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June 24, 2019 12:14 pm  #1


How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 5:31 am)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
 

June 24, 2019 2:04 pm  #2


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

MJM017:  I completely get the meditative benefit of the rosary.  It's a beautiful prayer.  I'm going to start using that myself, again.

 

June 24, 2019 5:09 pm  #3


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Thanks for posting this.  I'm not particularly religious -- but my husband is (like you) a very liberal Catholic, and when we married I'd agreed that we'd raise our daughter as a Catholic.  So it was something that she and her father used to share, although she's happy to attend Episcopal services with me.  In fact, I even started taking communion, just because she was doing it and wanted me to join in.

When we first made this discovery about my husband, he had made some cryptic remarks about not taking communion.  Our daughter was still deeply upset by the new revelations, and as I was planning to fly out to be with her over Christmas, he wanted to join, and our daughter said she would be willing to spend Christmas with him only if he would take communion with her.  I think what she meant was, he'd have to go to reconciliation first, and she had been up against his defensive barricade when she tried to get him to acknowledge the damage he'd caused.  So I think she wanted him to basically confess to a priest.

Anyhow, he didn't.  So I spent Christmas with her, but he stayed back.  

I've tried to get him to address the issue of his compulsive sexual behavior, but you can't force-feed someone reality.  He wouldn't see a therapist, and I thought maybe if he addressed it as a spiritual matter it would make it easier, but as far as I can see he has not attended Mass even once in the past year and a half.

 

June 24, 2019 5:32 pm  #4


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 5:32 am)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
     Thread Starter
 

June 24, 2019 8:29 pm  #5


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

walkby:
   "you can't force-feed someone reality"
    Wow.  You nailed the truth in one pithy statement.  
   

 

June 24, 2019 11:18 pm  #6


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

MJM,

Yes,   its a scary thing to go through.      The psalms gave me great comfort and I highly reccomend them for those going through this.      I recall hiding n my "safe spot" clutching my bible as my GX raged in her violence.     I recall be mocked.     I recall thinking this was a person that thought she was morally right to treat me like that...she still does to this day.     

Today, years away from TGT I can practice my faith without fear and ridicule.   I thank God for helping me.
God sometimes sends angels but they do not necessarily have wings and halos;  sometimes they take the form of priest, therapist, friends, family.   
 


"For we walk by faith, not by sight .."  2Corinthians 5:7
 

June 25, 2019 11:09 am  #7


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Rob, as I said, 'm not particularly religious but definitely psalms during the worst of the worst.  I remember thinking over and over, what it really means to "walk through the valley of the shadow of death".  Those words really came alive for me.

 

June 25, 2019 11:32 am  #8


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

I'm new here -- I'll be posting more later.  I just wanted to say that I keep a rosary by my bed. and when I wake up after about three or four hours of sleep and can't get back to sleep because my mind is torturing me with fear and sadness and uncertainty, it's a comfort to reach out for it.  I get through the days OK, but nighttime is terrible.

 

June 25, 2019 9:37 pm  #9


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 5:33 am)


No - It's not too late. It's not hopeless. Even there, there's something I can do. I just have to find the will. Ikiru (1952), film directed by Akira Kurosawa 
     Thread Starter
 

June 27, 2019 8:41 pm  #10


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

I think cultural aspects of my religion caused me to not realize how destructive my marriage really was.  Marriage and family are emphasized so much, and personal responsibility, and looking to my own faults instead of finding faults in others. I wish my church had emphasized “healthy relationships” in the youth lessons on marriage. 

I am glad I discovered TGT, because although I had finally realized that what I was experiencing was the cycle of abuse, TGT made it clearer to me (more confusing in some ways too!)

Religion, though—the real foundational aspects of my beliefs—TGT has caused me to really focus on these, to clarify what I really do believe, what is essential and what is not. And I have had to exercise faith in the sense of not knowing, but hoping.  Faith as a comfort.  The beautiful and mystical things that can nourish me.

 

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