little more patient with his brother in law. I don't know what to tell you about the "His relatives" and "her relatives". I've always been in a bit of a pickle there myself. My soon to be ex-wife hates my mother with a passion. I can trace it back to the time my wife took the wedding ring I gave her to a jeweler to get it exchanged for another ring. Both my parents had a meltdown over it, but my mother told my wife exactly how she felt about it. My wife, rather than accepting her guilt, has hated my mother ever since. On the other hand, my mother has bent over backwards over and over for her, and has put up with a lot of offensive behavior from my wife. There's just nothing anyone could do or say to change my wife's mind. She could not be persuaded ever to treat my mother like a human being. On the other hand, I'd normally felt ostracized by my wife's relatives, or at least most of them. Part of it is because I'm a reclusive person with very little in common with them. But I always felt that it had a lot to do with me being a convert from the Ozarks and them being all third generation or longer members of the Church living in one of the "strongholds". And while I'm on that subject, let me just say that I lived in Salt Lake City for two years and while I was there, I never encountered a member of the Church I disliked or found to be prideful. I have lived in another "stronghold", the one where my wife came from and is now living, having taken my children with her, and I have observed in that place all of the bad attitudes I have often heard ascribed to "Utah Mormons". I'd rather not call out this place, this dry zone, because I'm sure there are good people living there and I don't want to lump them in with the rest. But I digress. Maybe I'm just being an idealist, or naive, but I truly believe that if BOTH the husband and the wife can put each other first, above all other mortals, including the children, the relatives won't be a problem. If they both love each other more than their parents, I would imagine nothing else would matter. I can only speculate though. My marriage is failing, and my wife's inability to cut the umbilical cord was only one of the many problems that doomed us. Noche, if I were you, I'd want my spouse to promise me that we could put each other first, above all other relatives (yes, even your brother, sorry), and that if anyone needed our help they'd have to accept limited attention at least until we got our own problems handled. You may find that you cannot help others until you have both helped yourselves, and each other. I would encourage your brother to pass the baton he's carrying for his sister to another relative, and for you to do the same regarding your brother, at least until you can make it through a day without feeling insecure and your husband can treat you in a way that makes that possible. You two really do have some very serious and damaging issues you need to address. Underestimating their impact on your marriage would be detrimental. I underestimated the challenges I faced in my marriage, always trying to be patient, waiting for things I felt I couldn't control to get better. What ended up happening is that I gave my wife and her relatives all the excuse they needed to take things as far as they have. And my marriage is virtually over. It will be officially over as soon as my wife gets the final papers, whenever that happens. I won't sign them, but it won't stop anything. At any rate, God bless you Noche. Hang in there, you daughter of God, you.

Divine assistance is the best hope I have. I have tried to let the Savior's atoning sacrifice bring me the healing I need. Personal revelations have been an invaluable help to me. One that I had told me that "No matter how this turns out, you're going to be okay." Another one offered me a blessing in the Celestial Kingdom so significant and sacred that I can't discuss it, but all I have to do to qualify for it is be the best husband and father I can be. Of course, I can be the best husband in the world and my wife will still want a divorce, but I'm doing my part anyway. And I will be a husband again someday after she is rid of me. As far as whether or not I should move out there, I prayed about that over and over and over again. My mother in law had me convinced that I had no option, that my wife has a medicinal need to live there and will kill herself if she ever comes back here. But every single time I've prayed about this, the answer has consistently been to stay here and develop the talents (both proverbial and literal) that Heavenly Father has given me. He has given me more callings, a closer relationship with my own relatives, and now my non member Dad is trying to beat his alcoholism, and I need to be here for him. I also happen to know that it would be much better for my children to grow up here then around my wife's sister, who within the last year or so, accused my mother in law of covering up molestation of my wife by her brother when they were children. I know my wife's brother and her sister, and I can tell you that her sister is lying. None of my relatives do ugly things like that. There's no denying that the truth hurts, but I still have to accept it. My wife is not coming back. She cannot be reasoned with. My appeals to her fall on deaf ears, as do all my sweet words of love, which I still offer. She never appreciated me and probably never will, at least not until it's too late. She has a behavioral disorder that I cannot fix for her. Only she, with the assistance of adequate psychiatric treatment and likely the correct medication, can fix what's wrong with her. She has choices to make and continually makes the wrong ones. Our Bishop counseled her before she left not to go (back then it was only going to be a month long visit), and that she should be counseling with me instead of with her mother. She did not do as the Bishop advised. She very rarely did as I advised while functioning as the Priesthood Holder in our home. She normally dominated me (I’m passive and codependent) rather than accepting my counsel or even showing me simple respect. There were happy times, as well as times when everything was just so utterly normal and mundane that the time just flew right by, and there were times that she simply made me feel very loved and happy to be with her. I have to accept that along with all the misery she caused me, which I will soon be free of, I will also be haunted by these sacred memories of happy times with her. There were times when she enthusiastically and creatively saw to my emotional needs, in the way most men require, as well as in various others which were also appreciated. Sometimes she was simply a darling, charming sweetheart. I have to let go of that. I have to hope and believe that Heavenly Father will restore what the locusts ate. I am going through the trials of Job, and if I am faithful, I trust that Father will make me whole again just like He did with Job. It doesn't make all the pain go away, but it helps to know that I will eventually land on my feet. I am trying to redirect my energy into looking forward with anticipation toward the future, though I still love my wife and am still leaving every door open for her to come back to me that I possibly can, as my Bishop has counseled me to do, though my personal interest in doing so is fading, and all hope of that is long gone. Something ryanh shared with me that a friend of his who is a Bishop told him: right now, my focus has to shift to my children, and to doing what is best for them. It's all I really need to concern myself with for now. I don't know how long I can give my wife after the divorce before I stop waiting for her, but sometimes what I feel like doing is coming home straight from court, when the day finally comes, and registering on every LDS dating website I know of, and I know of at least 10 of them. But for now, and probably then too, my priority needs to be the children. For so long my priority has been my wife, above the kids, and that's how it should be. But that will have to change for a time. I don't know how long, but right now my top priority is calling my boys every night, and reading scriptures over the phone with the oldest. Another thing I'm doing is putting hope into what will happen on the other side of the veil. One day I had a daydream of my wife and I standing before God on judgment day. Now, I have long believed that we will be judged not only as individuals, but also as families, in that, we will each individually be asked if we want to remain sealed to each member of our families. I also suspect that we may be called on to testify at the judgment of others, on their behalf or against them, as Father may request. Well, in this daydream, I envisioned Father judging my wife, His daughter whom He loves more deeply than I can comprehend. I don't know exactly what was said, but He said something to the effect that He knew she had a behavioral disorder, and it did earn her some leniency, but that she had exceeded that leniency in the way she had mistreated me over the years. I saw my wife crying profusely, wailing, and then bury her face in her hands and bow as one barely able to remain standing, as if she were about to curl up in the fetal position, but felt compelled to remain standing. Next, with my eyes still fixed on my wife and remaining there, Father asked me if I still wanted her, if I still wanted to be sealed to her, and if I had forgiven her for everything that she had done to me. I said yes without hesitation, but with absolute solemnity. So what I'm hoping is that if I lose my wife (pretty much a given), even if she remarries, and even if she manages to get sealed to another man (to which I will not consent, unless, perhaps, and even then ONLY perhaps, if my next wife demands it repeatedly and the Spirit constrains me to comply). I can and I fully intend to remain sealed to my wife even if I remarry in the Temple or am later sealed to another wife. Just because I have to lose my wife in this life, because of her poor choices, doesn't mean I have to have my sealing revoked against my will. She means infinitely more to me than just a ticket into the Celestial Kingdom, which I could trade for another. She is irreplaceable to me. She is precious and I refuse to throw her away as she has thrown me away. While I'm losing her now, I may eventually end up with even more than I had before. Maybe part of the reason this is happening is so I can prove my worth to Father as a Husband. I know I have already proven my love for her to Him, but that's a long story I won't get into right this minute. Dude, please, please, please don't give up. If you've made half the effort I have to make your wife feel loved and appreciated, you deserve all the happiness you could ever want and much more. Father sees, He knows, and your deeds and words are recorded in Heaven. He will reward and avenge, though people like us still have to forgive and behave in a Christ-like manner at all times. Now, in my situation, with the kids being taken from me (don’t know if that also happened to you) and time running out to keep them from becoming legal residents of another state with awful divorce laws and an eventual ex-wife who would gladly make use of them, I had no choice but to file for divorce, even though it remains the last thing I want. I filed, but I don't have to pursue the divorce to get the kids back here. My wife and I can reconcile and not get a divorce even if I don't dismiss the case. I could just decide to cancel the court date, but I won't do that until the kids are back, and my wife has agreed to get the help she needs in order to be able to live with her husband, in our house, without running off again. That's a pretty tall order, if you know my wife. I really doubt it will happen, especially with her sister, brother in law, mother, and others pumping her full of venom and bizarre beliefs of a Matriarchal order and rejection of Priesthood Authority that somehow has a place in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I did not file for a divorce because I want one. I only filed to get the kids back. While they're not back yet, I have prevented them from becoming legal residents of another state. When my wife and I do go to court, it will be here, where we have some of the most fair divorce laws in the country, and she will not be able to take them away from me again unless she gets full custody, which she will likely not. The courts here are fair to men. She can blame the divorce on me, but it's what she's wanted for a very, very long time. I will not pursue it. It will be her decision, not mine. My conscience is clear. I will be able to look back without regret when this is over. There is nothing I fear more than regret. Mistakes can be learned from and repented of, but some regret is forever. I believe that in the Celestial Kingdom I will not have to regret another's mistakes, only my own, at least perhaps if I have not repented of them. Dude, please feel free to share what you're going through if you are comfortable, whether in this thread or a PM. I can tell you what has helped me, and I hope you can tell me what is working for you. Sometimes just having someone to listen to you helps. There's a lot more I can say about what has helped me, but I'll save it for another post. Remember, you are a child of God. You are a cosmic Prince, Divine royalty, and you have the capacity to someday be an exalted being with your own spirit children and worlds without number to add to your glory. In the meantime, you are the beloved son of the God of Abraham, the ultimate power in the universe (or at least the galaxy, for those who've read the Kolob Theorem), and He loves you more deeply than you can imagine. He wants you to be loved, touched, held, kissed, praised, adored, respected, and cherished by one of his daughters who will not abandon you, belittle your relationship with Him, or your worth as a human being. He has one for you, and maybe your wife is it, maybe not. Time and the choices you both make will tell. Make the best choices you can, and I believe Father will tell you, like He told me: "No matter how this turns out, you're going to be okay."

While I'm not qualified to diagnose my wife, my best friend has a very strong background in psychology (his Dad is a very talented psychologist and a lot of it has rubbed off on him), and he and his Dad are both convinced that my wife has Borderline Personality Disorder, which, by the way, is hereditary. It also tends to show up as part of a "cocktail" of behavioral disorders and psychological problems, especially depression. Conventional belief is that 75% of people with BPD are women. It's so sad to see this happening to you too. I am hoping that we can all learn from what has happened not only to me but to other people before me. I am also hoping that the Brethren will speak very directly and bluntly about marital propriety and the need for husband and wife to put each other first instead of after relatives, friends, neighbors, etc. My wife has basically left me for her mother. She just can't seem to cut the umbilical cord. I know that someday I will find someone to whom I can give all of myself in every way, and who will give me all of herself too, holding nothing back. I just wish it could have been my current wife, the only wife I've ever had. I saved myself for her, and I don't ever want to give myself to anyone else. But this is a decision she is making for both of us, and has been since she was about 12 years old or maybe younger. She says she fell out of love with me before we got married. She got bored with me. I remember her chasing me around her parents' kitchen table because after her repeatedly refusing to let me kiss her, I stopped letting her kiss me. She laughed like it was cute, or a game. I was in a lot of pain and didn't think it was funny at all. It's only gotten worse since then. I guess a more pragmatic person would have left her back then. But I am not a quitter. I have held on, and forgiven her for things that even taken one at a time, most men would not have put up with. I believed in her when no one else would have. I stood by her when no one else would have. I gave her even more than I could, kind of like that song "No Ordinary Love" by Sade. Aside from the natural maturation process, I had to grow and become a larger person inside just to keep up with forgiving her and loving her when she made it so difficult to do so. Even now, I'd take her back if she would come back to me. But she wants the divorce. She thinks I'm worthless, easily replaceable, and the sole source of all her problems. She will someday find out that is nowhere near true. The worst part is that I will have moved on by then and found happiness with someone else (I only know this through personal revelation, not because I have any self esteem left), and until the end of time I will be so concerned about her well being and happiness that it will hurt me to see her have to face that. I hurt for the hurt she has caused herself, and because of the situation she's put me in against my will, has forced me to cause her. I love her truly, enough to die for her knowing that while I'm doing it, she still hates me. If my children can meet someone who cares that much for them someday, I will be overwhelmed with gratitude to Heavenly Father. But my wife is simply incapable of appreciating what matters. I blame part of this on what I have heard referred to as "Cultural Mormons". I live in a place with a very low concentration of LDS, and am a convert on top of that. A large part of my testimony is made of knowing the Gospel and Church are true by being able to see the difference between it and other Churches, from personal experience. Yet, I also know that there is goodness to be found in people outside the Church, and that mere membership in the Church doesn't make one a good person. My wife's sister is a monster. Her membership in the Church is a social matter rather than a spiritual one. It's all about listening to the right music, talking about the right things, knowing the right people, wearing the right clothes and hair, etc. She uses her membership in the Church to provide herself with an ivory tower from which she can cast stones at people for not measuring up to her expectations, formed on the basis of beliefs she holds which are not doctrinally supported or spiritually legitimate. It's the scribes and Pharisees all over again. My stepmother put it very succinctly and insightfully when she said "I don't get it; they can't have a Dr. Pepper but they can abandon their spouse and take his children away from him?" (I don’t mean to offend those who don’t drink caffienated beverages) Time to get off that soap box. Sorry about that. None of this would be happening, regardless of my wife's mental state, if she would simply keep her Temple covenants. Those of us who have been through the Temple know what covenants my wife has made, and that she is required to obey my counsel as I obey Heavenly Father's. I have been a welcome mat to her have almost never demanded that she obey me in anything. The one occasion I did was when I caught her writing love letters to an old boyfriend that she was then hanging out with while visiting her mother, over 1300 miles away from me. I couldn't do anything else about it, so I demanded in the name of Jesus Christ that she come back home. It didn't work then and it wouldn't work now, because a lot of people from that part of the country pick and choose what they believe when it comes to the Gospel. Those people can be so prideful, thinking they're so perfect because they show face at Church on Sunday, have the appearance of a Christian, interact with others and show off the image they're trying to sell, and revel all the time in their supposed piety. Meanwhile, inwardly, they are like whitewashed sepulchers, filled with dead mens' bones. There I go again. Sorry. Well Dude, I guess the question is what are people like you and I supposed to do? I can complain about the way things aren't. Actually, it's cathartic to impotently whine about it, even though I know I can't change the way things are. It really helps that my best friend provides me with free, daily counseling services and a multiple night a week place to go and watch movies, britcoms and generally take my mind off my troubles. And on top of that, pretty much everyone I know has offered me some words of comfort at some point, all individually contributing a unique and essential voice to a symphony of support that has kept me from ending it all, a temptation that still haunts me but is kept at bay. I hope you have similar support available to you. Regardless, know that I've already been praying for anyone and everyone who is going through a similar situation, and from now on I'll mention you specifically, in addition to Noche and others I've encountered here who are having their hearts and souls torn to pieces by others in the name of love. I've come a long way in the six months since my wife left me, though I still cry nearly ever day. To me, marriage, especially Temple marriage, is just about the most sacred thing imaginable. Letting go has been simply impossible, yet the situation forces me every day to try my best. My best is getting better. My strength is slowly increasing. I have learned to stop blaming myself for my wife's inability to appreciate all I've done for her, all I've given her, all I've sacrificed for her, all I've forgiven, all the love I've shown (most of which remains unacknowledged), and all I've endured for her. I've learned to stop blaming myself for her loving every last one of her relatives more than me, in addition to the barren wasteland where they all live (I happen to live about four hours south of where the Garden of Eden once was, and it often is easy to see echoes of that natural beauty). I've learned to stop blaming myself for not abandoning the best job I'll ever have, working for the best employer I've ever had (my bosses have repeatedly expressed sympathy and understanding and offered personal help, off the clock), a job which allows me to earn far more than most jobs in this part of the country tend to pay (which allows for a pretty decent standard of living, not to mention the most affordable health insurance I've ever had which used to even be free of charge). I've learned to stop blaming myself for not walking away from a house that took a year to sell when we bought it (in a much better economy than now), which would probably appraise for somewhere around 60% of what I owe on it, and which costs over $1000 a month. Yeah, I could do that, let the house go into foreclosure, move out there without a job waiting for me (like I could find one as good as mine if I tried), be an unemployed houseguest in my mother in law's house, along with my family, ruin my credit, and thereby not being able to get another good job again for a long time (employers check credit reports now). Would that be fair to my children? It wouldn't be fair to my wife, though it's what she thinks she wants me to do, or at least did before she got served the divorce papers. Now she just hates me and wants to erase me from her life. The sad thing is that she has already done so in every way but legally. She started when she fell out of love with me before we even got married. And that happened after she demanded that I leave everything behind and move out to where she was (is anyone else getting deja vu?). She has entirely forgotten what I once meant to her, and how much she once loved me. If there is any hope for saving my marriage now, it's hidden away in Heavenly Father's pocket. So I've allowed myself to imagine being married to someone who treats me the way I treat them. Someone who doesn't have a yucky past that she's still clinging to and comparing me unfavorably against, even though what we have is sacred and what they had...... not even close. I've allowed myself to believe I might someday be married to someone who will greet me most days with a smile and a kiss or hug, instead of screaming, snarling, and contempt without any provocation whatsoever. I've allowed myself to imagine being married to a woman who will give her entire being to me instead of putting up ridiculous boundaries, walls, and limitations, who will not hold back her love or play stupid, unhealthy head games with me. I imagine a woman who, if she does have a past, has gotten over it and won't let it come between us, and who certainly won't refuse me what she very enthusiastically enjoyed with someone else. I've also allowed myself to imagine being married to someone who won't call her own children, my children, in public or private, quote, “G.D. retards” when she gets angry at them, if indeed she ever gets anywhere near as angry and out of control as my wife often does. I've allowed myself to imagine being married to a woman who won't start swinging her fists and feet at me or her own children, my children, when she gets angry. I've allowed myself the luxury of believing I might one day be married to a woman who won’t make promises she can’t keep because she turns into a completely different person and never changes back except temporarily and on rare occasions. I’m talking about a woman who will treat me with respect and common courtesy, rather than ridiculing me while I'm trying to share my soul with her, who belittles my testimony in public, speaks to me in public with open hostility and contempt, and generally robs me of my self esteem day by day until I'm little more than a neurotic mess, a wreck of a human being. The fact that I still love my wife after all of this should really say something. I've allowed myself the luxury of imagining being married to a woman who is capable of loving me back just this much, though I swear I'll never test her love this thoroughly! One guilty pleasure I've allowed myself is to browse at some of the LDS dating websites. Please bare in mind that my wife left me six months ago and I'm just now doing this. After being gone one month, she was already talking about what she wanted in her next man. I have not registered yet or made any attempts to contact anyone, and won't until I'm legally single again. But just browsing, I've allowed myself to see what Heavenly Father has to offer me, or at least a glimpse of it. I know He will restore to me what is about to be lost through no real fault of mine. But seeing how many good, LDS women are out there looking for someone like me is really encouraging. It has helped me recover some of my self esteem and confidence, especially when I read what they are looking for in a man and I know I can fulfill those needs easily. I guess you could say I've been through "marriage boot camp", in a way. What my wife is throwing away as if it were smelly garbage, I know will fall into the hands of a sweet, kind, and warm woman who has just as much a right to the sort of blessings Heavenly Father gave my wife, but who will appreciate them and be grateful, and who will return those same blessings. In the meantime though, Dude, people like you and me still have a lot of pain to deal with, more than the English language is capable of describing. How can you describe to someone else the way it feels to have your soul torn to shreds because you live in the house where your wife and children used to live until she left you, how it feels to look at the kitchen table where you all used to eat as a family, how it feels to sleep alone in the same bed in which you once held each other tight and looked into each others’ eyes, how it feels to flee the pain you feel as the memories attached to one room by going to another, only to face other, equally sacred memories, which cause emotional torment proportional to the sanctity of the memories you still treasure so much, even the seemingly fleeting and trivial ones? How can you express to someone what this feels like? You cannot. I never understood what my friends went through when their first wives left them. I tried to be there for them, but I didn’t have a clue just how strong the pain they were going through was, and I had no idea what to say to them. Sometimes, with all the pain in my heart and soul, with all the fear of the actual end of my marriage in addition to this long time I have been abandoned and discarded like a soiled diaper, with the fear of having to take care of my kids all by myself when I don’t know what their daily routine is or how to be both a mother and a father at the same time? How do I go back to being just a lonely man all by myself when I’ve spent the last 14 years being part of something special that completed me? And now I know what was missing before, and what will be missing again. I was blissfully ignorant before, but my other half is slowly being torn from me, and it feels like being emotionally disemboweled, or skinned alive. And on top of this, I still have the bills to pay, a job to do (even though it can be pretty difficult to focus on work). Sometimes, with all this pain inside, all these worries, I feel like I have a mountain on my shoulders, and I feel myself start to bend and sink under the weight. But there is always someone out there you can talk to who is farther along in the process than you are. One person I know who very recently has been through what we're going through is ryanh, here at the forums. He's PM'd me a little about his situation. It helps a lot to be able to get a glimpse of your own future when you're in this much pain, and ryanh's present is a good indication of my near future. It might help you to talk to him if you haven't already.

Thanks again Noche, you're very kind to say those things to me. Being a codependent married to someone with BPD for over 13 years, I've had my self esteem taken to the lowest depths I could ever have imagined. It's not a good match for me, but I see Father's wisdom in it, thanks to a friend of mine. He told me that someone like me is the only kind of person who would have held on to her for so long, or want to keep holding on. Are most guys just less forgiving than I've been? I find it hard to believe I'm all that special. But then, every guy but my Bishop that I've ever talked to about it (in and out of the Church, and the ones in the Church have mostly been very honorable men) has told me there's no way they'd put up with even an isolated fraction of the pain she's put me through over the years. I didn't mean to imply that your husband is an "addict". Sorry about that. I was just throwing it out there as a possibility, and relating how my friend deals with his. I guess, from the point of view of people like my wife, all men are "addicts". Speaking for me, it was something I always looked forward to, round about when I turned 13. But I also knew it was forbidden before marriage, so I held it out for myself as a reward for abstinence before marriage. It was a reward I fully intended and still do intend to claim. I feel that I earned it, and that anyone who honors the law of chastity has earned it. My wife did things rather differently. I have no idea how to explain to myself why, for her, it was so thrilling, exciting, and frequently done before and it's so disgusting (her own word) now. For me, it's the other way around. I can understand your husband's need for you. I can imagine his frustration in the past, though I handled my own frustration differently. A marriage counselor my wife and I once saw told us that ignoring my needs was like pretending she could stop her monthly cycles. Yeah, it means that much to a man. For me, I always told my wife that's how I most naturally felt loved, or rejected, if that was the case. When she was selfish it really hurt me emotionally. Most of my happiest memories of her involve her sharing that intimate embrace with me, especially in creative, thoughtful, and imaginative ways. It's a very sacred and passionate thing for me, and from the sound of things, your husband can relate. I'd go so far as to say that it sounds, based on what you've said, that if you two are able to continue a more healthy relationship (in every sense, which sounds like it's the case), I'd say I think you're going to make it. I personally am very, very happy to see the chance for your marriage's survival that now exists. I'm glad to see you're likely not going to suffer the same fate as me. I thank God for that. I don't want to see what I'm going through happen to anyone else, ever. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, and I can be the most vindictive and unforgiving person that I know sometimes. Sounds like you and your husband are both doing the right things and heading in the right direction. Keep it up! God bless you both.

I saw this posted here in these forums, maybe even this thread. I haven't read this book yet, but I plan to someday. I thought I'd share the link with you, since something you said reminded me of this book: DeseretBook.com - And They Were Not Ashamed: Strengthening Marriage Through Sexual Fulfillment From the sound of things, I doubt this would explain what my wife's hangups were, but it still sounds like a pretty insightful book, from the reviews I read on it. As for my wife, we have not gotten divorced yet. We were supposed to go to court last week, but her lawyer got a continuance and there has not been a new court date yet. I finally got her to talk to me this week, and I asked her if there was any hope for us, and she said "I don't know", not in a somber way, but in a lackadaisical one, as if she really didn't care and that was the nicest way she could think of to say it. She never really appreciated me. I don't think that she'll remember how much she used to love me and how much I once meant to her until it's too late and I've remarried. Anyway, I'm glad to hear that you and your husband are communicating better now. You both need to always strive to understand each others' needs and wants. I think that was the root problem before, from the sound of things, and it sounds like you're addressing the heart of the matter now. Good for you!!!! Glad to see your marriage is probably going to make it!!

Hi Noche I can relate to your husband's complaints, unfortunately. My wife was VERY, VERY WILD when I met her, and I helped her repent (at least I thought so), and begin to live the law of chastity. Because of her Borderline Personality Disorder, she went from idealizing me to devaluing me. This actually happened before we got married. I thought maybe she was just going through a phase. It pretty much just got worse continually, with occasional moments of happiness along the way. It was enough to keep me from losing my mind, but there did come a point about 10 years ago, when I told her to either make me happy or set me free so someone else could. Her response was to call her mom and tell her I wanted a divorce. My fault, you see. She had a choice, but she blamed me for the one she chose. I don't know if all guys are like this, but it looks like I and your husband have this much in common. That's how we feel loved, through intimacy. When my wife withheld it from me, it really damaged our relationship. I felt rejected, unwanted, and given her past and the way it seemed to keep turning up in the present, I felt that she loved her old boyfriends more than me. She even freely admitted as much once. I found some old journals where she talks about wanting to beat me until I was unrecognizable and then go run away with one of her old boyfriends. I would have to say though, that rather than handle the situation the way he did, your husband should have been up front with you about how not having his needs met affected him. He handled that situation in all the wrong ways, from the sound of things. Now you're in a situation where you understand his needs, perhaps, but you probably also don't much feel like taking care of his needs after what's happened. I can't imagine how it would feel emotionally to be intimate with my wife knowing that she had recently been completely, physically unfaithful. But then many of the times we were intimate, she would want to do things with me that she did with other guys and I wondered if I was reduced to being a re-run of them, and if she was thinking of me or him/them. What hurt the most was knowing that she did things with them that she liked but didn't like doing them with me. Enough of this..... Please don't take this the wrong way, but it sounds like you both are going to have to make some changes for your marriage to survive, even if for now it seems like it already is. He may have been the one who broke his covenants and the commandments, but he does have legitimate needs, and neither of you can be happy as long as you continue to feel insecure and paranoid (some good advice for me to follow as well, I'm sure). Somehow you're going to have to learn to trust him again. Somehow you'll both have to find a balance between his work, relatives, etc., and the attention he pays to you. Would it be possible for his sister to come over to your place, or for you to go with him when he spends time with his sister? Then he could spend time with you both. I don't know, just a thought. At the end of the day, if he feels that your insecurities are a burden, he has to understand that it is mistakes that he made that made this happen. Maybe he can trace it back to a lack of generosity on your part, but he should have handled that differently. Still, going forward, it's good that you know it's a problem. Somehow, you're going to have to find a way to meet him halfway. I hope that doesn't sound critical of you. I'm sorry if it does. At the risk of exceeding the limits of propriety and good taste, I can tell you that if you are uncomfortable sharing your body with him, there are several other ways you can address his needs. Sometimes this seemed to be important to my wife. Sometimes it even changed her mind about "sharing". Okay, enough of that...... I think every troubled marriage would be stronger if the spouses could agree that spouse comes before all else but God, that all decisions affecting one's spouse ought to be made with that spouse's needs and wants being given equal consideration, and that both spouses should participate in the decision making process whenever possible or practical. I have seen in my own marriage how seemingly unimportant things can be very important to the other spouse, and that repeated failure to take the other's needs and wants into consideration leads to bigger problems and in the end, the weaker of the two will eventually cross the line in a big way. My wife rejected me, turned to others, has finally chosen her mom over me, and now that I have filed for divorce solely for the purpose of getting my children back, she has decided that it's what she wants anyway. She is going to divorce me because she has been failing to appreciate me, what I do for her, my patience with her, what I've suffered and endured for her, and how I've loved her intensely all along the way. She has failed to appreciate me and now is cleaving unto her mother instead of her husband. Her desire is to her mother (and herself) instead of me. She may perhaps not be in need of a Bishop's interview, but she is going to destroy our marriage just the same. I should be her priority. She should appreciate the things I've given her, the way I let her control all of our money and almost never complained that I had none for myself. She just wanted more and more. And when she asked what I cannot give, she blamed it on me and left me. I'm coming back to your husband's sister now. Seems to me like you'd be better suited to help her deal with her schmuck husband than your own husband would be. Your husband is effectively throwing rocks from the balcony of his own glass house, whereas you can certainly empathize with what his sister is going through and then some. The smart thing for your brother to do would be to include you in his efforts to comfort his sister, and probably take a back seat as well. And then you wouldn't be left out of his life. I can't help but think that if you, your husband, and his sister (and possibly her husband too) all prayed together and/or spent a night a week together, you might be able to help each other with all your combined problems. Your husband needs to find more ways to bring you into his life, not less. True, you need show him some trust and not get in the way of his work (that is, after all, how he provides for you), but it sounds like he has more to give than he currently is in terms of his time. I hope your Bishop can help you two find a balance. I worry that until you do, you're only postponing the inevitable. But maybe I'm just feeling pessimistic because of my own situation. Oh, one more thing, I just remembered. My best friend (who is very happily married) told me he is a sex addict, but that he keeps it under control with Wellbutrin. I don't know enough about your husband's situation to say more than this. Just FYI.

Thank you Noche! You are very kind to say that. Perhaps without even meaning to do so, she has all but destroyed my self esteem. One way in particular, and one which I'm sure you can relate to, is the way I have normally felt like she loved her old boyfriends more than me. This has very often been apparent in multiple ways. One was affection. Another was how much attention she paid to me, compared to her relatives, and in some cases, a guy who who lived in the apartment complex, old boyfriends, etc. I know I sound like an idiot for having put up with it, like it's so obvious now how badly I was being treated at the time. Hindsight is always 20/20. And I'm the sappy, codependent sort who will put up with an awful lot in the name of love. I don't think I could respect myself if I was any other way. And I don't have to tell you that marriage is probably the single most sacred ordinance of the Gospel, and should not be terminated except for when absolutely necessary. You've shown an incredible respect for your own marriage. If only more people were as dedicated to their marriage as you are! Another parallel I'm seeing here, or at least a possible parallel, between my wife and your husband is the inability to adequately appreciate a spouse. No amount of money I ever made was enough. I have provided a very nice home for my wife. It has a pool in the back yard, in a town where nobody has them. My wife always has to be swimming in the summer and even looks down on me that I get bored if I go swimming very often. But our pool isn't good enough. Nor is the city pool. Last summer she drove to another town about 25 minutes away and took the kids to the pool there because it was a bit more like a water park. She insisted we have a membership with the YMCA (about $40 a month, and she's always complaining about money) so that she could go to the pool for free. It also got her into city pools in other towns, and one or two of the other ones were indoor. Some days only an indoor pool was acceptable to her. "Good grief!!" Right? She has been virtually impossible to satisfy. And of course, it's my fault. So she decided, while visiting her mother, that our family will now live in Arizona. I was not allowed any say in this decision, but then I often wasn't shown any consideration in almost all of her decisions, which usually affected me. It didn't help much that her mom either agreed with her or actually talked her in to this instead of sending her back to her husband, like she should have. They expect me to quit the best paying job I've ever had in an economy that has seen the loss of 11.1 million jobs over the last two years, move out there and look for a job while our house goes into foreclosure (which would wreck my credit and make it very hard for me to get another job or another house), leave behind my non member relatives who need the Gospel influence so we can be near her member relatives who already have it. Plus, her mom works for an airline so she's got flight benefits. None of my relatives do. If I'm the sole breadwinner (as I have been for the most part), I'm stuck wherever we live, while she is free to travel as much as we can afford, and without having to ask for vacation time. The demand was placed on me, and when I prayed about it, the answer I received was to stay put. I've begged my wife repeatedly to come home or at least send the children back. The saddest part, I think, is that I have been conditioned to think that this is asking a lot of her. I shouldn't have to ask more than once. She's made covenants, and is breaking them, if you ask me. The most painful part for me is that I still can't stop loving her, after all the pain she's caused me. I miss her terribly. I just wish I could wrap my arms around her right now and forget everything else for a while. She deleted her email address so I can't email her. She won't answer when I call. She has shut me out, and all I ever wanted out of this world is to have her by my side, her hand in mine. She put me in a situation where I was forced to file for divorce, when it's the last thing I ever wanted. Now that she's been served papers, she is moving forward and wants to end our marriage. I still want her by my side, in my arms, in our home, together, forever. It goes without saying that your husband has broken his covenants. They don't get much more broken than that. Geesh! If I was in his place, the shame would be unbearable. And maybe that's how he feels and it's just not apparent. Hopefully he's past letting his shame keep him from making things right for you, or using it as an excuse, if that was the case. There is a line to be drawn somewhere regarding his accessibility for you when he is at work. There comes a point where he needs to be allowed to do his job, and you have to accept that he can't talk just now. But where that line is drawn is something the two of you need to talk about. Hopefully, he'd appreciate you for wanting to understand what his limitations are on how much time he can devote to you when he's "on the clock". Hopefully there is room for understanding, both ways. Do you have any friends that work where he does? Someone you can ask if he really is too busy? It's probably not the best way to handle this, but it might put your mind at ease if someone you trust tells you "Yeah, the guy was slammed with work when you texted him." I would prefer going that route to being forced to wonder, if I was you. When he tells you he can't talk/text/etc., is he polite about it? Does he sound annoyed? Stressed? Your faith in him has been compromised, but on the other hand, he has a legitimate need and responsibility to apply himself to his work. There's a balance to be struck there. I think you two should talk about it until that balance is found. There's bound to be more you're dealing with than that. If you don't mind sharing, what else is bothering you? Sometimes it helps just to vent. I'm here, as are others. It's hard to know what to tell you. It's hard for me to even know what to think in my own situation. I've been lucky in that a very good friend of mine is the son of a very talented psychologist, and has given me free counseling every day for the past few months. Here's an idea he gave me that might help you: When I was trying to decide whether or not to file on my wife (strictly for the purpose of getting the children back, as I have consistently stated that I prefer to reconcile and not get a divorce), he told me to take a pad and pen, draw a line down the middle, and on one side list things that I think would happen if I just waited for however long it took for her to come back to me (assuming she would at all), and on the other side, what would probably happen if I went ahead and filed. Then, on another page, he told me to make a list of worst case scenarios for both decisions, and on another page, best case scenarios for both decisions. Living with someone who has BPD is almost like having it yourself sometimes. It's really not possible to make a sound decision when you're basing it on the emotional state of someone else, and they're that unstable. So these lists enabled me to think more logically. Eventually, I saw what I stand to lose if I didn't file. I saw how unlikely it was that I'd gain what I wanted to if I didn't file. I realized that my back is to the wall and basically, I've got nothing left to lose. Maybe a list might help you. I know if it wasn't for the counsel of my friend, I'd have ended it all by now. The pain is simply unbearable. You probably know all too well. Whatever you do, don't give up. If your marriage comes to a tragic end, like mine is about to, remember that part of the reason why is so that Father can replace an incompetent spouse with one who will love you as Father wants you to be loved. Noche, I'd like to return the favor and tell you how lucky your husband is to have you for a wife. Some men are married to women who scream and shout at them, who greet them with contention, disprespect, hostility, and contempt when they come home from work, for no other reason than for simply showing up. Some men are married to women who have no understanding of the Temple Covenants they make, and treat their husbands like children, who are to obey them as superiors. Some women treat their husbands like they are of no worth beyond a paycheck and health insurance. Some women ridicule their husbands for not meeting unrealistic, selfish, or insatiable expectations. You don't seem to be one of those women. You've forgiven your husband for something that typically ends marriages. You've shown him mercy that he had no right to expect, even if it was the most Christ-like thing for you to do, and what the Holy Spirit constrained you to do. I hope your husband appreciates that and realizes how lucky he is to have a wife as forgiving, patient, and loving as you obviously are. Maybe he does and just doesn't know how to show it. I don't know enough to say. But I know that if he quits on your marriage, and you're stuck looking for a new husband, any man would be lucky to have you. You are a literal daughter of the very God of Abraham. You are cosmic nobility, a literal princess. You will one day be a Queen in a Celestial Kingdom, just like your Heavenly Mother. You deserve to be loved, held, complimented, cherished, caressed, adored, and made to feel good about being you. This is a gift that Father wishes for us all. I believe that every married person is obligated to bless their spouse with all the love they want, that a spouse is a gift from God and should behave as such and magnify that calling. I may not be a perfect husband, and I may have let my wife down on occasion, but I normally did my best to bless her with the love that Father wanted her to have. What father is there that doesn't want his daughter, when she becomes an adult, to have a romantically fulfilling marriage, to feel engulfed in a warm and complete love? I believe Father wants this for his sons too. I know it's all I ever wanted since I was 10 years old. I believe He has decided that my wife's chance to be that love for me is almost up, and that if she continues to refuse and reject me, I will be taken from her and given to another (remember the parable about the talents?). I hope if that happens (though it would break my heart), He gives me someone at least half as generous as you have been to your husband. God bless you Noche. Do what you feel is right, even if it means continuing to give and be patient when you don't want to anymore. If there is any chance that your marriage can be a healthy and happy one, Father will want you two to save it. Neither of you can do it alone. You have to come together and be one, in every way. You have to both give yourselves completely to each other. Again, it may be that your husband really is that busy at work. Maybe the work load is changing. I enourage you two to talk about it, without any contention. Maybe try to talk about and it and put it on the back burner if it gets too difficult. If you do that, and you know you'll have to come back to it eventually, you might find yourselves both more willing to compromise later. The Holy Spirit may help you both resolve it on your own in the meantime, or prepare you to do so when you continue discussing it. Never forget to encourage him. Men need to know their wives believe in them and stand by them. And we often don't pick up on the subtle messages women try to give us. Be as patient as you can. Remember that you catch more flies with honey. Make sure he knows how you feel, what you want and need, and what matters most to you, and be as direct and up front as you can about it, without sounding confrontational. If he loves you (and it sounds like he does), he will want to know how to make all this easier on you. He probably just isn't good at showing his love, at least in the way that matters most to you. My wife and I naturally feel loved by the other in different ways. I used to assume she felt loved the same way I did, and did my best to express my love in that way. It mostly just caused problems. When she made it clear to me how she naturally felt loved, I did my best to express my love in that way instead. On the occasions on which I can recall her being grateful to me, it was when I showed her love the way she wanted it to be shown. Does he know what he needs to do to make you feel loved by him? Is he skilled at expressing love in that way or does he need your help? My wife wanted me to come up with creative gifts and expressions of love, like a crossword puzzle I made for her based on our courtship and other happy times together, but I ran out of ideas most of the time. It would have been easier for me if she had helped cultivate that creativity she wanted me to have. Does your husband just need help understanding what you need from him? Again, God bless you Noche. You remain in my prayers.

You are not naive, Noche. You are admirable. I salute you. It takes a special kind of person to forgive as you are doing. You deserve a medal. On judgment day, you'll get one. It's very hard to let go. It also happens to be that way for a reason. We should be unwilling to let go. We should be unwilling to give up on someone to whom we pledge eternal love, especially in the Temple. And who wants to go through life haunted by the memories of a loved one we WON'T still be sealed to and be with after mortality? Who wants to face the prospect of a future with a knife stuck in your heart that will never truly come out? I still remember the first time I saw the movie "Titanic". My wife and I went with some friends. Neither of us drove, so on the way home, I was able to look into her eyes the whole time. I will never forget the look in her eyes. I have hundreds of memories like that. This has been my life for the past 14 years. It is the only life I remember. She is the only wife I've ever had, the only woman with whom I've ever shared my body, soul, heart, and mind. She is the mother of the only children I have. We went through the Temple for the first time together. I was waiting for her at the veil. I heard her speak her new name. I heard it spoken in her own voice. On the morning of the resurrection, I will be the one to call her forth from her grave, by that name (At least that was the plan; I don't know how things will work out now). The morning we were married, when I escorted her to her place at the altar, the officiator commended me for holding her hand and doing so, compared to most men, whom he said typically just went to their own side of the altar and expected their bride to do the same. I knelt with her at the altar in the Temple, held her hands, looked into her eyes and rejoiced like never before or since, knowing that what I had wished for and hoped for from the age of 10 was at long last mine. I had found someone to love, who would love me back (or so I thought), and we were now married for time and eternity. It has always been the greatest, happiest day of my life. It will soon be a memory that haunts me like a malicious ghost. If I could save my marriage I certainly would. I hope nothing I've said has discouraged you from doing everything in your power to save your own marriage. Please forgive me if I did. I'd cheerfully die for my wife, knowing that she hates me as I do it, knowing that her love for me went into a coma a long time ago, and has only temporarily snapped out of it on a few occasions. I know that she loves herself and her mother too much to honor her Temple covenants and remain by my side in any case. I know that she loves herself too much to share our children with me unless forced to do so by a judge. I know she has so little love for me that she will never appreciate all I do and have done for her, to the point that she is willing to leave behind all her possessions, a large and comfortable house, and one of the most beautiful places on earth to be a permanent house guest in her mother's house. Nothing I ever gave her was good enough. No amount of money I ever earned was good enough. I guess she's just gotten too tired of pretending otherwise. Still, I love her with all my heart. I've tried not to, but I can't control it. I wonder when or even if my tears will ever stop falling. It cheers me to hear that at least your husband is willing to try to make things right. It sounds like he's making you happy. That's a very good start. Be sure to encourage that type of behavior. All men need encouragement from their wives, and in his case, he'll need a LOT more than others. I heartily applaud you for telling him that next time he feels he's not good enough for you that he should focus on improving himself rather than walking away. That carries with it the ringing endorsement of the Holy Spirit, who constrains me to testify of it. I would only add to what you said that you are asking him to do that not because he's not good enough, but because you don't want to lose him and you believe in him. That is the message I keep trying to get to my wife. For this to work out, he is going to have to believe that you see potential in him, and that his growth so far is appreciated. Thank you for your prayers. You remain in mine. ---- The Gospel of Jesus Christ -- because no man is an island ----

Hi Noche I don't envy you for the way your husband is so nonchalant and cavalier about what you're going through as a result of what he has done to you. Have you told him that it hurts you when he exhibits so little (if any) remorse for what he's done to you, specifically? Is he just unable to adequately express his feelings? It's apparent that he regrets that he's in trouble with the Church right now, but from what you've said so far, it sounds like his regret ends there. He should feel much more regret for what he's done to you than for what he's done to himself. He certainly should be repenting and all that, but does he expect that alone to heal your pain? Healing himself may make him more able to heal you, but they're not necessarily the same thing. And if you ask me, his repentence ought to include a sincere and strong effort to replace your pain and insecurity with trust and happiness. This reminds me of something my wife did about four years ago. While she was out visiting her mom (what a surprise, right?), I found emails (love letters, actually) to an old boyfriend in her email account (makes me wonder why she has a new email account now, but I digress). When I confronted her about it, she admitted that she had been out to lunch with him, and if I remember correctly he had been over to her mom's place to see her once while her mom wasn't around. When I found the emails she had sent him, one of them in particular, which was nothing short of a love letter, I fell to pieces. I didn't know what to do so I showed it to my best friends and asked them to tell me what to think or what I should do about it, and how, if possible, I might save my marriage. Then I showed it to my Bishop. Maybe I was angry and wanted to rat her out. Maybe I was just hurting and wanted someone to help me deal with it. I can't remember what I was thinking other than that it hurt A LOT. When my wife eventually came home from that visit, she had to face our Bishop and answer for those emails and for seeing her old boyfriend face to face. I wasn't there for it, of course, but all I've ever heard about it has been what my wife told me, and she said that he was too harsh with her, that he told her that if I divorced her the kids would only be sealed to me, that she was in danger of being disfellowshipped or excommunicated, etc. She said he also lectured her about being generously intimate and went on about his love life, etc. As you can see, she had a pretty low opinion of him after that. It really bothered me that all I heard from her were negative comments about the Bishop (who, by the way, happened to be the guy who brought me into the Church, in whose home I had the discussions, which were basically just Q & A after having been taught by him and his wife). She never seemed to express remorse for what she'd done to me except for on a couple of occasions not long after I found out. She certainly was defensive and remorseless when it came time to answer to the Bishop. I seem to remember trying to convey to her on at least a few occasions that her stubbornly defensive and bitter attitude toward the Bishop had the effect of telling me that she felt that what she did wasn't wrong, and given how much it hurt me in the first place, her attitude with the Bishop hurt as well. I wanted her to accept that what she had done was a serious mistake and that she should expect to be chastised by the Bishop for it, or punished or corrected in some way or other. I've made mistakes in the way I've treated her in the past, and one time it cost me my Temple recommend. My attitude was that I'd rather hand it over and take counsel from the Bishop than to pollute the Temple with my presence. My Bishop at the time commended me on my attitude. It was a lot different from the attitude that my wife would have years later about her emotional infidelity. And as far as that goes, it was the last of 11 or 12 times she was emotionally unfaithful to me (that I know of), not the first. My wife was too selfish to care about my feelings. When I caught her being unfaithful, and she was sorry then, she agreed to rip all the pages out of her old journals that talked about her old boyfriends (and the wicked things they did together). But when she came home a month or so later, she had changed her mind, and acted as though she'd never promised in the first place. Only after my repeated begging and pleading and her yelling and screaming did she finally just throw them all away. It hurt me that she felt such a need to hold on to a past that was so painful to me. It hurt me that she showed so little remorse for what she'd done to me. I know how you feel Noche! Does your husband? Speaking for men in general, one of our flaws is that we don't read between the lines very well when women are trying to be subtle, or drop hints. We often need them to be very direct and blunt. I'm not saying you haven't been; I couldn't know. But it's something to think about. If I were you, I'd tell him very bluntly and as clearly and thoroughly as possible exactly how you feel when he brushes off your feelings, given what's going on and/or has been going on. I wouldn't try to sound angry or bitter, but rather, hurt, saddened, etc., which, in addition to your just and righteous anger, you certainly are. You have a right to feel the way you do. He should be more considerate of that. The fact that he doesn't tells me that he doesn't care enough. That might be selfishness. It might be a psychological problem. I say it doesn't really matter what causes it. You can't hurt someone, claim you have a behavioral disorder that made you do it, and expect that to make their hurt go away. When a person injures a child of God, he ought to at least try to make amends, not excuse himself. When a person hurts someone and tries to make excuses, that tells me that either they don't fully understand the pain they caused, or they just don't care. Make sure your husband understands, and then it'll be obvious why he's not more concerned with your feelings, if that is still the case. As long as you don't make it a gripe session or speak in anger or bitterness, you ought to be allowed to take as much time and as many words as you want to explain how you feel. And he ought to be willing to listen if you want to talk about your feelings. It's one thing if you keep them inside and don't share them, but if you're willing to share with him the feelings in your heart, the very pieces of your soul, he ought to consider himself privileged that you would do so, especially after what he's done. He ought to dare to hope to keep your love. He ought to want and need you so much that he would at least try to be worthy of you. He shouldn't be so quick to give up and declare himself unfit for you. That sounds like a cop out for a bigger problem. If he really loves you, I say he ought to try to convince you to love him back, even if you don't anymore. He ought to be desperate to get back what he threw away. A man in love would do that, even if he was too ashamed of himself to approach you very many times, he would at least still try to remind you that he was there for you and let you decide freely if you still wanted him or not. For cryin' out loud, I'm doing that with my wife right now (or was until she shut me out and her mom stopped talking to me), and I'm not the one who left with the kids, who tried to use them and our marriage to blackmail her into living where I want to live, etc. I'm starting to get worked up now. Sorry about that. Noche, I know your pain, more or less, and it just makes me angry to know that other people are having to suffer as I have. It makes me feel like we're all suffering in vain sometimes, when even people in the Church can't learn to do better than this. Why are there so many LDS teens who have so little respect for the law of chastity? Why do they grow up to become unfaithful spouses instead of learning from their mistakes and considering the pain they cause their spouses by not saving themselves for them? Why, after all the brethren have said about pornography are there still men and boys out there who keep getting hooked on it, and who let it take over their lives much like the way that drugs do? Why do these people not look around and see the pain that this sort of behavior causes and decide in their youth that they will not contribute to this problem? Why are there people, even in the Church, who are so indifferent about the pain they place on others, even the ones they covenant before God and angels to love and honor for eternity? How is this even possible? Again, I'm getting worked up about this. Sorry Noche. You are in my prayers too. I hope you will have the strength you need to cope with your own pain, each and ever day. I hope you have the support available to you that I've had. Without it, I'm certain I'd have ended this pain myself by now. I have a feeling Father has something better in mind for me, and that I'd be throwing away a beautiful future if I did that. I wouldn't be surprised if He's got something similar in mind for you. Again, don't be afraid to do what you think is right, and to heck with what anyone else thinks. They don't have to live with the results. You do, and so you have the right to do what you believe must be done. Hold on to your husband if you want, or tell him to take a hike if you prefer. You've already demonstrated, in my opinion, that you've forgiven him, that you place a proper value on your marriage and your covenants. You've shown him mercy, and it sounds like he's not sufficiently appreciative of that mercy. But if you love him too much to let go, that is a sign of compassion and sincere love, not weakness. You're supposed to not want to get rid of him right away. You love him whether he deserves it or not. You've already proven yourself, in my view, for whatever that's worth. You're in the right. You're justified. I encourage you to ask Father if He agrees. His opinion's the one that really matters, not mine. I was prayerfully pondering this particular part of my own situation one day, and the answer I got was that Father was not going to tell me what to do about it because, among other reasons, I was justified in whatever decision I made concerning how to proceed. If I held on or let go, either way, He was satisfied that I had proven my love, that I'd given her enough chances to come back to me and honor her covenants and stop sinning against love. Her time as my wife has been up since then, and she remains my wife only due to my mercy and the fact that she has not yet had the opportunity to make our divorce official. Very soon, she will end our marriage herself. My garments will be unspotted and my conscience clear. I believe Father would tell you what He has told me: "The decision is in your hands and you are justified." Ask Him tonight. If you can, ask Him right now. Keep praying about it, and follow your heart. I believe in you. But more importantly, so does Heavenly Father.

I can see you're a lot like me, Noche. I too have been holding on to my marriage and stubbornly refusing to give up on my wife, and I still am to a degree. She has a behavioral disorder that has not been diagnosed correctly, but I believe she has Borderline Personality Disorder. On the other hand, I'm a codependent, so we're about the only possible combination of personalities that could have made our marriage work. I often explain it to people like this: if you ever watch "Cops" and you see some shirtless guy getting dragged out of a trailer house and a woman with a black eye following close behind yelling "Don't take him away! I love him! I just want him to stop!" Well, I'm that woman, metaphorically speaking. My wife has hurt me very deeply, many times over the 14 years I've known her. But I always manage to forgive her. When we were only dating, and we both told each other that we were in love, she told me she would never kiss another guy ever again. Soon after, I found out that she'd begun dating a guy in her singles ward, that she had been alone with him in his apartment, where he served her a candle light dinner, wore no shirt, gave her a rose, and she kissed him. When I found out, I told her she had to choose. She refused to do so, and I was about to dump her. Her mom begged me to give her a second chance, and explained that she had raised my wife to be a boy crazy date-a-holic (they think that sort of thing is cute where they come from), and that she was not used to being in an emotionally serious relationship (although she certainly was accustomed to being in EXTREMELY serious physical relationships, but oh well), and she promised to explain to her daughter why it was no longer appropriate to play the field. I relented. The next time I talked to my future wife, she said she had already committed to another date with him and that she was going to honor that and then she'd stop dating. I feel like an idiot admitting that I accepted this, after the promises she had already broken. But this is what I'm like. I put up with nonsense in the name of love. I've been doing that for 14 years. I was also like that with a girl I loved before I met my wife. Anyway, I can understand why even though by simply describing what you're going through, your husband sounds like slime, and yet you still are holding on to your marriage. You wouldn't have married him if he didn't have, at least once upon a time, qualities about him that you love. My wife was a completely different person when I met her. She was the sweetest person you'd ever meet. She adored me. She showered me with affection. She may not have liked everything I liked, or agreed with every opinion of mine, but she could at least be tolerant of, if not accepting of things about me that were different from her. Slowly, over the years, she began cleaving more and more to her mom and growing more and more distant from me. It started with something kind of trivial, like how we both hated country music, and she came back from visiting her parents and all the sudden liked it. Now it's gotten to the point that she left me to live with her mom, and took the kids with her. She left for a month long visit. That was nearly six months ago. I went out to visit her and the boys in late October/early November. We had a very special night together and grew closer than we had been in a very long time, but it wasn't enough for her to decide to come home with me. She had already decided that home was there and not here. She begged me to stay with her, as if my paychecks would keep coming in even if I abandoned my job, and as if the mortgage would somehow continue to get paid, or if not, that my credit score wouldn't be ruined, and that it wouldn't affect our lives. She wasn't thinking practically. She was also being selfish, even if she was also being sweet about it. She never had any intention of coming home. She asked me to go out there and visit her again over the New Years weekend. My step brother was getting sealed that weekend and I was also going to be on call, so I asked her to come visit me instead. At first she agreed, and then she changed her mind. Since then, she got the papers that she already knew were coming (and why) when she asked me to come visit her, and she has done the following: She changed the password on her email account (we always let each other know what our passwords were, in a spirit of openness and sharing). It had always been the date that we met, but she changed it. Then she deleted the email account. Before she broke off communication with me, she said she was doing so, but that she would hand her cell phone over to the boys when I called so I could still talk to them. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to contact them (I left voice mails), she defaulted the voice mail greeting on her cell phone to an automated attendant, so if I find myself leaving a message, I won't even hear her voice anymore. The only time I am able to hear her voice is when I call and as she's handing the phone to my son, I faintly hear her telling him it's me. I still love my wife, even though I know she's bad for me. She brings out the worst in me, through her unstable and contentious behavior. She often yells and screams at me. She is incredibly selfish. She is high maintenance and never satisfied. She has betrayed my trust through emotional infidelity so many times I don't have enough fingers to count. She has rejected me constantly and hurt me profoundly. She has destroyed my self esteem. And yet, I still remember the good times, which never completely stopped, they just grew more and more infrequent. And what good times they were! When everything was right, it was amazing! I don't know, maybe it was just by comparison to the bad times, but I have known love, and I know what I'm losing. I am losing my wife. It is not my choice. It is hers. I can't control it. I have fought it and continue to fight it. With every prayer I ask for her happiness, and for her mind to be healed so she can come back to me and put our family back together. I pray that my marriage will be saved. But even Heavenly Father can't interfere with free agency. I can pray that angels will attempt to influence her to make the right decisions, but ultimately it's up to her. That is why I know it won't be my fault if my marriage fails. That, and the fact that I've done everything I could think of to save it. I commend you for doing the same thing, Noche. If you believe you need to hold on, then I salute you for doing that. You know what is best for you, as long as you're praying, reading the scriptures, consulting your Priesthood authority, and doing your best to live the Gospel. I know that if I was in your situation, I'd probably be doing exactly what you're doing. I would not have filed for a divorce if I wasn't in danger of losing my children. Instead, I'd wait for her to do it. Either that or come to her senses and return to me. I waited as long as I could before filing. But my boys were about to become legal residents of another state. If, after that point, either me or my wife had filed, it would go to court there, and I would be hung out to dry. The courts tend to favor the locals over the out of staters. This actually happened to a guy I know. He makes three times what I make, but can only afford a small studio apartment. He almost never gets to see his kids. All because he kept waiting and the children became residents of another state. In order to prevent that, I had to file for a divorce. It was the only way to keep from losing my children. It was my only legal recourse. I cannot describe how painful it was to sign papers to end the most precious thing in my life, apart from my testimony of truth of the Gospel. Divorce was the last thing I wanted, and yet I was forced to file for one. I have maintained that I don't want my marriage to end, but my wife is patently embittered and has thrown the word "divorce" around plenty of times over the years. She had been working up to this already, and the fact that I filed probably is all she needs to absolve herself in her own mind of any blame. I blame the in laws, to a large degree. They appear to have always viewed her as their property, never letting go, always resenting me for having moved my family so far away from them. They got her back and circled the wagons. They've poisoned her mind against me, although she had already done that herself to a point. When she complained about what a bad person I was, in her view, and told them all about things that neither of us should be discussing with anyone but each other, they latched on to everything she said as if it were 100% true. They did not ask me for my side of the story. When I offered it, they dismissed it. They encouraged her to emotionally divorce herself from me, or use my children as bargaining chips while blackmailing me into moving out there, contrary to the answers to my prayers on the matter, and several unmistakable personal revelations I've received. Still, at least I can say that as far as I know, my wife never physically cheated on me after marriage. I don't envy you for what you've endured, though I've tasted a portion of it many times. Every situation is different. Every person is different. Only you can decide how to handle this. Don't let anyone tell you you have to give up on your husband, but remember that there's only so much you can do, and if your husband wants to end your marriage, it's not your fault and it's out of your hands. Do what you feel you should to save your marriage, but don't blame yourself. Don't let the in laws convince you that you're wrong. If you've made any mistakes in your marriage, correct them now and proceed with a clear conscience. There are, unfortunately, a lot of us here on these threads who have been or are going through something similar to what you are now. Support is available. But always be true to your heart. It's better to fail at trying to save your marriage and look foolish to the cynics than to take their advice and regret for the rest of your life not doing what you felt you should have, wondering if you might have saved your marriage had you done so. There is nothing worse than regret. It is my belief that in my own situation, my wife has treated me and our children so badly, for so long, that Heavenly Father is tired of it and is about to take us away from her, because we deserve something better, and she's too prideful and selfish to change. I would never have made this happen on my own. I would never have quit on my marriage, and am not doing so now. So I've found myself in a situation where it's out of my hands. My wife may not have filed herself, but she's made it absolutely impossible for me to avoid doing so, despite how much I still love her. My love for her has actually interfered with what Father wants for my family. She won't stop screaming at and verbally abusing us, even physically abusing us, and keeps contaminating the spirit in our home. This is not what Father wants for any family. And I would never have put a stop to it, though I tried to work with her. I never would have left her, or given up on her. So my hand has been forced, and it is God's will. I have been forced to do the unthinkable, like when Nephi was commanded to slay Laban. This is what it took. I would never have "slayed" my marriage without being forced to like this. Your situation may be completely different. You must find the purpose behind why this is happening. No one else but God can tell you, though He may tell you through the insights of others. I've gleaned here and there a bit of randomly dispersed wisdom from friends and relatives. I've figured some of this out on my own. Stay true to your heart, or it will haunt you for the rest of your life. But if your heart tells you that his chances are over and you've done all you can for him, that it is time for you to move on and receive the blessing he should have been to you, a blessing that your Heavenly Father wants you to have, you have to be prepared to follow your heart down that path as well, should the time come. Your Father loves you and He wants you to be loved, embraced, made to feel ecstatic, even. Your husband (as are you) is supposed to bless you with all the love you want. This is a gift from Heavenly Father that you received in the Temple, at the altar. Father may be perfect, but we all are not, and so if your husband has dropped the ball, you can know it's not Father's fault, but your husband's. Father may decide that your husband's chances are gone, and that you deserve better. In my own situation, the final decision will be made by my wife herself, and I won't have to blame myself, because I know I've done all I could to save my marriage, which is very nearly over. I go to court in about a week. I am still hoping for a miracle, but the miracle I get may not be the one I'm asking for. Nevertheless, not my but Father's be done, and I will reconcile myself to it. He knows best anyway. If you want to vent more about this, we are here for you Noche. It has been very therapeutic for me to just vent. 14 year's worth of intense memories don't just vanish overnight. Anything you're comfortable talking about, I'll read, either here in this thread, or you can PM me if you want. Hang in there. You are loved. Don't give up.

The flip side of this coin is that a lot of guys (every one I know), once they've been married and are no longer in "the V club", find physical intimacy to be an absolute need. Asking them to go without it is like asking them to go without food or water sometimes. And beyond reassuring them that their marriage is okay or providing pleasant physical sensations, it also tends to provide a married man with emotional fulfillment, more than anything else. If you talk to two married men, one of which is married to a woman who is taking care of his needs and the other of which is not, and you ask them both how loved they feel, the answer would be obvious. A "frustrated" husband would tell you that if he could only be shown the love he needs, and if only his "frustration" was addressed, he would be more able to cuddle and do other such things, as he wouldn't be teasing himself by doing them. But if his needs aren't being met, those activities are just torture for him, especially if he knows in advance they won't lead to something more. For a man, these affections are precursors to full intimacy, and they DEFINITELY get a man "prepared" for it, perhaps even deperate for it. This man that MorningStar mentions who was so stingey with his affections may not necessarily have been doing that out of coldness, so much as just trying not to further torture himself. This has actually been my own personal experience. I'd avoid contact like that because it just made me need more, which I often had to do without. It's like being forced against your will to fast for weeks and then volunteering to cook a meal for someone. And if you decline to go near the food, you're accused of being unloving or cold, when you're really not. This is asking more of a man that I think some women realize. Of course, a real man is not even going to think about taking his needs anywhere else, and like I said, there are emotions involved. For me, love was always a factor in desire. And being rejected by the one you love hurts. It also affects your self esteem. Taken to the extreme, this will destroy a marriage and reduce a man (or a woman?) to an agonized emotional wreck. And yet, the woman's point of view is also valid, even if not understandable. Is it hang ups? Is it ignorance of the fact that anything a married couple mutually agree to do behind closed doors is okay with the Lord? Surely there's a happy medium. Anyone know what it is? I'd like to know.

Thanks Noche Obviously, you and I both know what the other is going through. Sounds like there are others on this thread too. How sad that this sort of tragedy affects so many. I had hoped it was more rare than this. It's starting to sound like an epidemic. I want to take another opportunity to encourage you to follow your heart in this matter. If you feel like holding on to your husband, even if it seems all hope for your marriage is nearly lost, do what you think is right! Some of my friends simply don't understand why I waited as long as I did to file divorce papers, why I kept waiting for my wife to come back to me instead of taking legal action to get the kids back sooner. Some in my ward even questioned whether or not I loved my children, because I let her keep them from me for so long. They just didn't understand why I was so patient and forgiving with her, why I allowed her to come as close to getting the kids legal residence in another state, which would effectively terminate my rights as their father. I had to give her every opportunity to come back to me that I could. I had to wait. I had to hope. I still love my wife and don't want to lose her. Here's why, and I have a feeling you can relate: I have so many beautiful, sacred, treasured, romantic, joyful memories with her. Yeah, there have been bad times. There have been times when we fought like cats and dogs, abused each other in almost every way, etc. But when I look back, I remember a LOT more of the good times than bad. I remember anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases, etc. I remember dates. I remember family outings that turned up special but brief, romantic moments between the two of us. I remember plenty of times we went out for a drive and got caught up in a romantic moment and..... well I remember a lot of stuff like that. When she wanted to, she could really make me feel loved and cherished. I also remember being with her during bad times that didn't involve fighting. I remember being with her on 9-11. I remember being with her when her dad died. I remember trying to comfort her after a miscarriage. I remember holding her in my arms and comforting her after she had just confessed feeling attracted to another man. I remember trying to comfort her through her depression, anxiety, etc. I remember every time she was sick and throwing up, bringing her a cup of water, holding her hair behind her head in a ponytail with one hand, and rubbing her back with the other. I remember being there for her, serving her, and loving her. I know how it feels to think about trying to let go. I know how it feels to think that there will never be another one for me, or at the very least, never one I could bind myself to so intimately and thoroughly. I gave my wife things I can't take back and give to someone else. I gave her my virginity. She is the only woman who ever saw me undressed and wasn't changing my diaper. I always believed with absolute certainty that she would forever be the only one. She is the woman of my dreams and all I ever wanted (at least when her behavioral disorders aren't acting up). Now all that is about to end. It will be her choice. I refuse to pursue the divorce any farther than is necessary to get my kids back, which is the whole reason I filed. I don't want a divorce, but filing was the only way to get my children back before they became legal residents of another state, one which has some of the worst laws regarding divorce and child custody in the country, while my home state has some of the best and most fair. Enough about me. I'm just trying to illustrate how hard it is to let go, and to tell you I can empathize with your situation. Only you can decide whether to hold on or let go. Advice and opinion may help you make your own decision, but only you can know what is best for you. I would encourage you to look to your Priesthood authority rather than allowing a relative to interfere in your marriage, or whatever is left of it. The meddling of in laws is the primary reason my marriage is failing right now. Getting back to what I said about you being your husband's only shot at the Celestial Kingdom, I did not mean to say that you or I are obligated to hold on to our spouses in spite of intolerable circumstances, such as the pain they are putting us through as they wallow in their own selfishness. Only you know what you can take. Only you know when it will be more than you can stand and you have to walk away. Be glad you don't have children with this guy. Your freedom to leave him and not look back, if you choose to, is a comfort I envy. If I and my wife had no children, I'd just keep waiting and let her divorce me when she eventually chose to, and my pain would be much less than it is. I have to live with not only the pain she is causing me, but also the pain this is causing our children, and the pain I'm causing her by taking a stand against her in court. And the pain I am causing her hurts me too. I feel responsible for that pain, even though I'm only doing what she has forced me to do because of the situation she has put me in against my will. It is very likely that you and I both will lose our spouses, regardless of what we want, or how hard we try to be the best we can be. We can only control what we do. Love isn't always returned as it is given, unfortunately. What I will remember if my marriage fails, and I hope you will too, is that it won't be my fault because I've done all I could to save it, and if my spouse chooses to destroy our marriage, I will be given someone better, someone who will treat me the way I treat them. Heavenly Father has allowed my wife to reject me for a long time, and I feel that He has given to me the right to decide with a clear conscience whether or not I wish to go on like this. Her chance is almost up. She is nearly ripe in the iniquity of her rejection of me and the covenants she has made in the Temple. Heavenly Father has let me know that like Nephi, whom He authorized to shut up the heavens or send forth the rain at his own discretion, because He trusted Nephi to do so wisely, Heavenly Father has also authorized me to cling to my unloving wife or let her go if I choose. I know that if I lose her He will replace her for me with someone who would treat me much better. I don't want to replace her, though. There is no replacing anyone. Everyone is a unique child of God and cannot be replaced. But Father has expressed to me that He has confidence in my judgment, that I have proven my love is very strong, and that He will stand by the decisions I make in this crisis. He has authorized me to decide when my wife's chances are run out in our marriage, or to continue to hold on to her, if that is what I choose. Eventually, we all run out of opportunities to do the right thing. None of us are capable of procrastinating the day of our repentance forever. My wife's time is about up, though she will have to be the one to pull the plug because I won't do it. Maybe that's why Father trusts me with this decision. Noche, I believe you're in pretty much the same situation, though I am not entitled to that level of inspiration for your life. Please just consider my own situation as food for thought. I know a guy who went through what I'm going through, and he didn't make the decisions I'm making right now. He is suffering for it. I learned from the results of his choices. I won't let what happened to him happen to me too. But he made his choices, I'm making mine, and you have to make yours. Take courage, remember that in Gethsemane our Lord felt what you and I are feeling, that there is no pain with which He is unfamiliar, and there is no compassion for you that He lacks. In your mind, imagine His arms wrapped around you, your tears drenching his shoulder, and the comfort He promised to send you. He will not completely take away the pain (at least He hasn't for me), but He will take away enough of it that you can survive and do what needs to be done. I have felt this for myself. I testify to you that it is real, and I encourage you to seek after this experience for yourself. And remember that it is usually through the actions of those around us that God meets our needs. You may look around and wonder where the Savior is in your darkest moments, and later realize that He was present in the comforting embrace and words of friends and relatives, even coworkers, even your boss! In the end, you still have to get yourself through this personal crisis. Only you can do it. You have to live with the consequences of the decision you make, good or bad. Agency requires you make your own decisions, whether you want to or not. But you don't have to do so without comfort, without guidance, without inspiration, without Divine assistance, or the friendly advice of people whose input you value. Take it all in, make as much of it as you want to your own, and take courage for the future. It's coming and can't be stopped. But you can be ready for it. Gather your strength and follow your heart. Only you will know whether or not your marriage is to survive. But I strongly believe that you, like me, have earned the right through faith and love, to move on if you choose to do so, and that Father will provide you with someone better if that is what you choose. The bad decisions made by your spouse and mine are not your fault or mine. We are free to forgive, but we are not obligated to suffer at their hands forever.

My mother in law has greatly contributed to the approaching end of my marriage. If I could turn back time and answer this question to her, it would be, what I would value most would be her determination to respect the proprietary boundaries of my family. The way I see it, every healthy marriage consists of a three way relationship consisting of Husband, Wife, and God, all linked to each other at the same time. If at any time the husband or wife lets go of the other, if everyone is still holding on to God, there remains the opportunity for husband and wife to reconnect with each other. I also believe that the relationship between husband and wife supersedes all other mortal relationships, including even their own children. I've drawn a diagram of this before to explain it to a neighbor who was a bit too interested in my wife. In the center I drew the aforementioned triangle. Around that I drew a circle and labeled it "children". Around that I drew a circle and labeled it "relatives (including parents of the husband and wife) and close friends". Around that I drew a circle and labeled it "other friends and acquaintences". I told him that for me, he was in that last circle, but was attempting to come between me and my wife in the center. My mother in law has done the same thing, even if beginning her approach from a more central circle. It hasn't helped that my wife has cleaved unto her instead of me. For example, when my wife and I were first married, we both hated country music. But after a visit to her parents house, out of state, she came back liking it. Sounds like something trivial, but it was little things like that which snowballed into my wife leaving me with our kids to go live with her mom because she loves her more than me. My mother in law ought to have encouraged, and even demanded that my wife come back to me, but she has been too happy to have her daughter back with the grandkids to boot. My mother in law and my wife have done all day Temple trips at the nearby Temple, making the same covenants every other endowed LDS makes, so you know what I'm talking about. Neither one of them has noticed or cared that my wife is violating her Temple covenants. At the very least I would hope my mother in law would be cognizant of that. But there seems to be a matriarchal order where they live, and I have seen it filter out respect for men and Priesthood. Maybe they're just so immersed in that philosophy that they can't see. At any rate, that's my advice. Once your son marries, be sure to remember that his relationship with his wife comes before his relationship with you, and that you must not allow yourself to do anything that will adversely affect his marriage. Interfering would be a disservice not only to your daughter in law, but to your son too.

Wow. Deja vu. My wife never physically cheated on me, as far as I know, but has been emotionally unfaithful in the past, many, many times. I'd rather not get into that right now, as I've already spent a lot of time doing that in the thread about having a spouse who wasn't a virgin when you got married. Let me just say that I see enough similarities between my situation and yours to feel like sharing with you. My wife, as I said, was emotionally unfaithful for a long time. At one point I caught her emailing love letters to an old boyfriend, and I installed a keylogger/screenshot capture program on our computer. By the time she came back home from visiting her mother, we had worked things out. If she was unfaithful after that point, she didn't use the computer to do it. I got tired of checking up on her and eventually uninstalled the program. There were times that I felt she loved her old boyfriends more than me. She even started being inappropriately familiar with a neighbor at one point. But I have learned over the last six months that her infidelities were only a symptom of the real problem. She has also been abusive to me in virtually every way possible, and it shames me to admit that I often returned fire for fire. This too was only a symptom of the real problem. I'm reading these posts where you talk about your husband waffling back and forth about the divorce, and I can see it's rubbing off on you. I don't mean that to sound bad. Let me put it this way. You're husband's not thinking right, at least not consistently, and you're in this marriage with him. It's like you're both in the same car, and he's driving. He's driving recklessly, and when he takes a turn too fast or spins out of control, you're in that car with him. Does that make sense? You're having to deal with his uncertainty and indecisiveness. He's taking you along with him for a ride, and where you both go is up to him, in a way. My wife is the exact same way. Our marriage is about to end for basically the same reason. A friend of mine, who knows a LOT about psychology, told me he thinks my wife has Borderline Personality Disorder. The quickest way I can think of to explain it is your husband or my wife - exhibit A. My wife, for example, cannot decide how she feels about anything, at least not permanently. Her opinions of people, places, things, those opinions change like the weather sometimes. When we met, she adored me. Then she got bored with me. Then she came to resent and despise me. She has at times waffled back and forth, though over the years she's spent more and more time despising me and less and less time loving me. She left me so she could go live with her mother, and she didn't mind taking the children with her to do that. It's almost been six months, and with them about to become legal residents of another state (with horrible divorce laws), I was forced to file myself, just to get the kids back. I still don't want a divorce. I gave my wife all the time to come back to me that I could, and even now, I still don't want a divorce. I just want the kids back. I want her back too. If she throws me away, it will be entirely her decision. I want to reconcile. I'm a codependent. The quickest way I can think of to explain how that has affected my marriage is to to say that it's the only way anyone could have put up with what I've endured in 13 years of marriage to someone as selfish, abusive, and cold as my wife and still love her, faults and all. I completely understand how hard it is for you to let go of your husband. That's a decision you have to make for yourself, but don't let anyone tell you you're a freak because you can't let go. If everyone was as forgiving as a codependent is with their spouse, we'd all be almost as forgiving as the Savior Himself. No one falls in love as hard as a codependent. You sound like you know what I'm talking about. Sounds like your husband has the same problems my wife does. I think Heavenly Father pairs people like you and me up with people like our spouses because people like us are their only hope for a lasting marriage. No one else I know would have been able to stay with my wife this long, or even for a few years. I hear people tell me that all the time. If your husband rejects you, know that he will likely be throwing away his only shot at the Celestial Kingdom. He can always repent, but if he can't do it now with everything that's on the line, he's not likely to do it for someone new in the future. It's doubtful to me that he'll be able to replace you. Now don't go getting a big head though. Nothing is ever 100% all one person's fault. Please don't be offended at what I'm about to say. I have no idea if this applies to you or not. I'm just putting out some food for thought. If you're like me, you're probably looking desperately for something about yourself that you can change, to take some control over this situation. You can't change others, but you can change yourself, and changing yourself can become more appealing when you're in an unpleasant situation that you want to end or at least become less painful. A friend of mine committed adultery and his marriage ended as a result. But to those who know the whole story, there's more to it than that. She was abusive to him. In fact, he thinks she has the same thing that I think my wife has. She was constantly tearing him down, criticizing him, and she was also physically abusive. Eventually he found himself growing emotionally attached to a coworker, and she initiated an intimate relationship with him. He could have resisted, but he didn't. Of course he was at fault for not resisting, even if he wasn't the one who initiated it. There's no excuse that absolves him of his participation in that relationship. But I firmly believe that if his wife had agreed to marriage counseling, had taken ownership of her behavioral issues, and had shown him more appreciation, respect, and warmth, if not actual love, he would have resisted that extra-marital relationship, at the very least on the physical level. Now my friend is divorced and remarried, and he says he had no idea marriage could be like it is for him now. He was shocked and amazed to find out what it's like to come home to a person who doesn't hate you, yell at you, scream at you, hit you, kick you, criticize you, and despise you. He has disagreements and frustrations in his new marriage, but he says they're nothing at all like what he knew as a way of life before. I think about this a lot now, in my own situation. I am still clinging to hope for my own marriage. I don't want to lose my wife. She is the only woman with whom I've ever shared my body, my soul, and my life. I gave her the best years of my life. I have no children but what I've had with her. I have so many sacred, special memories of her. So many memories of holding her in my arms, of so many intimate embraces that I'll never forget. Heck, I even remember all the times I held her hair behind her back in a ponytail and gave her a glass of water when she was sick and throwing up. Not exactly a kodak moment, but I'd be there, rubbing her back with one hand and holding her hair out of the way with the other. I cared for her. I still do. She means everything to me, and she won't talk to me. She deleted her email account. I have to email her mom to get any message to her, and her mom doesn't think very much of me either right now, because I won't walk away from a mortgage of $140k on a house currently worth less than half of that, the best job I'll ever have, and everything else that makes where I live, where she and our children lived before she left me, the place Heavenly Father tells me He wants us to be. She chose something else over me. Sounds like your husband did the same thing. But it also sounds like there's more hope for you. Sounds like your husband is trying a bit harder than my wife is to stay together. Not hard enough, perhaps, but there does appear to be some hope. I know what you mean about wanting him to do the right thing for your sake and not just his own. You want his repentance to include remorse based on how he's hurt you. And it sounds like his remorse is limited to regret for having gotten himself into trouble. Maybe he'll move on to shame for what he's done to you after he deals with what he's done to himself. You would know better than me. I can tell you that one morning, in the first year of my marriage, my wife woke up bawling and wailing, burying her face in my chest. When she became coherent enough to tell me what was wrong, she said that she'd just had a bad dream about how she had treated her old boyfriends, and that she wanted to make ammends with everyone she'd hurt in the past. While I wanted to applaud her for that, I also felt it was inappropriate for her to contact old boyfriends, and was really hurt by the remorse she had for how she had treated them, yet seemed oblivious to the fact that she had already been treating me badly. I felt she ought to be more concerned about how she had treated me, or at least concerned at all. If she ever has felt such remorse, it has only been while not in my presence. I have given up waiting for it to be exhibited to me. But for that matter, I'm on a path where I will eventually have to give up waiting for my wife to come back to me, or wanting to remain married to me at all. I'm hoping your situation and mine are similar enough that you can glean some useful insight from what I've been through, yet different enough that your marriage won't end the way mine is about to (without some kind of miracle). For the past four months I've been praying constantly for people just like you. I will continue to do so. One final thought I'll leave with you. Lately, most of the answers to my prayers regarding my situation have been "Don't give up". Obviously, I'm not a quitter. I wasn't sure what it was I wasn't supposed to give up on. I eventually concluded that Heavenly Father doesn't want me to give up on my wife, regardless of whether or not she gives up on our marriage. I think He wants me to leave every opportunity available to her that I possibly can, for her to come back to me and honor her Temple covenants. Whether or not she does the right thing, I intend to "leave a light on" for her. Maybe even after the seemingly imminent divorce. My Patriarchal Blessing says that my wife, the mother of my children, will eventually learn to love me as I love her. If a miracle happens, maybe she'll do that before it's too late. I don't want to be alone too much longer. My wife's been gone for over five months now. I'm constantly tempted to browse the online dating sites just to see what else is out there, so I can allow myself to believe it's not the end of the world if I lose her. By the way, I have done a little browsing (though I haven't gone so far as to register), and I can tell you that 28 is not a bad age to be making yourself available on an LDS dating website. That's pretty much the average age I saw among the women out there. If you want to hang on to your marriage and not give up, I commend you. But if your marriage ends, for whatever reason, and you decide to find someone new, It sounds like you think it would be a lot more difficult than it probably would really be. So don't stop believing in yourself. Okay, one more "final thought". Early on, one of the answers to my prayers was that "No matter how this turns out, you're going to be okay." If I were you, I'd pray about that, for yourself. I may have an outcome to my own situation that I prefer, but at least I know that if I don't get what I want, I'll get something else just as good or better. That has been a comfort to me at times. God bless.

Okay, after reading through all the posts, it turns out that a minority of the people here were capable of at least trying to walk in jjsmith99's shoes. Now I'm going to share my own personal experience, and provide another target for the peanut gallery from the Jerry Springer show. And maybe jjsmith99's situation won't really compare, but hopefully at least I'll be able to better illustrate the Divine wisdom behind the law of chastity, and why we shouldn't be handing out medals to people who broke it and bashing the victims over the head. Of course, in the end, there is repentance, but incomplete or insincere repentance is not a license to bash people like me or jjsmith99 for the emotional damage we receive. I am a codependent. I am the jealous type. I lack confidence and can sometimes be insecure. This does not make me the devil, or worthy of contempt, but in the spirit of honesty, I'm explaining where I'm coming from. As for my wife, I am convinced that she has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), though it's never been diagnosed. It's very difficult to diagnose and is often mis-diagnosed as Bi-Polar. There is certainly no doubt that my wife has some very serious and deep seated psychological problems and behavioral disorders, including depression, panic attacks, anxiety attacks, suicidal thoughts, etc. But the main culprit, as I see it, is the BPD. In layman's terms, long story short, it means that she idealizes people, places, and things, and then later on devalues them. Her attitude toward everyone and everything is in a constant state of flux, independent of the world outside her mind. My wife began "flying solo" at a pretty young age, and it began as a twisted fantasy about being pregnant. By the age of 12, she was exposing her fully developed body to boys out of doors, in broad daylight, and allowing them to manually inspect it as well. By the time I met her, when she was 19, she had A LOT of carnal experience with several boys/young men. I'll spare you the details, but while she was technically a virgin, she had experienced everything else imaginable other than what would have to take place for her to not be, in only the strictest sense of the word, a virgin. I'm talking about multiple partners, and extremely physically intimate behavior. When I met her, she was considering ending the most "explorative" relationship she'd ever had, but needed encouragement. I did everything I could to encourage her to repent, get along better with her parents (among other things, she had "Daddy issues"), and after working with her to help her through all that, we fell in love. Actually, she behaved as if she fell in love with me and was very affectionate and warm, which caused me to fall in love with her. We both professed our love for each other, and she promised me that she would never kiss another man. I assumed that she was so warm to me because she appreciated my help. Looking back, I can see that she was idealizing me, because of the BPD. It wasn't long after that when I found out that she had started dating a guy in her Institute Ward, had been alone with him in his apartment for a candle light dinner, during which he wore no shirt, gave her a rose, and they kissed. I almost dumped her when I found out, but her mother convinced me to forgive her because she had raised her daughter to be a boy crazy date-a-holic and she was not used to being in a relationship that was emotionally serious and exclusive. When we got engaged, the plan was I'd keep my job, get a house, and she'd move out to live with me after we were married. She changed her mind and demanded that I move out to where she lived, move in with her parents, and after a month or two of that, she got bored with me, like she did with every boyfriend she had ever had, only we were engaged, so she felt like she couldn't dump me. She went ahead and married me even though she had fallen out of love with me (unbeknownst to me). Our marriage was rocky from the moment we attempted to consumate it. She had been so wild and out of control before, but with me, after she had gotten bored with me, and especially after we were married, she was an iceberg. She really tried to make the physical part of our relationship work for a month or two, but eventually gave up. I would occasionally hear stories about old boyfriends. I'd hear very graphic stories about what they did together. I'd hear a dreamy tone in her voice as she very fondly remembered and vocalized the steamy details, as well as the emotional attachment she had with them. Every one of them seemed to be better than me in some way. With one of them, she recalled having lots of really deep and meaningful conversations. With one of them, she had for years afterward regretted not going all the way with him, and had commented to me on one occasion that a certain part of his body was bigger on him than on me, and then she asked me if it was possible for me to permanently increase the size of mine (I realize this is a bit outside the realm of polite conversation, but imagine how I felt hearing it!). There was one boyfriend I caught her writing love letters to, and whom she had been seeing platonically (with our children with her) while out of state and visiting her relatives. There was another I heard about who she had always considered "the one", and for whom I found out at one point she wanted to leave me. The list of bad memories goes on. And a lot of them took place after we were married. I'v only listed a portion of them, pre and post marriage. It would be nice if they had stayed in her past, but they generally tended to show up in the present, even if only as vocalized memories or a diary that my wife apoplectically insisted on not getting rid of. The way I see it, her bad behavior has been a result of a psychological problem, which is even now threatening to end our marriage. But I'm not up for getting into that right now. I only add this tidbit to show that willful and repeated breaking of the law of chastitiy is a VERY SERIOUS problem, and we should take it more seriously. In my own experience, it's been a symptom of an even greater problem, an extremely harmful behavioral disorder that harms or ruins all kinds of relationships (including platonic ones). If it's not obvious to you, try to imagine how it feels to buy the cow and find out that all the milk is gone. Imagine that the cow keeps wandering off in the direction of the guys who stole the milk. I can't speak for jjsmith99. Maybe in his case there's plenty of milk today, and maybe he's just a bit jealous that some was given out before he bought the cow, in which case I'd still empathize. That may or may not be the case. Let's withhold judgment, shall we? In my case, my wife had been EXTREMELY wild before I met her, and after we were married, she turned into an iceberg. I tried everything I could think of to make her happy, and to awaken her desires. She didn't even want to try. Some days she was nice, and some days she was as mean as a junkyard dog. Even on nice days, her heart was very rarely in it. One time I told my wife that her coldness to me, all the limitations, hang ups, and walls that she put up between us, and all the enthusiasm she seemed to have for neighbors, old boyfriends (at least three of which I know that she interacted with socially after we were married), and so on, all made me feel that she loved them more than me. She told me I was right. I'm all for leaving the past behind. I never liked to talk about the girl I was in love with before I met my wife, though for some odd reason she actually liked for me to talk about her, and specifically told me so. I wanted my wife's past to go away. But she kept her old journals, which contained lots of sordid stories about old boyfriends she refused to let go of. She kept telling me very graphic and sleazy stories about back seat adventures, and on the rare occasions when she was enthusiastic about our intimacy, the circumstanes at hand always seemed to remind me of one of those stories she'd told me. I wanted to leave her boyfriends in the past, but she visited with two of them behind my back while visiting her relatives, and she contacted another after a fight we had one day, got him to give her copies of old love letters and pictures which she kept for years until I found them, and even had us double dating with this guy and his wife, whom he appreciated about as much as my wife appreciated me. While I was at work, she'd go visit him at his office and he'd brag about his "manhood" and stamina. One day while I was at work, he even came over and was playing with my son to show what a good step-dad he would be. Yes, I'd love for these guys to be in the past, but they were often in the present too. I'm sure some of you will find a way to blame me for all this. I'm a guy, so it must be my fault, right? My wife went to visit her mother in August for what was supposed to be a month. She never came back. She has our children with her and refused to send any of them back. They're approaching six months out there and would soon have legal residency there if I had not filed for divorce, which was the last thing I wanted to do because I still love my wife. I could not have been married to her for 13 years with all this stuff going on if I didn't love her very, very much. After she got the papers she said she would never speak to me again and has deleted her email account. Again, her inability to let go of her past is only a symptom of a bigger problem here. Now it may be that jjsmith99 is holding on to something his wife let go of a long time ago. It may be that her repentance, unlike my wife's was genuine. It may be that he is holding on to something that even he knows he needs to let go of and wishes he could, and it may also be that he is the only one in the world who ever thinks about that particular past. What I'm trying to say is that we live in a culture that contains a fondness for fairy tales and "they lived happily ever after". We are all encouraged from childhood to believe there is a soulmate out there for us, rather than a random meat market where we just inspect the product, make a purchase, and believe that depending on what both spouses put into it, virtually any two somewhat compatible people could have a lasting and fulfilling relationship. At the age of 10, I knew all I wanted out of life was someone to love with all my heart, who would love me back just the same. I knew that was the be all end all of human existence, even long before I had ever heard of Celestial glory or eternal families. Before I met my wife, I fell in love with a girl I thought was the one, but I never even kissed her on the lips (though I always wanted to when I was with her), because it never felt right. I never let anyone but my wife see me naked unless they were changing my diaper. I never touched any part of a woman that would be covered while she was swimming in a public pool until my wedding day. All my experience with intimacy was acquired with my wife. I can't imagine how I'd feel if she had her past, but left it in the past. But what I do know is that the past she wanted me to forget was also a past that she herself refused or was unable to forget. She blamed me for holding on to it, when it kept resurfacing in her own life. My case may be a bit extreme. If I were to imagine myself in jjsmith99's position, I'd ask myself if there was anything in the present, apart from my own thoughts and actions, that kept the unsavory past alive. If there was, even if only because I perceived it, I'd ask my wife for help understanding why I felt that way, and ask her to help me figure out a way to deal with it. If more help was needed, I'd seek it. I would want to include her in my struggle with it, whether she had any blame in my inability to get past the past or not. I believe spouses should completely share their lives with each other, the good and the bad. I believe a spouse should be willing to help their spouse bare their burdens, as well as share in their triumphs. I believe any married person's life should be merged in every way possible with their spouse's. I believe married people should help each other through this life, and share in all the happiness that comes with it. Maybe there is something jjsmith99's wife can do to put the past behind her too, maybe not. Talking about it, in a spirit of humility and love, is a must. Communication is important. We all must never despise people for not seeing things our way. Rather, we should convincingly present our case to them, and maybe they might agree with us then. Or maybe they might cause us to agree with them. Without communication, opposing viewpoints tend to resent each other, and become more entrenched. The most basic point I'm trying to make is that one of, if not the principal reason for the law of chastity is to prevent the emotional pain that people feel when they are reminded that their spouse did not save themselves for marriage. My wife was worth it to me, as was Heavenly Father's approval of my behavior. It hurts when your spouse devalues you, and that's how I feel when I realize how little was new for my wife after we got married. I should have been the first. She shouldn't have had other men to compare me to, and she did so unfavorably. I know full well the price to be paid for breaking the law of chastity. I paid the price, while my wife never exhibited any signs of regret that I could see. It is not a victimless crime to break the law of chastity. While there is a place for forgiveness for the transgressor, there should also be understanding for the one who pays the emotional price for that transgression. Don't hate jjsmith99. Don't preach at him and be "holier than thou". Try to understand why he feels the way he does, and you'll be better equipped to give him advice. Life isn't a piety contest (the scribes and Pharisees demonstrated what happens if it becomes one). Life is about helping Heavenly Father keep from losing as many of His children as possible, out of a spirit of love and humility. Don't judge. Instead, encourage righteousness, and assist those around you in finding it.