Your Questions About Christian Marriage Counseling

Marriage problems?

Me and my wife have been married for four years. We fight every single day. We haven’t had sex for over 3 years. We don’t sleep together. I work overnight she works days.She has told me numerous times that she hates me and wish she never married me. She is always trying to change me. I smoke and I like to go out an have a couple of beers 1 night a week on one of my days off. She thinks I am going to hell. She wants me to quit but she knew how I was when were dating and she had no problem with it then. We went to counseling that didn’t work. She is very religous and I am not. I am a Christian but I am more open than she is. I have tried to get a divorce but can’t because we got a covenant marriage there are several restrictions. I have told her to leave but she wont. The house is in my name and I don’t want to leave she will let it foreclose she can’t afford it. What should I do?
here is a link to covenant marriage and the restrictions

http://www.arkleg.state.ar.us/ftproot/bills/2001/htm/HB2039.pdf

I have talked to a lawyer and she doesn’t want sex. She thinks you should only have sex if you are having kids. We don’t have kids. I don’t want to have kids with her I think she is bipolar I don’t want to raise kids with her.
I don’t go to the bars we go out to eat once a week and I order beer with my dinner she goes with me
I have never once asked her to change. I am trying to make it work I don’t believe in divorce I have tried to quit smoking I can’t I think people should accept each otehr no matter what and not try and change them
We went to counseling that didn’t work its not going to get better. I hate divorce but I can’t stand living with her. As far as being a Christian everyone sins. She will only have sex if it is to have a baby she will only have sex in the missionary position she doesn’t believe in oral sex that is what I meant as being more open. I think when you aer married you should be able to ahve sex however you want as long as it is with each other and not other people.
When we were dating everything was great she had no problems I have not changed. We went to clubs and listened to bands which I like to do she seemed to enjoy it now I don’t do it because she thinks bars are evil. she ahd no problem with me having a couple of beers and smoking I explained that it is very hard to wuit and she said she understood and that she accepts me no matter what but now that we are married that has all changed

Can anyone refute these statements against banning gay marriage?

Let’s break this down like rational adults.

1. Gay marriage doesn’t hurt anyone. If you don’t like gay marriage, don’t have one.
2. There are hundreds of documented cases of gay animals. Just because someone doesn’t bother to study biology doesn’t mean they can claim it doesn’t exist.
3. Procreation – Yes, the world isn’t overcrowded enough. By all means let children rot away in orphanages, because dammit, we need to kick out more babies! The Earth isn’t overpopulated enough!
4. Procreation – only people who can have children together have the right to get married – so old people and the infertile don’t have that right, either?
5. Raising children- Hundreds of psychological studies have conclusively found that the only difference between kids raised in gay homes and in straight ones is that the kids in gay homes tend to be nicer to people who aren’t just like them. Less racism, sexism, religious intolerance, etc. How horrible!
6. Marriage is a legal document. Unless you chose to have a ceremony in a church, it has nothing to do with religion.
7. The Constitution clearly states that there cannot be one religion elevated over all others (that’s why our forefathers came here, duh). Because many religions celebrate gay unions, OUR religious rights are being violated by banning them. Oh, right, we’re inferior to Christians, huh?
8. Even if it were a choice (yeah, every single gay/bi person in the world is lying about that *eye roll*), so what? Religion is a choice. So we can forbid you to build churches, right? After all, you CHOSE to be Christian.
9. Adam and Eve both had brown eyes. So anyone with blue eyes is an abomination, right?
10. Since your god said that a man should be one when he takes a wife, that automatically means that it’s forbidden.
11. Jesus made it clear that instead of doing unto others, we should force everyone to live by Christian laws even if they aren’t Christian.
12. God said eating shellfish is an abomination too, but he didn’t mean that one, really.
13. The Bible is obviously the best moral guide a person can have. After all, it tells you all the proper ways to have slaves, instructs you to set up a fair price when selling your daughter into slavery, and it’s always very reasonable about the specific ways we should stone our disobedient children.
14. Gay marriage hurts all other marriages. You’ll wake up in the middle of the night and say “Oh no! Two men just married each other in another time zone! Our marriage is less valuable now!”
15. Gays can’t have love, only lust. All those 90 year olds who have been together 50+ years and look like they would snap like a twig if they had sex are obviously together only for lust.
16. It’s just like any other sin. Should we allow murder or the rape of children? Cause that’s what will happen when we allow gays to marry! It’s the next logical step!
17. Other countries have permitted gay marriage and are doing just fine. But we’re different. We’ll collapse and be ruined.
18. People will marry dogs. Because a dog is recognized as a human being and can consent to marriage and sex. Dogs and gay people are about the same level.
19. The “I find it gross” argument is perfectly valid. I find dogs gross and disgusting. I think I’ll ban dog ownership.
20. Churches will be forced to marry gays. Sure they have the right to turn anyone away for their religion, divorce, race, refusing counseling, having tattoos etc., but they’ll be forced to marry gays.

Again IT DOESN’T HURT ANYONE!

Can anyone dispute these arguments? It’s impossible.
You are a very Christ like Christian, perebo! You rock!

If all of these are such bad arguments and nothing but rants, why has no one been able to refute even one of them? You can say “that’s dumb” all you want, but you offer no evidence. You fail at debate 101.
If does not matter in the slightest what color eyes Adam and Eve supposedly had. They can’t possibly have had all the colors of eyes that exist. Just because they were straight instead of Adam and Steve doesn’t mean that gay people are automatically bad. Besides, if they were Middle Easterners they had brown eyes (duh).

You think my marriage has hope?

I’ve been married for 6 years. We were high school sweethearts. It was like something out of a movie, she always told me I was her Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles. I finally noticed her and we both fell in love hard. I knew in my heart she was the one. Her Mom loved me and said since i came into her daughter’s life I’ve been a blessing. Her mom was a Christian women and encouraged us to seek God. We did and became believers as well. Life was tough as a young couple working and going to college but we had each other. We have had our ups and downs. But this last year has been the worst. This may just be a coincidence, but it seems like out marriage started to fall apart when we stopped going to church. We both worked anywhere from 24-32 hrs per week while talking 12+ units at the state college. This was our last year so we went all out. Our time together consisted of car pooling, the gym, and out saturday night dates. I thought we were doing well, but alot started to change… I work nights, and all of a sudden my wife began to go out with her friends and get plastered more then usual. We were Christian but we also had our wild sides, but we would do it together at least. I didn’t like it, so instead of reasoning with her I would yell at her. Long story short we had problems. I was addicted to porn, I took her for granted, and I even struck her. She began seeking attention from other men and partied frequently without me. We both knew what each other were doing, but we always just swept our problems under the rug. We were awesome friends though, we had fun in that manner. The sex was great on both ends too, but that’s all it became, sex not love making. Things were falling apart, but I was too distracted by school and work to fix it.

Funny thing, the day I graduated was the day she said she wants a divorce and is seeing another man. This guy is a personal trainer at the gym, and was my friend. She says he loves the way he makes her feel about herself. I did the typical thing at the time. I begged, pleaded, cried, yelled, etc. Nothing worked. So I went back to church for help. We got counseling, but no budge. She is set, but her actions say different.

We’ve been living apart for three months now, she finally slept with this guy and is seeing him regularly out in the open. People know shes married, but she doesn’t seem to care what people think. I asked her if she loved him, she doesn’t know. During our separation she has wanted to hang out with me and still comes to church with me. We had sex twice and there have been moments of weakness with her, where she told me she misses me and said she wished she could love me. But ultimately, I felt she has just put me in the “friend zone”. We got to a point were she just sees me as a buddy. It hurt, so I just said screw it, dont contact me unless you want to work on this marriage or unless its for business purposes. She then got upset, and reminded me of all the pain I caused her and that she is not the bad guy. She also just spilled it out and said, I DONT TRUST YOU. I could see she tried not to cry in front of me.I changed gyms, canceled my facebook, gave her my key to her place, and got all my belongings from her house.

After the stern talk she has texted me saying she would like to speak again. She found “business” excusses to hear my voice on the phone and still sits right next to me at church. She cracks little jokes during the preaching to make me laugh and gives me compliments. I have however peaked on her facebook page. Most of her posts consist of ” I’m moving on in life” and “I’m doing what makes me happy” The latest one said something in regards to a person not doing what they are expected to do.. I wonder who that can be?

Bottom line, her actions and words dont add up to me. What do you think will happen? Does she still love me and will come back? Does she really love this new guy? Will she just drop us both?
(FYI, this new guy is practically a clone of my personality and lifestyle. We look nothing alike however)
I’ve also learned a valuable lesson. I’ve threatened to leave her in the past which broke her heart as well. This is a case of “you dont know what you got til its gone” If she came back, I really could forgive her. She told me she forgave me too, but is just afraid of me breaking her heart again.

How does a Christian man forgive when his wife strays?

I am a Christian man and my wife and I are in our 20s. She has recently (March) told me that she had an affair with a friend of ours. He is an older man who was a mentor from when I was in school. My wife has stated her sadness and apologies and wants to continue our marriage. For his part he has said in not so many words that he thinks of their affair as a chance to sleep with a younger woman and have her do things his wife would not. I am angry about the time she spent with him and away from our children and me. We have been to some counseling sessions and have met with our pastor. I have been advised that after a time forgiveness on my part is necessary if our marriage is to continue and that much of the fault is my own despite what we agree is a good marriage. Have others been through this? How does one begin to approach forgiveness and get past anger? Thanks for any advice offered.