Many times cheaters use the phrase ‘just be reasonable’ to manipulate and control you. When you are asked to reasonable, typically, someone is wanting to put their agenda ahead of yours. They want you to ‘give up’ on something important to them, so that they can obtain what they want. Since you were brought up and trained to be nice, when your spouse wants you to be reasonable, there is a part of you who wants to ‘play nice’ and give in. Giving in to ‘keep the peace’ occasionally works, yet most of the time, you will end up resenting what you gave up and those who pressured you to ‘be reasonable’. When you are faced with keep the peace or keep the relationship, the decision should be clear. selling out to ‘keep the peace’ will often cost you the relationship, so you have not gained much.
When you fight for your spouse and your marriage, you will be labelled as being ‘unreasonable’. Somehow the wedding vow where your spouse promised to love you, and commit to you, for better or worse is swept under the rug at that time. They want to eject you for being ‘unreasonable’. Wanting to keep you marriage is not being unreasonable. Wanting to have your spouse honor their wedding vows is not being unreasonable. Wanting your spouse to stay committed to you and you alone is NOT being unreasonable.
You need to be aware of the trap that often surrounds ‘reasonable-ness’. When you see a trap, you need to recognize it as a trap and treat it as a trap.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
6 Responses
Tonight I find this very applicable . I am hurting …my husband went off and did not come back til late in the afternoon. He confessed when asked how his day went …that he did his usual and then since he was called by the children of the OW to ask if he would come get them and go eat and do something he spent the day with them.
Our weekends were supposed to be spent with us …
I feel trapped in an impossible situation since if I am to have the marriage which would be A MARRIAGE …complete with relationship and healing it seems it would be damaging to the process of fathering those children to the degree that he is able.
He has thus far set me completely aside in terms of relating in any way but a most superficial way.
He missed our anniversary on purpose saying he felt it would not be ‘right ‘ seeing how he ‘desires a separate life’
THis is no real kind of life for me and a terrible situation for our daughters to observe how this effects me …and it DOES effect them
We are all put in the position of either having no real relationship as a husband and father SHOULD be expected to engage in OR to feel we are denying those kids of knowing their biological father.
It is MY HUSBAND who has made the decision to function this way …to him it is either/or not a both/and situation where he COULD make better effort . So far I am still feeling like the least considered person in his life….This was something I had to deal with when I thought he was just too busy with too many responsibilities in his career and that someday he was looking forward to making more of our time together.
It turns out I feel like I am necessary for him to feel like he has someone he is able to hurt by way of keeping me on the sidelines of all his relationships.
Here I am struggling to be a ‘good sport’ through awaiting him to wake up and care …and it seems he is just not willing…I DO believe he is capable but that he simply does not want to put in the effort.
I am not so sure that as I look at my own ‘stuff’ that this is merited …since early on in our marriage I have felt I needed to be more generous because he had many friends and responsiblities that I could not be selfish with my husband’s time….but that has turned out to be a REAL LOSS for all of us since he took full advantage as we know .
People who believe that married persons can put anyone or anything before their spouse and not suffer consequences are in for a BIG shock….My husband has not felt the cost of this kind of cold hearted treatment of all of us as he continues to be responsive to the needs of the children of the OW and I have a sense that the OW leaves those kids alone without any kind of plan for how they are to spend their weekend SO THAT my husband will feel compelled to go there.
I am trying to sustain my faith and consistant devotion to keeping my vows and looking forward to my husband’s waterloo for his soul’s sake …but it still hurts deeply that he is so intent upon doing everything according to how he feels he ‘needs’ to for others while feeling he has no obligation to me whatsoever.
Paying the bills is certainly right and he does do that ….but that is IT . He is AWOL on all other aspects of relationship,. My daughters do not feel right about having their own lives and are reticent to leave our home to do so because they have had to take up so much of what my husband ought to be doing with me. I have encouraged them to ‘fly the coop’ but they are worried about me .
It is hell being in a marriage which only goes ONE WAY …..sigh.
I had asked him to at least keep me in the loop …send me some recent photos while he is with them …but he keeps ‘forgetting’ or says ‘ I will try to work that out’
This is so difficult …but I don’t know what else to do.I don’t want a divorce and do not believe in it …and I don’t want anyone else …I don’t enjoy being alone ALL the time though I have many interests ….It is tough not being able to talk over things I think and feel with my husband because HE does not CARE and does not reciprocate in any kind of discussion.
His life is still his own mysterious secret and private world .
One thing I think my daughters are learning in how to ‘screen ‘ a prospective husband is that any man who is not open to accountability with others is not a safe bet for marriage.
Zaza,
It is often painful reading your responses. The pain you are feeling definitely comes through. The heaviness of your situation and the challenges you face are hard for me to imagine. When I have trouble imagining with my head what you are dealing with, I am sure that my heart would really have a hard time connecting with it. Your comment that ‘It is hell being in a marriage which only goes ONE WAY…sigh’ says a lot. When the very person who you want to talk to makes himself unavailable, it makes the pain worse, but cutting you off from any outlet or relief. Your children are watching what you do and how you handle things, often when you do not realize it.
Many people do not realize that the law of cause and effect operates throughout the universe. Your statement “People who believe that married persons can put anyone or anything before their spouse and not suffer consequences are in for a BIG shock” is 100% correct. Many of them use drugs or alcohol to numb the pain, but that does not prevent the consequences. The consequences will come. Although it is not much comfort, we serve a God who knows the exact way to reach someone, even when we do not have a clue. When matters are in his hand, He has a way of bringing consequences in a way that gets a person’s attention and heart. No matter how out of reach his heart may be for you, it is not our of our Fathers reach.
Your comment that “His life is still his own mysterious secret and private world” makes it sound like his living in his own private La-La land. When the cheater is living in a fantasy world, they are hard to connect with. IN their world, they make the rules and often change them to fit the latest whim that strikes their fancy. Dealing with real life issues and the real world is often something they avoid.
I continue praying for you and the challenges you are faced with.
And ANOTHER THING>…His reticence for accountability is not that he feels he needs it …or that he is prone to do bad things…but that he feels he is too good and ‘moral’ to need to ..and that what he does is nobodies business as long as he is not ‘hurting anyone’ .
So when he does what he thinks is a ‘good ‘ thing by being with those kids he feels that relieves him of doing things WITH me or for me in any sort of intimate ways of comfort or affection….He seems satisfied that he is ‘doing the best he can’ …while still distancing himself from me in any close way …even avoiding what would commonly be a ‘friendship’ …
Why do I feel like I am being ‘punished’ for having married this man~! It feels like he blames me for him having ‘had’ to commit adultery! Just as he seems to blame the OW for her being willing to have sex with him! Gee it seems like if that were the case then why did he do it for so many many years!
THANK YOU! It really does help to have someone articulate BACK to those who are in such pain. I do not want to become a whiner…or a drag on anyone . I try to maintain my walk and faith in what you have shared about how God works in situations …all of them . Waiting for this has been one of my activities throughout when I did not know about the adultery but thought it was ONE DAY going to be a reciprocal relationship. He did give enough ‘crumbs’ in our family to cover his lie….and he was good at this .
After I wrote here I did finally decide to speak with him to let him know that unlike his past assumptions that even though I was trying to deal with what is nearly and impossible situation it STILL hurt ..and being a ‘good sport’ was not something he should take advantage of . I told him I felt I had to speak up. I did not intend to come between him and any of his children as children need to have this kind of ongoing growing relationship especially as they enter the most influential point of their young lives , high school.
Rejoice Ministries offers some good encouragment but I find it so difficult to do the ‘zip the lip’ consistently with my husband IN the home which is good but also hard to pretend his behavior does not hurt . Besides as I said …in the past when he is not informed that his behavior hurts he presumes it is OK and that I am OK with his having a ‘separate life’ …I refuse to allow him to go merrily on with this kind of living in denial of the damage his unchanged behavior is causing all of us …including himself .
I take a calm approach, and keep it respectful but I am not going to do nothing to remind him of his jurisdiction which is under the authority and ordination of God …believing it or not …he is due to have results or consequences according to his own choices.
Thank you for being a comfort as those who weep with those who weep and share in the various aspects of this difficult journey and growing time …like it or not …I believe I have no other avenue but to keep on keeping on in my walk and prayer for all things to come about as God wills for His glory and our good …that is the ongoing intent.
Hugs to your both. Great helpers!
Dealing with tough situations when you are in pain is a tough challenge. There is always the choice of “do what is right” versus “get out of or reduce the pain”. Although doing what is right will eventually reduce the pain, that reduction does not always happen as fast as we want it to. There is always the temptation to get out of pain fast. (Have you ever noticed that addictions are often based on those ‘get out of pain fast’ activities?). I don’t know about you, but my own experiences are that the quick-fixes to reduce pain do not fix the situation and are often more expensive and taxing in the long run, than had I done what was the right thing. As a Christian, it is clearer what the right thing is, but often not simpler or easier. There are times that the only comfort we have is knowing that God is with us. It reminds me of the passage in Psalm 23 “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me”. The walk is often a lonely one, the valley has shadows of death that are threatening, yet they are not real, they are shadows. Then there is the ‘walk’ part. It is a walk, not a trot or a run. We may want it to go by fast, but it is that slow, steady, plodding walk that gets us through it. This is tough for us who are surrounded by red bulls, and 5 hour energy shots that make us want to run through it, or feel like we are doing a marathon. It is neither. It is a walk that no one but you can do.
Your faith is an inspiration. Your burden is lifted up in prayer. I wish you God’s best this Sunday,
Jeff
Thank you Jeff….GREAT reminder….oh how we like to believe our ‘fix’ is going to be ‘quick’ and when we come to the Lord we so underestimate what this ‘walk’ is going to be like. We underestimate the enemy and we often are the last to see one of our biggest hurdles in our very own mirror! AWK!
With that said we expect an ‘unbeliever’ or a fallen comrade to bounce back faster?! How I wish!
I appreciate your writing me an encouraging reminder. Today at the new church I have been going to after listening online to the pastor for some time beforehand I am finding some people who are seriously into the Word …and living in it . Many who are facing the usual trials which all believers eventually deal with if they are willing to put the Word into application in their walk and do the work of an evangelist to any degree. The Devil hates those who are not shut down or shut up by the world and various forms of cost and intimidation .
I am grateful for your continued stand and substantial energy you put forth to serve GOD in a way that ministers to hurting people.
Continue with your wife to be a light in some of the darkest recesses of the soul in those whose trust has been bruised and often times crushed in the most intimate of relationships we may have on this earthly walk.
Hugs to you both!