Finding ways to cope in a 'destructive' marriage

The following is an extract from one of many letters I have received on this subject and my answer to it. While situations differ, anyone in a 'destructive' marriage could gain from following the suggestions I have made.

Dear Fr. Thady,
It is the most painfully destructive experience to live in a marriage when a person is unwilling to share or even meet halfway or quarter-way. Don't know why I continue on - fear of not being able to cope - of making the break - commitment to duty - children, grandchildren - of wagging tongues - no where to go, and not enough money to live on etc.
Have I been cowardly? Why does God not help me? I'm involved in community and parish over the years. I visit a few elderly people in my neighbourhood. I go to Sacrament of Reconciliation and Holy Communion every 1st Friday 1st Saturday. I usually get to daily Mass. I spend time very often with Jesus in Eucharistic Adoration. I read the Bible and other spiritual books.
But I'm a kind of a 'hypocrite' at home because I cannot relate to this man whom I have to live with. My personality changes as soon as he comes home. I usually go to another part of the house. There's not much I can do because he's all into business. May I humble ask your kind prayers to know if I should continue on this way. What is God's will. I know I am a sinner and I've had a very 'troubled' life.
It is impossible for me to feel loved by God yet I read all the great stories of people experiencing being loved. Most of life is about punishment. I know we deserve to suffer because of our sins. It is very hard and humiliating to live in a 'sham' way. What can I do?

My Response

While your letter was thorough and well written, it is not possible to assess everything from a letter. However, presuming that abuse isn't involved, I make the following suggestions.

1) Find a regular confessor to whom you can be totally honest, and go to Confession face to face. Open to him the aversion you have for your husband, and all the inner thoughts and desires that go with it. In this way the light of Christ can shine into your inner mind and heart. Keep going to Confession regularly, and continue to open your inner frustration, hurt and anger. Don't worry about repeating yourself.
(What the Confessor says to you is of very little importance, so don't get hung up on it. The important part is you being totally honest, and opening up your inner self.)
(Alternatively you could go to a Christian counsellor.)

2) Start opening all the pain that is in your heart to the Lord. Identify the key elements of it - the reasons you feel this aversion for your husband - how you feel let down and neglected. Write down the different thoughts that come to you as you go along.

3) Hold the inner pain before Jesus each day in daily prayer, thanking Him that He has won for you the right to immense inner healing. Desire the total dissolution of this mountain of pain. Continue to write down the new insights that come to you.

4) Accept that is isn't possible for you to love your husband with your own emotions. Then become conscious that Jesus does love Him. Focus on Jesus' love for him.
(Even though your emotions have very negative feelings, seek for your inner spirit to unite with the love of Jesus for him.)

5) Praise and thanksgiving open us to God's blessings. When it becomes at all emotionally possible, regardless of your feelings, start thanking Jesus first for His love, and then for the person who is your husband. You don't have to thank God for his faults, but do thank God that he is made in God's image, and seek to develop a mental picture of him with his own struggles and disappointments in life.

6) While accepting that in your emotions (flesh), the hurt and anger etc will persist for a long time, seek in your inner spirit to utter the words, "I forgive him. ... I forgive him. .. I forgive him ... When one is able to utter them, these words are very liberating.

7) I suspect that certain problems go back in your life to before you met your husband. Learn to identify these, and to open them up to Jesus using steps 1 to 3 above.

8) You have no sense of being loved by God, yet God is love. Jesus desires you to have a real breakthrough so that you will know God's love. Seek to get in touch with how this false image of God developed in your life. Renounce it and pray to be delivered from it. Every time you pray, remind yourself that God is love.

9) "Commit your cause to the Lord. Trust in Him and He will act on your behalf. He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noonday." Psalm 37:5-6
Make a decision that your are handing your whole life over to Jesus and all that is in it. Then start trusting moment by moment, and day by day, that Jesus is going to lead you into a better future.

10) Realise that far from being hypocritical, if you even begin to take these steps you are leading a heroic life, and that you can hold your head high. Realise too, that, while your emotions may continue to feed you the lie that God doesn't love you, God does love you; and also that He is immensely pleased with every step you take to follow these instructions.

Meanwhile it is good that you have built up your own life, and so have a degree of independance. Your presence is also a source of blessing for your children and grandchildren.

See also my three prayer booklets designed to lead one into healing through daily prayer. For details of these, click on heading "Desire to experience real healing through daily prayer, and to see prayers answered again and again."