Jesus_is_LORD said:

Great question.

Well my friend, I actually didn't even belief in divorce.
We are going deep. Feel free to back away or redirect if I'm sharing too much, but.
Ok here we go.

So, she cheated physically with someone at her work ( I think, I never found out who exactly it was), I think.

When it happened I told her that she needed to transfer jobs, she stated that I was being controlling
and that she was not emotionally attached and didn't need to change jobs.

We argued that night. She said I was being controlling and she walked out of our home.
Just left. Went for 3 months, heard nothing from her. I prayed and fasted and prayed for God
to bring her back.

God answered my prayer, she came back and said she wanted to make it work, so I took her back.
She left again after a few months and said it wasn't going to workout. I told her I didn't believe
in divorce and we should try to make it work.

She blackmailed me to divorce her. She held me financially hostage. Her name was on the lease but she left
the apartment, (the 2nd time) and wasn't helping me pay the rent. I told her to please sign the termination
agreement for me to break the lease so I could find a cheaper place. She said she would not do that unless
I signed the divorce papers. She also did a false police report stating she was a danger and got a restraining
order, more reasons that I felt I had to sign the divorce papers, because she was blackmailing me financially and
now making false police statements that could have me in jail. (This was 2015). For the protective order she filed,
I was served by the local Sherrif's department the papers that said keep away from her.

When the court case came for the protective order (my legal counsel said that women often do this to add to the record before they file for divorce),
I prayed and went to court, and she didn't show. So they threw out the case.
Although she physically stepped out of the marriage (and not diminishing my part because I believe that as the man, I'm ultimately responsible,
and I put it on my lack of spiritual strength and what I did I'm sure give the devil a foot in our marriage), I did a mutual
agreement because I didn't want to have a contested divorce (protective order and divorce were separate court cases).

I didn't want to get a contested divorce because I know how the courts favor women often, and seeing that my wife at the time
was very deceptive, I didn't want the courts to mandate me to pay her alimony.
So I drafted up my own mutual divorce form where I told her I would give her $11,000, pretty much $1,000 stipend a month
for 11 months, where I paid her car payment, health insurance, etc, etc, etc. She agreed and signed
the mutual agreement. She got what she wanted, money, and I got my life back.

Now back to your question about the counselor. She (Wife at the time) actually got mad at the Christian counselor
and didn't return for more sessions after like our 2nd session.

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Jesus_is_LORD said:

We had maybe 3 sessions today.

The Christian counselor met with each of us individually first,
then met with us together.

In the sessions the counselor told me that I needed to pay more attention to her emotional needs and
that I needed to learn that I didn't always have to understand her to show emotional support.

I don't remember much of what the counselor told her, but I do remember her getting angry
at the counselor when the counselor would challenge her behaviors. And it seemed that
when he would try to get her to see a different perspective she would push back.

Another reasons I tried to stick it out was I felt bad for her, and knew she had been through alot.
She was sexually assaulted by her older brother as a 13 year old girl for a few years.
She had a lot of trauma, and being in the mental health field, I guess I thought
I could heal her and felt like God led her to me to heal her from her trauma.
But now I learned that it is better to have people heal before marriage not during.

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God's Truth said:

She seems really sweet in the video, and seems like she adored you. That is wise of you to know that a person should heal before marriage. Too bad we didn't know what we know now, right? lol But in all seriousness, it is why I preach so hard to obey Jesus. People are not taught that. They are taught believe as in believe only and do nothing else.

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Jesus_is_LORD said:

She was very nice.

Well let me put it this way.
Obviously I'm just sharing my perspective and you don't get her's, but for what it is worth, and I am a licensed therapist, this is my perspective.

She did have a loving and nice side. However her happiness and joy was more excitement rather than lasting joy. It would come quickly
and situations in life would stress her out and her joy would leave quickly.

Also because of her past trauma she was very guarded, I'm sure you have heard of the fight or flight defensive mechanism (fight, flight, freeze, appease).
Well because of her traumatic past, in my opinion, I gathered that she would often feel like she was in danger when she wasn't in true danger.
And in her mind perceive something to be a threat when it wasn't. Leading her to fight or flight. Not speaking of physical fighting, but whether it is
her running away when I told her to leave the job because the person she had an affair was there, or her confronting someone for poor customer service
because she felt like they were trying to take advantage of her. Because of her past and being hurt, she would often look at situations from the lens of
being a victim, and therefore react in extreme ways.

But when I look back I can see that God truly worked out a lot through that fire. He showed me that I was far from perfect, and I needed to know that,
because I thought I was pretty good spiritually. God also helped her in the marriage to heal from some of the trauma of her past.
It wasn't until she got married to me, that she started to go to individual therapy for herself to process her sexual child abuse,
and it wasn't until when we were married that she told her father about it. She had told her mother when she was younger and
she thought her mother told her father, but realized as an adult that her mother never did. So yeah, she went through a lot of healing
as a result of all of this, and I grew spiritually in great ways. So I think what happened was what needed to happen for me to get
in a closer relationship with God. I'm not saying God made her sin or made me sin, I'm just saying, because we were already sinners,
the chaos was the best way to show us ourselves because if things had been kept pseudo-peaceful, we would have false thought that
we were in a good position with God when much more growing was needed.

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God's Truth said:

How long have you been a licensed therapist? In what field of therapy? Were you a therapist while married to your wife? How is she now? Do you ever keep in touch with her?

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Dave M said:

what a fascinating and interesting subject !! Jesus never scolded anyone for giving away what they had, in fact, he encouraged it !! He did warn us many times of storing up treasure for ourselves on earth !!

Every time retirement comes up I think of the parable of the guy who built bigger barns, instead of barns I just think of a bigger portfolio.

Funny this thread popped up today, I have been giving a lot of thought to this lately, I am 56 and going on 57 soon. I did some saving before I got born again, but after getting born again I have not saved anything for retirement, I much prefer to invest money into the kingdom where the return has eternal benefits,, instead of the short-term return this world offers.

If I did retire it would be to do more ministry work, not to be self-absorbed. I have made some decisions already that once followed through will put me out of the range of retiring most likely.

I think America is one of the few places on earth where people can accumulate enough money to not have to work. I see this as a curse for most people, yes some its a blessing, but for the most part, everyone just chases after the American dream of more more and more. Just think of all the good we can do with the money that God has allowed us to have, and for some reason, we think we have made this possible,

My job is outdoors and physical (not too bad) but I think I will most likely just keep doing it, maybe just cut back some. My house is paid for and I have no debt, this is all because of God and his blessing me.

I always think to myself if people would just get half as excited talking about God as they do retirement what a better world we would have.

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God's Truth said:

That what you said is probably the scenario of many. I was raised Catholic and it was my life, but with the Catholic religion, they teach to just feel contrite about your sin, and go to the confession box and confess your sins to a priest, who doesn't even tell you to stop doing what you are doing, but to say ten Hail Mary's and Twelve Our Father's. After I was saved and knew God's Truth and not just some denomination's truth, I was thinking how my life would have been so different if I would have just been taught the truth, and my life would have been so much better. But we are not taught the truth. I was taught not to enjoy my sin and that I was baptized as an infant, and then had my Catholic confirmation,and not to miss mass every week, for those things would be the sins that kept us from God.
So much falseness is taught about God and how to be saved. However, once we are saved we aren't to keep looking backwards though but heavenward. It is hard not to reflect on the past, for memories are also heart issues.

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