Glass Gloves

New feelings occurring. These are different. I think they call it “letting go”. I had written about this last year. Thought I knew all about it, but it is different this time.

The anxiety about the future seems to have gone away. Yes, I prayed for this to happen. Several times in fact. It scared me at first. “Am I no longer loving my wife?” I said to myself. Peace, calm, not even worried about the future. I kept beating myself up for a bit. Is something wrong with me? Where is that oh so strong ” I want my teddy bear back” feeling? I kept praying - “Am I doing something wrong here?”. Shouldn’t I feel that crazy tug at my heart the way I was? I spoke with several others about this. It is a part of the process apparently…..  almost as though my emotions have had Jesus style anathesia placed on them.  I found myself getting angry with myself…. come back super strong emotional tug at heart always keeping me up at night. Nope,  Elvis has left the building.

In place of it though, a different kind of love seems to be settling in. It is a type that I’ve preached and preached about, but am perhaps wondering if I really ever knew what I was talking about. The purpose of this site is really to document the journey so that others may be able to relate with the ebb and flow of the emotions and the restoration of their own marriages. So that is why I write this today. I’m still not completely understanding what is going on… and I’ll admit. It bugs me a bit that I seem to have almost grown numb, but I yet I notice a different kind of love jumping in. Oh… the wife is away… yeah I miss her, but bless her heart I really hope she has a good week this week. Golly, it must be really tough on her right now, poor thing. I better pray for more and more blessings on her. Pray for her self-esteem. Pray for her well-being.
I’ve been told about this. That once this happens, that is when the emotional tug on her heart actually starts in a much bigger way. Some sort of weird metaphysical dynamic out there in spiritual space - remembering that we are still one though separated.

Yes, I’ll continue to pray and fast for her,  but it is different now.  I’m told that as spouses makes the decision to come home, it is usually “suddenly”. Thus, I keep the house nice and tidy just in case she decides to come home or even drop in for dinner one night.
I sense that right now she needs some more space so I’m backing off a bit.

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Okay, I had mentioned the Narcotics Anonymous meeting that I had observed the other day. Well anyway, those guys had some pretty prescriptive stuff for getting off of that kind of stuff. I mean, for real, I think it is hard not calling my wife right now. At least, I’m not trying to get rid of an extreme chemical dependency at the same time. Now that is tough. Anyway, they had a set of principals or a path for getting off of narcotics. I hope I’m not reinventing the wheel here, but  I couldn’t help but notice many parallels to my own journey to restore our marriage and that of Narcotics Anonymous. This may be the first of a series of posts of helping to put together a more prescriptive plan and just letting God do the work rather than read 100 books about relationships and psychology and personalities like I did. That can help, but at the end of the day nothing I have tried even remotely compares to what has occurred in my marriage whenever God moved His mighty hand. I say that with great confidence. You can go to all the counselling in the world and read all the books in the world and it can help to some degree, but…. it still doesn’t match the power of my God. He is able.
It starts with turning to God. Somehow some way it has to start there.

Here is what I have learned so far.

1.) To turn to God - you need to know Him. A good place to start is His Word. Read the Scriptures every day. That means in your hand - tangible. At least 15 minutes - the more you can the better. Suggest starting with Acts, then all of Proverbs, Read it real fast at first, then slow down maybe and zoom in taking a second pass, then a third pass. You’ll pick up new things each time.

2.) Read the Whole Bible. Yup the whole thing. Think of it as a “survey course” at first. You have the rest of your life to zoom in, but for now you need to see the big picture and to understand the whole story. You need to experience the “climax” in the story to “get it” or get a glimpse of what He is all about.
3.) Accept Yahweh, God, Lord Jesus, Yeshua the Annointed, Yeshua Messiah, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God. You have to knock, seek, and ask. This is personal.  Doesn’t have a whole lot to do with whatever denominational beliefs you’ve been brainwashed with. Those are just walls. Nothing wrong with fellowship and what not, just don’t get so focused on cleaning the windows that you block the view. Get the idea? This is between you and Him and noone else. This is in the heart. My experience was something like a tremendous weight being lifted followed by lots of crying for my sins, followed by a sincere effort to change, followed by lots of wacky coincidences and answered prayers, followed by sincere and deep rooted empathy for people I didn’t even know (Oh my God they’re going to hell I need to tell them about God before it is too late), followed by joy and peace with the odd my wife is leaving me panic attack mixed in now and then. Not that my experiences should form the basis for yours, but you should start to see evidence that something is happening within your heart and your life. A changed life. A transformation of sorts. Watch out for the new believer self-righteous and haughty syndrome. Also, be advised that new believers seem to have a track record of getting their prayers answered a lot. So watch the arrogance once it starts happening k.
4.) Study the Our Father prayer. Live it, breathe it, understand it, pray it. The message is really that simple. Mix in your own words but apply the principal of the prayer. Not cold and metallic style, but rather as though you are speaking to someone who is both your friend, Dad, Mom, counselor, protector, spouse, and God all rolled into one. The last part was so you don’t forget to be reverent.
5.) You need to unbind any  curses (see Mosaic Laws in Old Testament for curse examples, and study themes throughout bible) that may still be affecting both your heart and your marriage. Think of it as old sins that you haven’t had cleansed or sins from others that may affect you. Now all of these things need to be done with your “heart in the right place”. Try not to bribe God - it backfires most the time in my experience. Literally sit down, search your soul, and WRITE down anyone you have ever hurt…. with the following….
a.) Harsh words you’ve said or others have said about people or your marriage.
b.) Not “Honoring” your mother and father. If they’re not a believer you can still honor them, mmm’k, you just have to be a bit more careful with what you say.
c.) Racism (being adverse to those with a different socioeconomic status that yourself)
d.) Injuring the innocent (abortion ring a bell?)
e.) Not helping the poor

f.) Being double minded (saying one thing - doing another)
g.) there are others, but I’ll revise this list at version 0.2

3.) Now, go back through the list above and identify anyone who has hurt you. Add to the list if you need to. Especially your spouse. Write down what they have done to hurt you and… this is very important, forgive them. You’ll probably have a hard time getting prayers answered until you learn to forgive. Sorry, I didn’t make up the rules so blame your Maker.

4.) Call or visit each person that you can…and seek forgiveness for your wrongs, not theirs. Don’t be pushy about it. Be careful for there is a time and place for seeking forgiveness and you’ll need to sense when your spouse is ready for it. Don’t be all pitiful as you do this, but just be real and most importantly sincere. If you don’t believe you are in the wrong for some things, really try to understand their point of view. Heck, put on a set of pumps and bra if you are guy to get an appreciation for what women go through (just kidding). Strap a bowling ball to your stomach and try walking around with it all day. Drink something to cause you to have kidney stones so you have some idea what it is like having a baby. Get the idea? Those are extreme examples, but the idea is to really look yourself over in the mirror and then seek out forgiveness. You may have to swallow a lot of pride. Keep drinking it down, it’s good for you, but sure does taste bad sometimes!
If visiting or a call is not possible, try to write a personal letter if you can, from the heart (no thinking - flowing from the Spirit), in your own hand writing. If the person has past, then you need to confess it to the Messiah and this is very important…. seek forgiveness out loud. It is some sort of thing about the way we are designed. It has to be “out loud” - verbal.

5.) Now hopefully your heart is getting cleaned up a little bit now.  Do you feel lighter yet? If not, we’re doing something wrong before we can go to the next phase. Ask what sins may be blocking your path.
6.) Praise God. Sing to Him. Tell people about Him - you know - praise Jesus. Halleluyah!

7.) Start fasting buddy. There are several options. Let the Spirit guide you to what you need to do.
8.) Have faith. You have to ask for it.   He gives more faith to different folks, but the deal is it can be built through tribulation. Realize this mess you are going through is in all likelyhood either a spanking for you or your wife, that is, training …. if you are willing to accept the discipline. He may be using this mess to actually build your faith. It may just be the enemy attacking, but He has allowed the attack perhaps to train you, test you, etc. Read Mark 11:22 and others. Nothing is impossible for God. Focus on that. Believe it, but don’t walk out into a busy street and say God save me - that’s just testing Him. Understand the balance. I can’t explain. He will throw a series of faith challenges at you. Get ready… from what I’ve observed the faith challenge is different for each person, but basically it seems to be something to see whether you will trust His ways (you know, being good and what not) or will cave in. There will be lots of little faith tests thrown at you and perhaps a few big ones. He is able and willing if you Trust Him. It may take some time though.
8.) Stay away or ignore people who say that your marriage can’t be restored.

9.) It’s getting late, I’ll finish tomorrow.  May revise the order on some of these things.

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This was interesting… I recently was talking to my Dad about everything going on between my wife and I. He was acting as a friend and counselor. I was telling him some of the things she had done, and my theories on how it got to that place, etc. things I had done wrong.. she’d done wrong… on and on.

He then related a story to me about his relationship with my mom. I recall when I was younger my Dad used to go to the new car dealership in my town to acquire new inventory from their trade ins. We lived on a used car lot out in the country. Selling cars and running a tractor trailer fleet was my Dad’s business back then. Our house was part of the property.

Anyway,  so he was telling me his side of the story. He was at the new car store, about to close on about 5 cars. My Dad was still a young man then - about my age. Probably there a bit too late, but anyway I guess Abraham had to go check on his sheep by himself until he was able to afford slaves and servants. So my dad was there wheelin and dealin - the objective of which was to feed us, clothe us, buy us q-tips, pay the mortgage, save for the future, send my brother and I to Catholic school, etc. He considered it part of his job I guess. Doing his manly duty. He then tells how one time my mother came up there right as he was about to close on a deal on 5 cars and it cratered.  Man… we could have gone on vacation that year if I had gotten that deal through. Thinking of the family, but in a different way. My dad came from a very poor family - 2nd generation immigrants and wanted us to have something since he didn’t growing up. To put this into perspective….. bologna was a delicacy. I recall him telling stories about the once in a blue moon time where my Grandpa would bring home some bologna from the market. Each of the sibling would actually lick their individual slice to preserve ownership  and rights to said bologna.  Take a bite a week maybe. At some point, I recall him telling me that even toilet paper was not to be had at one point.They actually used dried corn cobs at one point.  No running water - they had a well. My grandfather built, yes, built his own house - still standing today. Yes, compared to my Dad, I’ve lived a relatively sheltered life. That’s one point of view.
Now here is my mom’s side…. interestingly enough she retold me the exact story from her point of view - unprompted when I talked to her later that day. She’d say, yeah he was always up there… too late, never home with us like he should have been. I went up there one time to bring him home.  Went up there and chewed him out for staying away all the time. He was always working and would never come home. My mom came from a different background. poor, but not insane poor… vacations and family fun were common, but they still had to budget.

Who was right? Who was wrong? What really happened here?

In the story I told about my first child’s birth - I indicated that I was annoyed with my mother in law for not letting me hold her hand. At the time, I felt like… look lady …this is my wife - can you just stay out of our business - for God’s sake what right do you have to tell me I can’t hold my wife’s hand as she is giving birth - I know you are her mother, but this is my wife. I was so close to asking her to leave, but didn’t want to make a scene and embarrass my wife. I felt like I was being controlled and just wanted to comfort my wife. I felt like my mother in law became a big 300lb line backer getting in the way of me comforting my wife as she was giving birth. My other brother in law told me that he felt the same way when she was in the room as his wife was giving birth. Later she asked him if she would make a good midwife. My brother in law declined to comment much - he just said… I wouldn’t want you there. Under the surface you could feel his feeling of being controlled.

Her point of view revealed later… she had heard that a woman going into labor can break a man’s hand and was trying to just spare my hand from surgery.
The best of intentions get lost in the cross fire sometimes….. don’t they? I do wonder if that is what my wife grew up with though…  is that why she lashes out at me? Does she feel the same way? I know she has in the past.

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Shortly before my wife was due to deliver my first child I recall something that caught me off guard a bit. Large purchases of cleaning supplies, new vacuum cleaners, voice operated cleaning robots, crack cleaning teams, brooms, mops, bleach.

I would ordinarily come home from work and it was hit or miss whether the house was clean (she stayed home). Seemed to kind of stay clean for a couple of days, then it would rapidly change… be in a mess for days. Not so for the upcoming child though. I’d walk in and almost get nauseated with the smell of clean. Man O’ man I wish I had been better prepared for that. It was like watching the true mammal side of us as human beings at work. Not something, I’d ordinarily think about.. you know people are people, not animals. But we are animals! I know that sometimes we as humans act no better than talking monkeys, but none the less it caught me off guard realizing that in many ways my wife had turned into a bear cleaning out the den for her new cub.

This is something else I wish I had known more about 5 or 6 years ago. I guess serves me right for having my nose buried in non-fiction books for most of my life. What a journey…. going from someone who could barely feel anything so long ago to being able to feel sincere deep pain for people’s plight that I don’t even know now. Passing it on to some other upcoming Dad who may read this one day.
The funny thing is… I probably would have never known these sort of feelings had I not lived through this sort of pain over the last two years or so. God works in mysterious ways indeed.

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Still trying to better understand women. I guess my life’s story will be complete once I understand them. Here is something that recently dawned on me. I’m going to call it the Cupid Effect and it has to do with space.

Let’s walk through an example…. I say to my wife… will you go to Boulder Colorado with me to hear Michell Weiner Davis preach to you about marriage. I think that’s what she heard. That’s not what I said, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve asked several times about various counselling programs, etc. but the timing is off. She has given me much feedback over the last week or so. You keep pushing me away. Stop. There is no comittment to the marriage here - no realization that it isn’t always lovey dovey feelings. Doesn’t mean it can’t be, but doesn’t matter as that is what her expectations have been set to… by her friends, mother, culture, or whatever. So that’s what I’m dealing with for now.

So I think about this from her perspective. She needs space. I don’t. Some people do… some people don’t. Sometimes in a relationship … the need for space shifts… as the male is acting like a big monkey, eventually the female’s emotions will shutdown and she will require space. The reverse happens as well.
In her mind, I think this may be what is going on. I’m waiting to see if my emotions will turn back into love for you and you keep ruining it you big oaf.  Can’t you understand that I need space? It is difficult for my personality type to understand it… plus we have shifted roles. She used to be the one who wanted me to need her… somehow we have swapped places.  She is wanting to leave maybe,  and I want her to stay. I chase - she pulls away.  I chase - she pulls away even more.
I try to get myself into her brain and her point of view and suddenly I recall a conversation I had with my mother. So here I am  telling my mother that I’m coming into my home town. She lives about 30 miles from there. I wanted to go to Grandma and Grandpa’s because it would nourish my soul to go HOME! That is where I was raised in many ways. Mom keeps pushing on me to come to her house instead. I don’t want to go to her house because emotionally, I’m in no condition to go there. It feels empty there since my mom and dad got a divorce. It feel like that scene at the end of the Godfather Part 2 where Al Pacino has his brother killed and dumped into a lake. It just doesn’t feel right. Finally I get a big guilt sensation from my mom to go there, but I’m not a happy camper. It makes me feel worse to be there. She pushed… I agreed to go there out of guilt.

Naturally, I would have picked up this trait of my mother and have probably done it to my wife without even realizing.  Stop pushing she says. I know I love my mother, but when she pushed I didn’t want to be around her.  Same thing going on here.

I recall my wife coming up to me in the past to be held. It felt wonderful to be her rock. To hold her in my arms and console her. Just holding. We would hold for a few minutes, then evetnually I would find my self wanting to withdraw.  I don’t know why. So I would wait until she felt better, but then I felt something inside me withdraw. Why is that there? Did my mother not feed me enough as a kid… ? just kidding.  I don’t know, but the point is  that sensation of withdrawal, it exists in all of us me thinks. Why? Chicken Thigh.

Anyway, so back to the cupid effect, I think that is what is going on with the space thing. She is knowing in her mind that a divorce is not the right answer, but  feels so hurt emotionally and probably doesn’t even know why. That push …. doesn’t give her time to sort through her feelings.  It is something she needs, just in as much as I need to be with her and hold her, comfort her, etc.

The challenge I see is how in the heck do you let go to give her time to heal?

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So I my wife and I started having problems recently. This may or may not be a big D word thing again. I hope not, but she is pretty upset right now.
I believe we’ve just entered another valley; and there is a hill just beyond the horizon,  but apparently I still need some more lessons from the big man. It came as sort of a surprise again, but I’m going to share what I learned so far. The point of this post is to further emphasize that this is a life long process. Don’t treat it like just a passing storm. Once you get into the safe zone, keep going to the counselling once in awhile, if it helped the first time. When you first make it into the safe zone, it will feel like a new relationship all over again, but then after awhile it becomes easy to settle back into the status quo. We forget. Why do we forget? Dunno. Something about being human.
The wife did seem to be happy quite a bit over the last year, but recently due to what her folks have been going through and another relative she has had to deal with a number of external issues to our family. Our marriage went into a down swing. I’ve tried to support her in this, however, found myself fumbling in the dark again. I’ve been asking if I can help in any way with it, etc. but that is annoying her. Let’s call this a Post Near Divorce Experience After Shock. Right.
This one snuck up on me.
Here are some mistakes that were made. I have a bad habit of asking how everything is going between us. She’ll say fine, but then sometimes due to everything we went through I’ll get doubts. Then I may get insecure and start to look really creepy probably ask too many times how are we doing. This make me look like I’m not exactly protecting her, and in addition, it seems to be received as saying I’m not being a good wife. Then an argument would start. Not my intent, but there it is. I spoke to one counselor about it and she suggests that I knock this part off. Her words were “It’s not attractive”.
What I’ve learned so far, is not to ask so often. It is pandora’s box. What it does is to stir up doubt. It plants a nasty seed. Not a good idea to do that.

The other part is how to control back sliding. Once you get back into status quo mode you may tend to forget some things and old habits creep back in.  I’ve now made a pact with one of my buddies for each of us to call each other if one of us approaches the anger zone. Kind of like an “anger buddy”. It is to calm the nerves.
Anyway, I talked to a counsellor about it and what they said was though I may be doing a lot better with the glass gloves, at the end of the day, there is also some fall out in that she will still not be completely honest about all her feelings so as to not push buttons that may start an argument. She was trained by me to not respond or talk when she is feeling down on something, that is why it came as a surprise. I hadn’t changed as much as I thought I had or the effect wore off a bit. Great!
She has left to her mother’s for the weekend to get some space. Keep the prayers coming folks, I was warned that it would take at least a couple years to get everything completely on the right track and that advice and warning was sound. I also think there are some things that I had neglected during my spiritual quest to try and relate to Yahweh aka God through the Messiah even more.

What happened is that I was focused on trying to understand the difference between the law and grace and where do you draw the line. I’ll come to the point at the end of the next paragraph, but first I wanted to discuss the questions I was asking of myself and scripture.
I was trying to better understand heaven, hell, purgatory, Sheol, eternal death, mostly universal salvation, etc. The thought was, if I really and truly believe there is some place called hell with burning fire, etc. then I really don’t even have time for my own family. Too many souls to reach. Think of it this way, if I truly believe that lots of folks are going to burn in hell, then wouldn’t it be my mission to reach as many as I could? If that is the belief, then everything else is almost nill in comparison. I mean think of it - as long as you could take a spoon to dig up Mount Everest and transplant it to Antartica even then eternity would not have began. Anyway, I looked into it more and more, and though I can’t prove it scripturally at this point, I suspect that eventually there will be a lot more people redeemed than was originally anticipated. This is really based on one fundamental precept - a just and all loving God could not punish infinitely for a finite crime. Now granted, this is based on my personal bias so don’t go taking my gut instincts as any sort of truth. This is what my gut has always told me, but you have to be careful with not deluding yourself. Oh dear brother, maybe that’s what was meant by being reborn. We have to taste death / destruction before He can let us into the door. Sounds like purgatory eh? Again, I can’t confirm it yet as there is only one verse or so that scripturally supports this idea, and the source to this is in Macabees which was never considered part of the canon, but instead a historical book. Yeah yeah, they say the same thing about Acts sometimes. Grace seems to be what saves, but I think of the law as a guide or the “walk” with God. See here for an interesting walk through some of the law: http://theownersmanual.net/ (56 hits)Now make no mistake, my personal belief is that the law is a “guide” and I don’t worry so much about breaking the law, but rather not following the guide.
Anyway, what all of this have to do with anything? Well, when someone tells me something that my gut instinct doesn’t trust, then I go out and do my best to find the “real truth”, not what I’ve been told. Anyway, I spent a great deal of time looking into these matters and in the process of trying to bring my family closer to God, I found that instead I had become a bit obsessive with this, resulting in alienating my family sometimes. People started to call me “religious”. Oh no - stones getting tossed at me.  Weird how that works, eh? I think what is happening here is that He is now working on “humbling” me a bit. Gently reminding me, that there was nothing I did to deserve what I’ve been given. When I started down this path, it used to confuse me about what was so hard for folks to understand about this. Doofus, I didn’t understand either at one time so shame on me.
I can sometimes be a pretty intimidating person when it comes to these matters and I think this may be a way of saying, you are not skilled enough nor do you know enough of the truth to be thinking yourself as knowledgable in this area so sit tight tiger while I teach you some more. Or something like that. Probably just deluding myself again! Christians are often blasted for being “hypocritical”. That is probably one of the worst things to have affected His kingdom, but I honestly think He did it just to show everyone what he was up to, and that in the end it will be finally understood by possibly all or most. Me thinking I was knowledgable was in a way, having too much pride and it was coming off as self-righteous at times. Not a good personality trait to have. Now I wasn’t trying to act  this way, but it was sometimes being received that way. The raw “unabashed” truth could be difficult for me to deliver since I still don’t know enough. Preparation breeds confidence and I’m still not fully prepared. Anyway, this started to affect my family as well so I’ve got some recovery work to do. Irony how I got here eh?
How do I solve this then? Here is a clue - I can’t by myself, that is why it is called a “walk”. The greater more experienced ox (Jesus/ Yeshua / Yahshua, etc.) is yoked with me. I carry some of the burden, but He carries the majority.
I’ve been praying for God to touch my wife’s heart the way I suspect He has touched mine. It is such a powerful thing. I wanted her to experience it for herself, but she hasn’t overly interested in studying scripture, etc. but I guess everyone does it differently. I’ve gone on and on this site about how good it is, but the wife seems to hit or miss at times.  Maybe this is the path for her to get that special gift and yet another lesson for me. I think that I may even have to accept the reality, that this sort of gift may not be for her - not unlike Mother Theresa. I’d like her to feel that. When she returns, I may give her some money and tell her to just go give it to someone who looks needy. It is quite a feeling.
Now I truly think that some of this may be preventing us from taking the marriage to the next level, but I was rushing it again. I need to take mor of my own advice eh? So, she asked for some space. She’s got it. Great, how do I go about not violating her space and making sure I’m good to go when I talk to her?

Well, I’ve decided that I’ll watch sad movies to “emotionally” train myself to not seem like a loser that desperately misses her.  If I can handle a real sad movie when my wife is mad at me, then hopefully that will give me “practice” to not look all puppy dog style when we interact. She should be back in a couple of days and I need to be prepared.
That was the rant for today.

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