Awesome! I'm glad you're here. Your experience will be helpful to so many!

  Greetings all. My wife and I are approaching our 40th Anniversary. Glad to join this discussion.

thank you for this forum am in Africa and hope to regurlarly share my experiences with all you people

Well again it does say introduction so I will try to make this short but its going to be hard to take 35 yrs and put it into a few words. But I will start with I was on facebook and had a friend have Joe Beam on his friends list so I invited. I sent him a message, pertaining to my ? or maybe my statement. And On there was this forum so I thought I would try it out.
I was married for 35 yrs, Divorce being finale last Sept. so close to a yr now. My situation I think is different from most. My ex and I married when I was very young (16)  he was 21 both being Christians and living in a state were there were not many Christians. We went to my Mom and Dad and ask for permission to get married, knowing it was the right thing to do, or it  might get to the point we would have to get married. So we married . My Mom's request was that i finish school before ever thinking about having children. So I went to school as requested. BUT! My ex wanted to mold me to be the woman he wanted, and he felt so strongly he could do that. And I did most of all that was what a good Christian Wife should do. And then later what a good Christian Mother should do, having 2 children,  My working in Christan Schools to put my children as I thought in a good Christan surrounding. BUT! it wasn't enough I wasn't good enough. So I worked harder and harder read the books and took the classes to be what was desired of me. I'm not saying I was perfect because by no means was I. I truly made mistakes! and there were time I was rebellious. Not being something a Wife should be. I was not the child. Only to know that now. All the years being told I was not good enough and that what I thought and felt was not right, took its tole on me. I would have my break downs were I could not take his molding of me, and I would truly break, and stand up to his firm words. But that was so bad of me that made it even worse on me. Because then it was o my gosh here goes Rhonda on one of her break downs, not that it had anything to do with that I had taken all the verbal abuse I could take and would just stand up to him only to be told i was wrong for my thinking and feelings,  SO I would climb further and further in a hole or a cave if that would be a good way to put it. SO I had gotten to were I was just a robot doing the wifely duty's and all I could to just be content with my situation, And by the way now I know I was a great MOM and WIFE but to him that  was never enough. Please don't get me wrong he is a good Christian Man. Just did not know how to love me as his WIFE AND THE MOTHER OF HIS CHILDREN. I try ed to learn to just deal with that.  Even after taking classes in marriage seminar that I did convince him to go to once, it worked for a while that was the good few yrs of our marriage. but he could not stay that way he went back to the control and verbal abuse. I continue to read and study on how I could be better. TILL ONE DAY! It was all gone I had nothing left to fight the battle. SO I ask for a Divorce. not that it was the first time., but I had no more trying left in me to live in a  marriage. that I could never do anything pleasing enough, I had gotten so depressed because as a Christian woman I believed I made my bed I had to lie in it. Well I was laying in it alright, all most laying in a coffin, I had giving up the fight to be happy, thinking I was unworthy of it since I had been told for so many yrs  I was not worthy of it in one form or another. Now at this point I need to say remember I said I worked in Christan Schools to put my children through them., So I was the first to teach all that thinking of ending ones life was a PERMANENT SOLUTION TO A TEMPORARY PROBLEM!!!!!!!! And believed it and did not believe in Divorce. but for only one reason. The day I had the pills in my hand I was glorifying some one close to me for taking his life as all did in our family I thought. so  I had gotten to that point thinking they will glorify my death also. Even thou I felt in my mind I would go to HELL!!! AND! as I set there with those pills in my hand it is as if GOD!!!! slapped me in the head and said to me MY CHILD HAVE I NOT TAUGHT YOU ANYTHING ABOUT MY GRACE!!!! and I was like what? were is this coming from? but I sat for a few min., and thought about what was coming into my head. AND NO! I had not been taught enough about GOD"S Grace. So within a few min of my sitting there thinking, the phone rang., I wasn't going to answer it cause of course I was getting ready to take my life so I could be out of the pain I felt of being so unhappy. NOW I do have to say here I also BELIEVE that there is NO ONE ON THIS EARTH THAT CAN MAKE YOU HAPPY BUT YOURSELF if you keep waiting for someone to make u happy it will never happen. ONLY YOU AND GOD can do that. BUT! I also seen what others had seen as a way out of PAIN that could not be stoped. SO I answered the phone. IT being my Sister! who is connected to my soul., SHE ASK ME! what is it Rhonda what is wrong, I TOLD HER nothing, I'm just fine as I always did. And as I was sitting there with a handful of pills. She again said NO Rhonda I know you tell me what is wrong! Again I said nothing! And yet another time and I broke and told her, NOW the rest of the story is I'M ALIVE. AND GOD'S GRACE SAVED ME. Yes I got a divorce believing as many Christians do that with out Biblical reason that also is wrong. BUT NOW I HAD HOPE I HAD GOD'S GRACE. and so my thinking was I HAVE A CHANCE TO BE HAPPY AND LIVE IN GOD'S GRACE. So I moved on I choose to ask for a Divorce. The most RESPECT I can have for my ex husband is that he let me GO with out a fight!  AND NOW I'M ON A JOURNEY! I ASK GOD TO USE ME! TO BLESS ME! IN THE PLACES AND AREA OF LIFE THAT I COULD BE USED MOST TO HELP OTHERS AS A WOMAN OF GOD! And he has bless me beyond measure. MY EYES ARE OPEN finally I SEE what it is that he had given me all these years in trying to help others and to learn all I did. WAS ONLY TO TO HELP ME TO LEARN AND HAVE KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM FOR MY OWN JOURNEY AND THAT OF HELPING OTHERS! and he is blessing me with HELPING OTHERS. that is my QUEST! BUT I STILL GAIN TO LEARN MORE AND MORE ON THIS JOURNEY so now I choose to not have to keep going through the struggles in life over and over I choose to learn them the first time!!!!!!

Help Help Me Rhonda,

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Thanks.

I read that singles and married were both welcome to this new forum on Joe's Facebook page so here I am.

My name is Tracy and I am 41 years old.  I have never been married and I don't have children.  This was not my heart's desire but it is what God has for me.  As you may expect I have a lot of friends who are married, both happily and unhappily.  I do my best to honor marriage even as a single woman by praying for the marriages of my friends, loved ones, and others; by keeping myself from making negative comments about marriage; by being very careful with the married men that I know as friends and colleagues; and by praying for ministries like Joe's. 

I hope to direct those who need divine intervention in their marriages to this forum and I commit to pray about every situation that I read about here.

Glad to have you, Stu. Alice and I were married 15 years the first time and 22 years this time (a three year parting that was awfully bad). We are based in Franklin, TN, so hello, neighbor.

Look  forward to your comments.