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June 28, 2019 11:05 pm  #11


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 5:44 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 
 

July 15, 2019 3:07 pm  #12


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Great thread!    I love that we can talk about this topic with love and support and understanding.   In most places it only leads to division and argument.  

Well done my friends!


-Formerly "Lostdad" - I now embrace the username "phoenix" because my former life ended in flames, but my new life will be spectacular. 

 
 

July 15, 2019 5:06 pm  #13


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

This, too, has been one of the biggest hurdles for me to overcome. When I said forever, I meant it. I took my wedding vows very seriously.

My clergy reached out to me saying that he could sense something was "off" with me, that I just didn't seem like my old self anymore.  We went out for coffee and a three hour deeply theological and philosophical discussion brewed :-)

He explained to me that, in his opinion, God never intended for us to be miserable. Like people, relationships can die. "Til death do us part" includes when the relationship is broken beyond repair. In the case of an unintended MOM, when the straight partner realizes that they were duped and that the foundation upon which their marriage was built was a lie or at the very least an error of omission, often times that is the death of the marriage.

I was anticipating a judgemental position from my clergy, one that might infer "I didn't try hard enough" etc. But instead I was met with great compassion and understanding, and a promise of love and support within my community of faith as I progress through my own journey.

Having spent so many years internalizing these things, I have tended to beat myself up over the things for which I had no control. I often looked at myself like the proverbial kid who's mother had to tie a steak around his neck so the dog would play with him. I have been starved of love and desire throughout most of my marriage and have always been made to feel it was all my fault. I was too fat, worked too much, too angry, too depressed, not fun enough, <insert every other excuse here>, to be desired. I have for decades felt that I was somehow undeserving of true love and affection. Now that I have finally learned the truth, I am resentful that my wife could so easily overlook my feelings in order to achieve the picket fence nuclear family facade that enabled her to lead the life she wanted to project to the world.
 

 

July 15, 2019 11:43 pm  #14


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Deleted. 

Last edited by Lynne (October 3, 2020 5:47 pm)

 

July 16, 2019 5:52 am  #15


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Devin, all,

Yeah, again my priest did not want me suffering with a cheating spouse.  Of course he also worried for the kids.

Its a scary thing..our spouses took their vow before God with us, went to church with us.   Where are they now while we cry before our clergy/therapist/psychologist/doctor..   Not with us I will say.  I try not to wonder or judge..but it scares the sh$t out me that someone could go church with me and feel in her bones that the hurt she was inflicting was right and just and somehow blessed by God. 

I thank God everyday...everyday..for getting me away from such a broken person.

For those struggling with TGT and especially a hurtful spouse that thinks what they are doing to you is right and just. It is not. Deep in our bones we know what they are doing to us is wrong on so many levels.

Sometimes the only to win with a bully on the playground is to leave the playground.


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

July 16, 2019 7:29 am  #16


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

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Last edited by MJM017 (July 12, 2021 5:45 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
 

July 16, 2019 11:19 am  #17


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

When my ex finally accepted that she had to leave, she held up her left hand, pointed at her wedding ring and said, “Wow,  I never thought I’d be able to break my promise to God”.  Therein lies the difference in her view of the vows and mine. I made a vow to her with God as my witness, she made a vow to God to try to be straight. That difference angered me for a long time, but as I get to the ‘meh’ state with her (Chump Lady jargon) I can see that she used her vows to try to be something she wasn’t, whether she wanted the perks of straight life or she just couldn’t accept her orientation I’ll never know,  but it was clear from that comment that we made different promises on our wedding day.

Additional context on what a vow means to whom..,... my ex also  had an openly bisexual male friend that married in the first year that she and I met. I remember him holding up his ring finger and telling me it was an inhibitor.  He is still married but I completely doubt that he has a led a monogamous life - open or closed. He was honest with his fiancé then wife though and they had an open relationship when he was dating her but she didn’t want to know the details.

 

July 16, 2019 6:33 pm  #18


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Hi adsl,

That's a good point about her vow being between her and god and yours between you and her but I wonder - do you know she made the vow to try and be straight or could it have been to try and be monogamous?

gay or straight, people want to have children.  

Last edited by lily (July 16, 2019 6:40 pm)

 

July 16, 2019 9:35 pm  #19


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

yeah, it's funny how these people who think so little of wedding vows tend to marry people who do take them seriously.

I'm not sure that the desire for children suppresses the same sex attraction.  I think they are concurrent.  But wanting a family and being same sex attracted don't go together easily in the heart.

For anybody.

I am very upset at the way the lesbian wives treat their husbands -  it's bad, the way they make you feel but I think it helps me face it too - the gay husbands are no fun either.

 

July 17, 2019 11:01 am  #20


Re: How Religion Got Me Out This Marriage

Lily, you maybe correct about the monogamy. She told me once when we first started dating she had never made an exclusive sexual commitment in any prior relationship. I don’t know if she never wanted to get serious earlier or is another indication she wasn’t truly interested in men.  One other observation.. we were both 24 when we met and nearly all the women I dated before her had already had at least one relationship where they had been in love before.  She never spoke of a heartbreak with a man. One more sign I suppose.

MJM, on apologies, she did once say early on when she came out that she was sorry.  Throughout our co-parenting adventures though,  I’ve never felt she contributed enough to account for her culpability.

 

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