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What would you do?

G

Gillfam

New Member
Ok I got a question. Ok lets say a man marries a woman be it first, second, third whatever. Well when he gets married he thought she was in love with him. He later finds out she married him only to have a father for her kid. Then you also find out she doesn't find you attractive like you once thought, so there is no sex, with that she wont even open her self up too love you. So basically is what you have is a few extra mouths to feed to no emotional connection. So now as a man you are crushed because basically you are feeling used.

Now what would you do as a man? Do you give an ultimatum such as: either we start having sex and spending time together ect, by this date or we are through. Since her marriage covenant was based on a lie.
Or do you just wait pray and hope it will happen (though at this rate it never will).
Or so you just deal with it because you made a vow and even though she isn't keeping to her end of the bargan, you were the sucker so now you have to live with it?
What would you do?
 
now that there is what they call a "sticky wickett" across the pond.

check out jos. 9 when the nation of isreal made a committment to a people who faked them out.

one more thought:
can you be positive that those were her only motives? maybe she knows deeply in her heart that her safety and her future is with you. maybe she is presently in the trial of her life and you are only seeing some of the symptoms.

and the biggest question:
is it possible the the Almighty put you together? that He has plans for you-all that you know not of?

did you feel the leading of the Lord in any of this? now is not the time to get a new leading. ;)
i feel for you, bro. and i pray that His will be done in your life.
 
Difficult, Gill, with no easy answers.

As a general principle, a contract based on lies is not enforceable and can be broken. Probably no-one would fault a man for doing so.

However, let's see what can be done to salvage things. After all, in Joshua's day, the Israelites entered into covenant with a nearby tribe who obtained the covenant under false pretenses. Once discovered, God had them uphold the covenant BUT there were some rather heavy consequences imposed upon the folks who pulled the trick.

First, let's start with "mouth's to feed." Would it be fair for the man involved to go before God and say something like, "God, this woman and her child are FIRST your children. So ultimately, they are YOUR mouths to feed. Thankfully, you have promised to do so, just as you feed mine and those of the rest of my family. So God, I will work as you provide work. No problem. But I invoke your promise of supplying ALL I need. As long as they are in my care, I will endeavor to be a good husband and father. But I will and do depend on YOU as the ultimate One to feed the mouths." Would that be fair? Do you think He might respond?

Second point, regardless of how the mom is behaving, the kid needs a dad. If that part is working out well, it seems worth salvaging.

Thirdly, sex aside, is the woman behaving well in the home? Respecting others and the man's authority? Or creating mayhem and disregarding all authority at every turn? If the former, it may be possible to work with it. If the latter, it is probably necessary to bail.

Fourthly, we love Him because He first loved us. NOT because we entered into relationship with Him to save ourselves and then He became demanding. Following the pattern, if we men want to induce love and a loving response in the object of our affections, we gotta raise our game in the "being loving" department.

There is no harm that I can see in exhibiting considerable patience while indulging in considerable prayer and fasting. I agree with Steve. God doesn't change His leading mid-stream. But we may well have to climb over boulders before arriving at the smooth path.

All that said, People DO still have choices. And if their choice is to always look for the negative, and disregard the positive, and bad-mouth and withdraw and rebel and spurn and reject and yet throw into the head's face that he made a covenant and is RESPONSIBLE to provide -- i.e. they demand all of the benefits without accepting any of the responsibility, a time WILL come when it will become abundantly clear that the family, and husband especially, must wish them well, elsewhere. They have chosen a different path and must be allowed to pursue it. Sadly, it does happen.

My advice then is, don't let a few frustrated hormones make the decision. Try everything else possible before breaking things up, to see if God is able to salvage the situation, though rampant disrespect does drastically accelerate the need to resolve things.

Vaya con Dios, mi amigo.
 
hello
may i reply?
i dont know if this is for the men only ...
i was so relieved to see steves comment
i personally know of a situation that would SEEM to fit the FACTS
in this other persons life, however, if i may
i will state a few of the "lesser known" facts involved
the man hounded the woman to date him for years
he manipulated her to marry him
he created a false front to others concerning the paternity of the child
preferring that people believe it was his child
the mother did not want to deceive
he spent next to no time caring for her in ways that make a woman feel loved, which leads naturally to sexual relations
both are sinners who can only be saved by their Creators love
there's always three sides to every story ..... his,hers,andHIS:)
thank you for the chance to reply
 
Mary, thankyou for that input, we must remember all sides here. Now this thread has the potential to descend into a he said she said mess, so I thought I'd jump in with a suggestion for how best to further this discussion profitably.

Gill, could you please say whether you think Mary could be referring to your situation. Just yes or no would be best, no doubt you would dispute some of her 'facts' if the answer is yes, as she would yours, but if we go there this discussion will rapidly become unprofitable.

I must stress that whatever the emotions on either side, and whatever impressions each party has of what the other is doing, the scriptural approach to resolve it will still be the same. And that is what we are seeking here. So an emotional argument would achieve nothing and be purely a distraction.

I generally agree with Steve and Cecil on this, may add more thoughts later.
 
I have read this thread with a lot of interest. I want to put in my 2 cents worth if I may. Relationships are not static. They change and grow throughout the years. We all go through times of less and more love and desire for each other. Especially during hormonal time surrounding childbirth and thereafter.

My point is that if we as Christians see only the current season as the whole truth, we feel justified to act in a way that God might not approve of. If we are patient with our loved one, maybe put forth extra effort and understanding, it may be that the problem is just one of needing to wait for another season.

I would wager that people who have been married for 20 or more years would all say that they have had times in their marriage where communication, desire and sex have waxed and waned. But they would also probably tell you that with time, problems work themselves out and they are blessed that they didn't throw their loved one away just because they went through a difficult time. Relationships change and it is how we weather the storms that show our growth in Christ.

Right now, in our lives, it would be easy to look at our current circumstance and say "He/She doesn't love me because we rarely see each other and don't talk and so on and so forth." Because we each give the other grace for the circumstances we are currently in, and we rely on our past experience and God's love for us, we are able to go through each day supporting each other through a tough season instead of looking for the worst case scenario.

We made a pact at the beginning of our marriage to always assume the best of each other. Although we sometimes forget and have to be reminded, it has served us well for 5 years or so.

SweetLissa
 
Marriage is a reflection of our relationship with Christ. We are given a bit of guidance in scripture about how husbands and wives are to act towards each other, but we are given even more information on how Christ and us are to act towards each other. We can apply all that advice to this situation, and it will hopefully clarify matters.

A husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church. How does Christ love us? Unconditionally. In fact, "God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8). Even when we were at the height of rebellion against Him, He did not abandon us but gave everything for us. That's what God expects of husbands. It's tough. It's very easy for me to say, but could be very hard to follow in a difficult situation like this. But that's the clear teaching of scripture.

In return, a wife is to obey her husband, just as we obey Christ. And this applies even when her husband isn't loving her. Even if Mary's accusations are correct, none of them would give her an excuse to disobey and draw back from her husband. The scriptures clearly state that obedience is required even if the husband is not following God. "Wives, in the same way be submissive to your husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behaviour of their wives" (1 Peter 3:1)

You may not feel loved by her. But where in the Bible is a wife ever commanded to love her husband? She need not love, she need only obey. Love is definitely to be encouraged, and is wonderful. But ultimately you are to love her whether or not she feels the same way, and she is to obey and submit to your leadership even if she feels no emotional connection. Arranged marriages have worked for thousands of years in other cultures on that basis, love tends to grow out of commitment, making such marriages more successful in the long run than our romance-based Western ones.

Whatever she might be doing, it does not give you an excuse to abandon her. Whatever you may have done, it does not give her an excuse to disobey.

At the same time, there are probably issues that each of you need to recognise in your own lives and work on. Nothing is ever entirely one-sided.

So what are you to do? Keep loving her. Keep supporting her. And pray for her.

But that doesn't mean you have to put up with everything without doing something about it. God loves us, but he doesn't just do that: "the Lord disciplines those He loves, and He punishes everyone He accepts as a son" (Hebrews 12:6). If you found that, however much you love her, she still will not act as a wife, you have a far better and more loving option than abandoning her. Discipline her. I'm certainly not saying to beat her, don't take it that way! The Bible clearly says we must never treat our wives harshly. But how would you discipline a child in their late teens? There may be things you can do to teach her to be a wife that are both loving and age-appropriate.

Removal of priveleges comes to mind. It may be appropriate to, as a last resort, say that these are the essentials of life, which you will provide, while these other things are luxuries that you will only provide as rewards for proper wifely behavior.

With two wives you must be very careful to treat them equally. In this case you would need to give both the same conditions, to make it very clear that when Susan gets to buy a new dress and Elise does not, it doesn't mean you love Susan more, you love them equally. Susan just chose to earn a privilege that Elise did not.

I'm sure some people will feel discipline of wives is disgusting. But I'd consider it a far more loving and scriptural option than divorce. And I only present it as a last resort.

I see nothing here to justify divorce.
 
I'm not at a place where I can easily look it up but I would caution use of the word obey vs submit. Submit is Not the same thing as obey. Obey is something I command someone to do. Submit is an act of will on the part of the other party in which they choose to submit their will to mine. It's a very different mindset. Eph says we are to submit to each other before speaking of the wife. To summarize, submission does not mean obey.
 
FollowingHim said:
Discipline her
Click to expand...

:o

Wait a sec....are you saying this woman needs to be disciplined for not wanting to have sex?

What a way to talk those people into a divorce!

Because I tell you one thing from an XX pov. You want to lose a wife, follow that advice you just gave.

Sheesh! I am horrified.

Seriously, I need to add to this because I am so shocked. Women need a certain amount of emotional wellbeing to happily engaged in intimacy. Do you really want a woman to just lay there like a cabbage, just allowing you to do whatever you want? Would that make you happy?

A loss of intimacy means that there is some underlaying problem, the problem is not solved by pressurising a woman into 'putting out'. It is solved by getting to the root of the problem. I also like what Lissa said about marriages having ups and downs, especially wrt intimacy. Start pressurising now and all it will do is turn her off.

Terrible terrible advice Samuel, I am truly disappointed in you.

Bels
 
from the context it would seem that he meant more of the idea of discipling her rather than disciplining her.
drawing her into the relationship that he recognizes they need rather than making it about requirements.
please correct me if i am wrong, samuel.

on another note, from what i read in mary's response (and this is not the men's section, so all reasonable responses are welcome :D ), she appears to be writing about a possible parallel situation with no direct knowledge of gill's situation.
am i correct in this assumption?
 
FollowingHim said:
But where in the Bible is a wife ever commanded to love her husband?
Click to expand...

In the excellent book Love & Respect, Eggerichs posits that the Bible doesn't command women to love their husbands because that is a wife's natural way of relating to him. Neither does it command husbands to respect their wives. Respect is the man's natural manner of relating.

Instead, it tells wives to respect their husbands, because that is what men need most and women will have the hardest time doing.

Similarly, it tells men to love our wives because that is what wives tend to need most and we men tend to neglect.

Which doesn't mean that we men are free to disrespect wives, nor wives free to quit loving husbands.

These are obviously thoughts on this very narrow issue ...
 
chris said:
To summarize, submission does not mean obey.
Click to expand...

Addressing this very narrow issue ,,,

Neither does "submission" mean "co-operate".

Submission only occurs when a decision is made that you do NOT like and do NOT agree with, but choose to go along with anyway as the price of maintaining your place in a relationship.

If you try to maintain your position in the relationship while doing what YOU want to do contrary to what you have been told / asked / assigned / or whatever other euphemism you choose, to do, you are not submitting. You are rebelling.

Someone had to have the authority to make the decision with which you disagreed. In a Biblical marriage, as regards the marriage and family direction, etc., that is formally the husband.

So while the word "obey" may be a politically incorrect hot-button, that irritates us and makes us feel strong desires to rebel, I'm just not sure how to differentiate it from "submit" in the marriage relationship.

To summarize, ;) submission does not equal mere co-operation.
 
I join Steve in suggesting that "discipling" is probably a better term and concept than "disciplining". And, knowing Samuel, also suspect that it is the concept he was aiming at.

Of course, Bels, I also agree that it would be unacceptably extreme in response to an otherwise perfect wife who simply didn't "put out", and that obtaining a non-participative submission in bed would be pretty durn unsatisfactory.

*sigh* Tough situation with, as was mentioned, a minimum of 3 sides.

Good conversation so far ...
 
i am a woman and the Almighty did say only adultery is for divorce, however i am in the position i was taken advantage of and tried to do the best in the situation, but when the partner does not want you and abuses you and the other wives that is a lack of love. adultery is unfaithfulness right? well abuse is being to me unfaithful also and effects ppl if they are under it to long. so for the first time in my life i am standing up, pressing charges and refuse to take no for an answer to have it in court. its time to stop men who abuse the women, i hope no one EVER says to me why does that woman stay in abusive situation. been there done that for the pain all u can take is just this sec right now. it took a lot of anger for me to get to the point enough is enough and if i am the only woman who will take it to court and the others will have to testify when summoned. sorry this mans deserves the consequences to go to jail. ppl will never change if there is no consequences. and i hope this will stop 52 yrs of ppl thinking they can just treat me like dung and get by with it.. on fb a pic of a gun and snake and said when the gov fears the ppl there is no tranny, my confirmation. if i have to make ppl afraid to abuse me then so be it. hopefully this will be true and my last yrs will be free of abusers. now i see the signs and flags. only one time of abuse and i am walking on dusting my feet. sometimes when slapped for no reason slap back twice as hard. dont we disapline our children.. well some adults well over 18 that dont act like adults need consequences to for it is tuff love and a lesson to be learned
 
I'll just explain what I meant a bit better, Steve and Cecil have got the right idea.

Love. Love. Love. Keep at it. Love her forever, unconditionally. This is how God treats us, and this is how we are to treat our wives. Always support her, never abandon her.

If you do that for years and still get nowhere, and she is only using you for some cash but not contributing anything to the relationship herself, don't abandon her. Keep loving her. But you may find it necessary at that point to alter the conditions of this a bit, and divide marriage into it's practical / essential aspect and pleasurable ones. The last resort might be to say "You are giving me the practical aspects of marriage (cooking the odd meal and sleeping under my roof) and I will provide this for you also (pay for your food and provide you a room). But if you aren't giving me the pleasurable aspects of marriage, I see no need to give you the pleasurable aspects either (cash to go to the movies, or whatever it is she's using you for). Fair's fair. I still love you just the same and I'm just waiting for you to come back to my arms, when I will resume providing this stuff for you as well".

You could call that "discipline". But that's become a dirty word (like "obey"), and brings up images of wives being beaten over their husband's knee (which I am NOT promoting), so let's just call it "being fair" then.

Over the last century, the rise of feminism has caused "discipline" of wives to be considered a great evil, and very unloving, while at the same time divorce has been made readily accessible by anybody for any reason and has become the big solution for any serious maritial problem - just leave each other and find somebody else.

Frankly, society has got it all around the wrong way. Let's not base our lives on society, but rather on the Bible.

Divorce is a great evil. God never abandons us, let's not abandon our wives either. Let's keep loving them, unconditionally. If there are problems, let's find a way to fix them - that's what unconditional love is all about. If a husband is not allowed to find a loving and fair way to fix the problems, the whole concept of loving headship is meaningless.

The last resort is not abandonment through divorce, but continued love and support.
 
Well it was a question I seen posted else where. As I really didn't have an exact answer for the person I figured I'd post it here.
 
CecilW said:
Difficult, Gill, with no easy answers.

As a general principle, a contract based on lies is not enforceable and can be broken. Probably no-one would fault a man for doing so.

However, let's see what can be done to salvage things. After all, in Joshua's day, the Israelites entered into covenant with a nearby tribe who obtained the covenant under false pretenses. Once discovered, God had them uphold the covenant BUT there were some rather heavy consequences imposed upon the folks who pulled the trick.

First, let's start with "mouth's to feed." Would it be fair for the man involved to go before God and say something like, "God, this woman and her child are FIRST your children. So ultimately, they are YOUR mouths to feed. Thankfully, you have promised to do so, just as you feed mine and those of the rest of my family. So God, I will work as you provide work. No problem. But I invoke your promise of supplying ALL I need. As long as they are in my care, I will endeavor to be a good husband and father. But I will and do depend on YOU as the ultimate One to feed the mouths." Would that be fair? Do you think He might respond?

Second point, regardless of how the mom is behaving, the kid needs a dad. If that part is working out well, it seems worth salvaging.

Thirdly, sex aside, is the woman behaving well in the home? Respecting others and the man's authority? Or creating mayhem and disregarding all authority at every turn? If the former, it may be possible to work with it. If the latter, it is probably necessary to bail.

Fourthly, we love Him because He first loved us. NOT because we entered into relationship with Him to save ourselves and then He became demanding. Following the pattern, if we men want to induce love and a loving response in the object of our affections, we gotta raise our game in the "being loving" department.

There is no harm that I can see in exhibiting considerable patience while indulging in considerable prayer and fasting. I agree with Steve. God doesn't change His leading mid-stream. But we may well have to climb over boulders before arriving at the smooth path.

All that said, People DO still have choices. And if their choice is to always look for the negative, and disregard the positive, and bad-mouth and withdraw and rebel and spurn and reject and yet throw into the head's face that he made a covenant and is RESPONSIBLE to provide -- i.e. they demand all of the benefits without accepting any of the responsibility, a time WILL come when it will become abundantly clear that the family, and husband especially, must wish them well, elsewhere. They have chosen a different path and must be allowed to pursue it. Sadly, it does happen.

My advice then is, don't let a few frustrated hormones make the decision. Try everything else possible before breaking things up, to see if God is able to salvage the situation, though rampant disrespect does drastically accelerate the need to resolve things.

Vaya con Dios, mi amigo.
Click to expand...

From my understanding the wife isn't letting him lead the family. The children do not listen because she doesn't enforce what he says (Ie. He grounds the kids but as soon as he is gone the mother takes them out any ways). She is not really being a wife at all. He has tried having talks, but seems to go into one ear and out the other. She has told him often how she loves him, but doesn't quite know if she is in love with him. She also doesn't like spending alone time with him and she brings her son into marital discussions as if he has an opinion. When it shouldn't be the childs business at all.
 
Umm no that isn't the situation. From what I know (I have spoke with all parties involved). She just thinks marriage just means you still can live like you want just not sleeping with any other men. Though I have tried to talk to her and tell her this is not so, she isn't listening. He dated her for a while though, he thought she was in love when they married. The children are not his biologically he met her after they were born. He didn't manipulate her into marriage, she knew his beliefs coming into it.
mary@Hisfeet_9 said:
hello
may i reply?
i dont know if this is for the men only ...
i was so relieved to see steves comment
i personally know of a situation that would SEEM to fit the FACTS
in this other persons life, however, if i may
i will state a few of the "lesser known" facts involved
the man hounded the woman to date him for years
he manipulated her to marry him
he created a false front to others concerning the paternity of the child
preferring that people believe it was his child
the mother did not want to deceive
he spent next to no time caring for her in ways that make a woman feel loved, which leads naturally to sexual relations
both are sinners who can only be saved by their Creators love
there's always three sides to every story ..... his,hers,andHIS:)
thank you for the chance to reply
Click to expand...
 
Also I don't know Marry so the "facts" as you would say I doubt she knows.
 
Yeah you are correct,lol. I do not know Mary so I am not really sure what every one was talking about.
steve said:
from the context it would seem that he meant more of the idea of discipling her rather than disciplining her.
drawing her into the relationship that he recognizes they need rather than making it about requirements.
please correct me if i am wrong, samuel.

on another note, from what i read in mary's response (and this is not the men's section, so all reasonable responses are welcome :D ), she appears to be writing about a possible parallel situation with no direct knowledge of gill's situation.
am i correct in this assumption?
Click to expand...
 
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