Today we have a guest post! It’s Sheila Wray Gregoire of To Love Honor and Vacuum!
Sheila is a Christian speaker, columnist, and author. She’s written five books, including the upcoming The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex (out in January 2012 with Zondervan!). She loves speaking about marriage, parenting, and keeping our eyes on Jesus. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband of 20 years and her two daughters, whom she homeschools.
Do you feel alone in your marriage? There is a ton of wisdom in Sheila’s 3 minute video below – please listen!
(If you cannot see this video click here to view it.)
Sheila writes:
1. Remember, just because it’s awful now doesn’t mean it always will be.
Of people who rated their marriages as a 7 or 8 on a 1-8 scale, with 8 being lousy, 78% rated it as a 1 or 2 5 years later. Things often do get better! Just because your marriage is in the toilet does not necessarily mean it’s time to flush it.
2. Get some mentors
But what if you’ve been waiting and it’s not improving? Surround yourself with a great Christian body. Find one or two great mentors or counselors to tell the whole story to who can give you wise counsel. I knew one woman who was sure her husband was being verbally abusive to their daughter. He wasn’t. He was just stricter than she was (she didn’t believe in limits). She needed someone outside to show her that.
At the same time, sometimes drastic action is necessary. Find a good Christian mentor to help you.
3. Get a hold of James Dobson’s Love Must Be Tough.
Written for those whose spouses are having affairs, it’s still a great book for many marital issues. When your spouse is doing something that endangers the marriage, the answer isn’t to be a doormat. It’s to change the dynamic in your relationship so your spouse feels the consequences of his actions!
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Thank you Sheila for joining us at Women Living Well today! To read more of Sheila’s posts – go to To Love, Honor and Vaccuum!
Be sure to visit these brilliant women during our 10 days adventure between November 7th-18th! I love these ladies and we know you will too.
10 days of Character Studies | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of Christmas Countdown Ideas | Milk & Cookies
10 days of Creative Writing | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of Crockpot Meals | The Happy Housewife
10 Days to a Godly Marriage | Women Living Well
10 Days of Growing Leaders | Mom’s Mustard Seeds
10 Days of Homeschooling High School | Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
10 days of I Wish I Had Known | Fruit in Season
10 days of Keeping Your Marbles | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of Kid-friendly Food | Planner Perfect
10 Days of Language Arts Lesson Planning | Jimmie’s Collage
10 Days of Learning Apps | Daze of Adventure
10 Days of a Mason Jar Christmas | Cajun Joie de Vivre
10 Days of More JESUS in Christmas | Preschoolers and Peace
10 Days to a Peaceful Home | Raising Arrows
10 Days of Raising a Life-Long-Learner | Bright Ideas Press
10 days of Science with Math | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of Teaching Values | Our Journey Westward
10 days of Winning your Child’s Heart | I Take Joy
Love this!
There is hope…He has the power to redeem and renew and restore.
Doesn’t mean ignoring the heartache or pain or sorrow or pretending away the hurt (as she said…doesn’t mean being a doormat) but He has the power to make all things new.
God can heal…
So much hope in that.
Sheila… it is so great to meet you.. I love you already! I will definitely be stopping by your blog. What great advice! Courtney thank you for introducing such a wonderful person to us.
My heart breaks for those two women. There are no words… I am speechless. I also had a problem in my marriage with the ‘p’ word and it caused several repercussions for many years. I know how it leads to insecurities and self-doubt. The only thing I can offer right now is this… NOTHING is wrong with YOU!! Your husband has a problem and he needs help. You need to pray for him, get support from God first and then Godly people (I agree with Sheila.. don’t go telling everybody your intimate problems and choose wisely who you confide in). Above all, you need to KNOW that you are beautiful and do things to build yourself up. Don’t let your husband’s sickness.. and yes, I do believe it is a sickness, an addiction… cause you to feel inadequate and less of the beautiful woman that you are.
As for the other lady.. my own mother went through periods like this with my father. He would be angry and cold, not eat her food and NOT TELL HER WHY! He seemed to believe that she ought to know what it was that she did to offend him. I am guessing that there can be no dialogue between these two people, if the man is anything like my father was. This is just my opinion, but it applies to both these ladies…perhaps if you can be confident in yourself and he sees that his actions don’t break you down, that you can fill your days with things that bring you some measure of peace and happiness. Maybe then he will come around… wondering how you could be happy without him.
1 Peter 3:1-2 tells us that we can win our husbands over without words, but by the purity of our actions. LET YOUR ACTIONS SPEAK OF YOUR LOVE FOR GOD, FOR YOURSELF, FOR YOUR CHILDREN, EVEN FOR HIM.
Finally, I just want to say that I agree with Kara above… there is HOPE in Christ and I stand here today, married 21 years… 19 of those were, as Sheila says, rated pretty low, but these past two years have been right up at the top of the bar. THERE IS HOPE FOR YOU.. God does make all things new.. trust in Him!
Sorry, Courtney, I wrote my own blog post here! Hope it helps.
I can’t even imagine being given the silent treatment for 30 days =(
But sometimes if my man and I have a fight he doesn’t want to talk, or talking just makes it worse, so I use nonverbal communication instead….I hug him, hold his hand, come up behind him and kiss the back of his neck. It usually works pretty quickly, sometimes I can even feel the tension melt out of him.
If they haven’t talked for 30 days the atmosphere is bound to be very strained, perhaps if she tried something like that it would help.
Wow what a post today! I feel so overwhelmed with pain today: it´s my b day and three weeks since my husband confessed me that he was having an affair and left the house. Before that, he gave me the silent treatment for many weeks. :´( My little children (ages 8 and 3) are devastated. We pray for him everyday but the pain is still there. He is a christian baby, only 1 year old, but he got a call from God and started to panic. He changed completely after that, he was no longer the father or the husband we knew. I have seen God working miracles in my family over the past 3-4 years and even His hand providing for these past weeks, but I still feel so devastated and lonely. Everynight is so hard for all of us! Very deep inside I feel that either way (my husband coming back to both of us or him trying to get divorced) the Lord will make a way for me, but the pain right now is too deep. And the worse is seeing my kids without their father, hearing their prayers asking for their daddy to love God…!! Hurt, hurt, hurt! I can see know how much I needed a good christian mentor all these year!
Priscilla, I’m so, so sorry. But let me give you my own story: my mom was in roughly the same situation you are. My dad walked out when I was very young because he had an affair. She never thought she’d end up divorced. She never thought this would happen to her.
The next few years she struggled a lot. She wondered whether God loved her. She worried incessantly about me.
But you know what? God had me in His hands anyway. And God grabbed me, and today I totally love God, despite my unorthodox childhood. And my mom became such a strong and wise woman who counsels so many other young women today. She has such a close relationship with God.
And God has used all the stuff I went through as a child to fuel my speaking ministry and my marriage ministry.
So remember that no matter how bad things are, with God the bad is never the end of the story. Perhaps your marriage will be restored; I don’t know. But I do know that God loves your kids, and He loves you, and He can carry you through this time, and hold on to your kids. And they can grow up into healthy adults. I did!
Thank you Sheila! It´s so comforting to know that they can grow into healthy adults despite our current situation. That you are an example of that, and not only my imagination running wild. I do know God loves me and loves my children, it´s just that right now the pain and emotions are still too raw. But thank you for reminding me of that! Sometimes I need to read it and hear it often to make it get into my mind passing thru the emotions and get deep inside me.
Love and hugs!
Courtney, thanks for letting me guest post! I do find these things heartbreaking, and sometimes I think the “typical Christian answer” isn’t always that helpful. Yes, we need to draw near to God. Yes, we need to pray. But these ladies also need support, and understanding, and courage, and discernment to know what’s right. That’s why I appreciate you choosing this one to publicize more widely, because I think there are a lot of women in really desperate marriages, who want to save them, but the pat answers aren’t working.
I don’t mean that praying and trusting God doesn’t work; I just mean that sometimes we who have good marriages aren’t very helpful when we don’t acknowledge how bad some women’s situations are. The hope, though, is that no matter how big your problems are, Jesus is still bigger. And He can give you the wisdom and the tools to walk through even the most difficult relationships!
I appreciate your “blog friendship”!
Sheila from To Love, Honor and Vacuum!
Sheila this is great advice. I went through the same situations that you mentioned in my marriage years ago. I am currently in the middle of a long and drawn out divorce (every time it gets close to a court date he does something to hold it up then goes back to not doing anything at all). He does not pay child support, rarely calls or comes sees the boys and he lives a good 5 minutes up the street from us. It was a hard thing for me to go through. I was in law school full time, my grandmother and father were both dying from cancer and our second son was a complete surprise. I prayed, sough counsel from my pastor and my mom but I got no support.
Churches can sometimes be unneccesarily hard on women that are going through a divorce. I was told that if I’d been a good godly wife that none of this would have happened. That surely I saw this coming. And (my all time favorite) was told that I was playing the martyr by coming to church with my boys and without my husband. Crazy stuff. And the truth is that no one, not even my mother knew 10% of what I was going on.
Thank you for your final words: God hates divorce but loves you! AMEN to that and oh how I wish that those were the words I heard instead of the other stuff.
God bless you.
Thanks, Latoya! I hope and pray that you’ve been welcomed into a Christian community since all of that. You must really need it, especially with your boys. You sound very strong, and I guess the one good thing that has come out of this is that you’ve learned how to totally and completely rely on God. Not a very fun way to learn, though, is it?
I discovered this blog only a week ago, and fell in love with it immediately. There is sooooo much stuff on there – to make you laugh, cry, think, change…. Great stuff
Thank you for this video. I feel like I am on the opposite end of this. I had an affair on my husband about 3 years ago, I realized it was the worst thing ever to do, I was in a very bad state of unhappiness, there is no reason or excuse that is exceptable to do this. My husband did not leave me which I am lucky in that part but now I feel like he does alot to punish me for what i did. I feel that in our relationship. I have told him this and I feel like he is so unhappy with me, no matter what I do he wont ever be completely happy. I am not sure if it is still guilt I have with myself that makes me feel this way, but there have been many times where he will not talk to me for 2 to 3 weeks. I have no idea why he wont open up, but then I will get to the point where I have just had enough and let it all out. A couple of time to where I said i would leave him. He apologizes and tells me not to leave that he will change but then the change happens for like a few months and slowly the cycle comes back. I have a few good Christian mentors but I feel bad that I vent about stuff like this over and over with them. I guess most of all I just ask for your prayers on our marriage that this cycle will end. I know its hurts the children a lot and him and me, I also trust in God that something will just give and this will all come to an end. I pray like no other these days and I know it’s god that is keeping me in this.
That is really rough, Anonymous. What I would say is that somewhere along the way you’ve forgotten how to have fun. You need to find ways to just enjoy being together again, like finding ways to rekindle your friendship. It is very hard to pick up your relationship after an affair, but one of the best things you can do is to find ways to laugh again. So try to get away from the TV and do things as a family, even if it’s just taking walks or throwing a frisbee around a park. And take some time just the two of you to play a game, or try a new sport or hobby or something.
Here’s a post I wrote on what to do when you’re the one who blew it, and I’d encourage you to look at that. But my best piece of advice would be to not try to solve all the big outstanding issues between you. Just simply try to be his friend and laugh again. If you can get that foundation, the rest can eventually follow.
I don’t have any advice for the woman dealing with pornography in her marriage other than a LOT of prayer, but I do for the one suffering the silent treatment. That behavior would irritate me because I absolutely hate subtle power plays and passive aggressive behavior. If you have an issue, say it straight and get it worked out.
Honestly, if I was suffering this type of treatment I would not plead with him or try to cuddle him (because it seems like he might just be getting more satisfaction out of keeping her guessing and trying and striving and I HATE to give satisfaction to that kind of bad behavior). Instead I would plan a lot of fun activities and take the kids with me. These activities WOULD include things I knew he would have loved to have done (if he wasn’t acting like such a baby). Like if I knew he enjoyed baseball, I would take the kids to the nearest semi-pro game. I would also take them to movies with me (or go with girlfriends if the kids could stay by themselves). I would plan something fun for as many nights of the week I had the time, energy and money to do. It would just be a matter of time before he starts inquiring what you are up to and wanting to join you.
Wow what a great post. To the woman who had an affair. Been there and done that also. Litterally. My husband did not leave but he gave me the “Silent Treatment” for 5 years. Only speaking to me when aboslutely nessessary for the most part. There was very little communication. Rebuilding trust takes years and years. Our trust is still not rebuild but is getting better. My husband repaid me by acting as though he was not married. I feel for your situation. Pray, Pray, and Pray. There will be days that are better and days that things nosedive for the worst. It is a lot of pain for you both to work through.
” There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear: because fear has torment. The that fears is not made perfect in love.” 1 John 4:18
It may be a while before he can be with you and be happy. He needs to know your going to stand by your word and be truthful. Threating to leave or planning it is not going to build trust but I completely understand the temptation. I wanted to leave so bad but realized I would be going against God if I did. God had told me to stay. I needed to obey God. When I decided that obeying God was the most important leaving was not an option so I had to learn how to turn my hurt over to God. I came to understand my husband was hurting me because he was hurting. Some of it was probably intentional as he is human and I hurt him in the worst way when angry with him and he was simply doing that same thing. Understanding that made it easier for me to forgive. I had to forgive for the events that led up to the affair and all the hurt after.
I can not stress enough that you need to be extra careful not to put your self in any situation where he could question your loyalty. Do Not ever be alone with any man (some family excepted). Try not to go anywhere by yourself. I know that can be hard one. But find a way to make yourself accountable to him that he will always know where you are and what you are doing. That alone will help to build trust. Go places with friends that he knows so if he feels he needs to he can check up. That will hurt but he will need that.
Lastly, some biblical help
Only God can give you this perfect love to love your husband with. Keep your relationship with God strong as it is the only way to survive this. God calls us to love others this way even our husbands. I certianly do not love my husband fearlessly. I fear his rejection, his reaction to something I’ve done, and even his answer to my questions. I know this makes it sound like I’m terrified of him and in a way I am. I am terrified and paralyzed by my fear of getting hurt. Perfect love tells us to leap even when we can’t see the bottom. It tells us to love in spite of the fear we feel. We can not control how others react or choose to act. We can only control how we act and we can extend the Love God has given us even when we don’t want to or feel like it. Showing love is a choice. The feeling of love follows when we practice love. It is easy to love when we know it will be returned. Much harder when we just don’t know. But just as the dripping of water can wear away a rock so love can crack a heart of stone.
Sorry to have such a long comment. I pray God speaks to someone through these words that are from God to me in my worst times of darkness. Lifting all these’s ladies represented here up in prayer.
Wow, this is a great series, especially love this video, as yes, we really do need to have a positive outlook that things can change because saying things like “Oh, it’s always like this” tears things down.