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stayathomemom
26th July 2005, 05:14 PM
I am a stay at home mom with three wonderful children. I met my husband 4 years ago. When I met him I thought that he was a wonderful christian man who was after Gods own heart. He appeared to be a Godly man. He wanted to have bible studies with me when we dated and I thought thank you Lord I have met the man of my dreams. The first year of our marriage was spent daily in the word of God an prayer. My dream turned into a nightmare. After the birth of our son we would take turns getting up in the middle of the night with our baby. When it was a few his turn a few times I woke up and the LOrd would lay on my heart to check on my husband that something was not right. So I would sneak around the corner and found out that he was watching pornography on tv. When I confronted him with it he lied to me about it for two years and told me that he would not do such a thing that I was the apple of his eye and that he did not want to look at another women and had no desire to look at another women. He also said that God knew his heart and he knew that He was telling the truth. ( Man what a dangerous thing to say) Well the following year he decides to tell me the truth. I guess after feeling guilty for so long. He told me that He made a mistake only one time, I know that it was more then one time that he watched pornography but he will not admit to the many times just one time. When I found out at the time my whole body went numb I could not believe what I was seeing. He told me that he did not have a problem with pornography he just made one mistake ( which is not true) he watched it many times. Our sex life has been great throughout the years. We make love every other night. He told me that he doesn,t watch it anymore because he saw how bad that he has hurt me, and disappointed me. When we are out in public he would stare at every women that walked by with cleavage showing and a short mini skirt. My heart is aching and I am very hurt, I can,t trust him right now and don,t know if I will be able to trust him because of the lies throughout the last 4 years. When you confront him with anything, he gets mad, but then later on decides to tell the truth. He told me that he repented and got his heart right with the Lord. When I do catch him looking at someone out in public I confront him and he would get irritated and say I wasn,t looking at her sweety. You know you are the only one that I want to look at ( same old line he used before) Then he would say I know I told you this before but now I mean what I say. I don,t know what to believe. Now I have another problem. My husband works in the shipping dept at a factory on first shift. It was just working with three guys on first shift. Well they had hired a girl for second shift to work in the shipping dept but she has to be trained on first shift to work second. My husband said that they asked him to stay over and work with her. I asked him if it was mandatory for him to stay over and work with her. He did not give me a yes or no answer he just said well they don,t have anyone else to train her that knows what they are doing like they told him that he did. So he has to work from the hours of 3:00pm to 7:30pm alone with her until she knows what she is doing for two weeks or longer. I asked him why did you not tell me that they hired her the first day that she was there, but instead waited three days to tell me. He said because I knew that you would not like the idea of me working alone with a women. This women that is working with him has to work from 3:00pm to 11:00pm so I asked my husband well who trains her after you leave at 7:30 pm He says another guy trains her after he leaves. I asked him well why can,t he train her the whole time instead of you having to work over with her. My husband told me because the guy who works over with her after I leave has to work in utilities and has other stuff to do. He gets upset when I question him. I said well can you ask your boss if they could put someone else to working with her besides you? He says well I told my boss that I would work those hours with her and that if I go back and ask him if he could find someone else to work with her then I would be going back on my word and it would be all over the plant that my wife doesn,t like me working alone with a women. I told him that well if it were you I would be more worried about what you thought then what other people thought about me because you would be my first priority. He got mad and we got into it. My husband decided this past weekend to buy me flowers now he is opening car doors for me. Hasn,t done this in along time. Should I be concerened about this situation with him working with this girl alone or not. If it was around a bunch of people he was working with I wouldn,t mind so bad, but he is alone with her. My husband told me that he was sick of hearing about it me asking questions and he gets mad when I do Any suggestions anyone??

Liz
27th July 2005, 07:02 PM
Dear Stayathomemom,

Your situation is very sad. The trust between you is being destroyed by your husband's dishonesty and now you are uncomfortable with any situation that might lead to temptation.

There are some resources here (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/cyberaffair/) about addiction to pornography. You might also have a look at the article on trust (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/marriageclinic/relbasictopic/trust/).

It sounds as if you are coping with this situation alone. Would it not be helpful to involve a trusted Christian friend or pastor, or to encourage your husband to talk to someone. One of the best ways to fight temptations like this is to have accountability to someone, perhaps another man who will understand the temptation from a man's point of view.

I think it is a very difficult thing to get the right balance in trusting your husband but being realistic about your fears and concerns. You have made your concerns clear to your husband. I'm not sure it's good to do much more. Your husband will resent you trying to force him to change his working situation. You cannot keep policing his behaviour because your trust in him has been shaken. There comes a point where you have to let go and give him the responsibility of acting rightly in this situation.

I know that's hard, but rebuilding trust is difficult.

Liz

stayathomemom
28th July 2005, 12:57 PM
Dear Liz,

I am truly alone on this one, I guess I will just have to trust the Lord. We don,t have a trusted pastor to go to, a christian friend or anyone. My husband seems to think that we don,t have a problem. I might have made a big boo boo though. I usually try to fix things myself until I make such a mess of it that I have to go to the Lord and repent and say Lord please help I screwed up big time. Well I thought that I could help him not look at pornography by agreeing to his request of taking pictures of me without any clothes on. Well I agreed to that which was a bad mistake. Yesterday mourning at 3:00 am I was wide awake and had a very strange feeling to check his shorts pocket. Well I found wrapped up in a piece of paper my picture that I had allowed to be taken in his shorts pocket. He told me that he had taken it to work with him. I was so upset, ( well I guess it was my fault part for allowing him to take the picture he told me it was for his own personal use) but taken it to work with him now that I don,t understand and trying to hide it from me knowing I don,t undestand that either. I understand what you mean by I need to stop policing him, You are right. I can,t be his Holy Spirit. I was trying really hard to rebuild trust until I found this out yesterday.

Liz
28th July 2005, 05:00 PM
Hi there

What is it that you are unhappy about with your husband and the photo? Perhaps he likes to look at it at work, but thinks you might feel uncomfortable about it going out of the house. Or do you fear he is showing other people? Have you talked to him about it?

Have you had a look at the Focus on the Family (http://www.2-in-2-1.co.uk/php-bin/jump.php?linkid=69) web site? There a lot of helpful Christian articles on there.

Why not also look out some of the scriptures on marriage in the bible and ask the Lord to show you how to use them to pray for your husband. Remember your husband is not the enemy but the spiritual powers that long to destroy marriages particularly those of Christians, but "He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world".

Liz

stayathomemom
28th July 2005, 07:02 PM
Hello Liz,

I talked to him about it. You see when we both made the picture we agreed that it wouldn,t leave the house and be locked up. I was afraid that he would show it to someone else. He told me that he would never do that, that he just wanted to look at it for himself. I did read the articles that you sent me and they do help some of these articles hit home. I am trying to deal with the pain that I have and asking the Lord to help me. When he got home yesterday I saw remorse on his face, he was crying. He told me he was sorry. I believe that he does want help but just doesn,t know how to get it. He doesn,t really want to be open to another person I guess because of the shame and guilt. Very true this is a spiritual battle and that I am not fighting flesh here.


Stayathomemom