I'm disabed and my wife is neglectful and abusive

Hi,

I had a wonderful week visiting with my grandbaby. She is so sweet and cuddly. I actually got to keep her overnight for one day to give my daughter a break. My daughter relished the break and said she fell asleep immediately and was unconscious the entire night.

The weather in LA was overcast and cool, not the typical California sunshine I had hoped for. Today I’m experiencing jet lag and time change. I did not sleep all night so I pray I can function today.

While I was away I read another interesting quote from Francis Frangipane. I’d highly recommend getting his book Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God. You can get it used at amazon.com.

He writes, “Do not hide your darkness expose it. Do not sympathetically make excuses for it, confess it. Hate it. For as long as darkness remains darkness, it rules you. But when you bring darkness out into the light, it becomes light. When you take your secret sins and boldly come unto the throne of God’s grace and confess the, He cleanses you from all unrighteousness.”

As I pondered this quote, I thought it applied not only to our secret sins, but also the darkness and shame we hide from others. Our addictions, our self-pity, or the things that happened to us in the past that we feel damaged by, keep us imprisoned. We feel trapped by the darkness. When it remains hidden, it rules us. Once we expose these things to the light, they become light. God can now use them and redeem them for his glory. Satan can no longer taunt us with our sins or our shame or our hurts because they are now in the light where we find healing and truth.

I’d encourage you to try three things this week.

1. Be authentic – no pretending that you’ve got it together when you’re dying inside. Radical honesty is called for if we are to live in the light.
2. Live courageously - We need courage to be where we are and not hide. Courage is necessary in order to bring the darkness out and expose it to the healing light of God’s love.
3. Practice grace – We all fear rejection and shame from others when we expose our darkness. We need grace to love and accept one another right where we are so that we can experience God’s grace and healing.

Today’s Question: I am a man and I am disabled. I am in an abusive relationship. Since the onset of my multiple sclerosis, I am mostly bedridden now, after 7 years. My wife has progressively drifted away. She does not care for me. She does not care for the children, nor the home. She goes out every day, socializes and plays tennis. She will not work. We are broke. They key issue is there is no communication. We have been in counseling, she ignores it. She is not a bad person but her worldview is so different, she sees no wrong in what she is doing and she manages to justify her lifestyle.

I cannot discuss anything with her, she has learned she can just turn her back on me and walk away from my bed. I have provided for her and cared for her for over 20 years in our marriage, but once I got ill, our relationship changed. I have my faults but I have never wronged her.

I’m mostly concerned about our children, 14 and 18. They are dependent on me and my health is failing quite fast. I don’t know what to do. Do you have any advice?

Answer: I am so sorry and I feel for your dilemma. It is not uncommon for the partner of a disabled person to act this way. Perhaps it’s part selfishness (thinking that it’s not fair that her life stops just because yours has changed), part fatigue in the caretaking role and a desire to have a life of her own, and part anger at you, and or God (albeit unwarranted, but understandable) for getting sick.

Chronic illness in a marriage requires we step up and grow up pretty fast. Some people allow God to fill them with an incredible ability to lovingly care for their spouse without resentment. Other spouses don’t want that kind of personal challenge or responsibility and excuse and justify their indifference and/or abusive behavior or sometimes leave the marriage all together.

You feel stuck because your options are limited. It’s not as if you can move out and take care of yourself. However if you are being physically abused, I'd encourage you to call the police. There are laws against spousal abuse as well as abuse of disabled persons and you do not have to allow yourself to be mistreated. But I sense from your letter that the abuse you're feeling is more of an indifference and chronic neglect of your needs.

First, I’m wondering if you belong to a church that can step in and help you now? Typically churches respond wonderfully to a person in crisis but aren’t so good with people who are chronically ill. But here is an opportunity for your church to learn how to do that better and to give care to someone. I’d encourage you to call your pastor, ask him to come over to visit and explain the situation without disrespecting your wife. You can say something like, “For whatever reason, she is unable to unwilling to take care of me or our home right now. I need some help and I’m wondering if there are some people in the church who would be willing to come by once a week or so to help me and the kids.” They might provide meals, do laundry, clean up, or provide some physical assistance to you such as rides to doctor’s appointments, helping you get dressed, or other things. I also think this is important because you indicate that your health is getting worse and that your children may need additional support from godly people if or when that happens.

Second, you indicate you are broke but how is your family paying the bills? I assume you are receiving some sort of disability payments but that hardly will cover a family of four. How does she handle money or feel about the financial situation you’re in? Is she willing to discuss at least the finances? If you stay factual and unemotional, perhaps she would be willing to discuss a plan for bringing more income into the home. For example you might say, “We’re 3 months behind in our mortgage (or whatever is factual and real in your situation) and we don’t have enough money to buy groceries this week. What do you think we should do? My disability just isn’t covering our bills.” Then stop talking and let that reality sink in. Wait for her to answer. Don’t blame or get angry, just state the facts and let them lay heavy in the middle of the room. See if she can recognize that she’s not taking enough responsibility for the family load. If she acts angry or irritated about having to get a job, don’t argue with her, just tell her that if you could work you would and you appreciate her willingness to get a job to help out.

Third, you need some emotional support. I don’t know if you are mobile or able to get on the computer but I’d encourage you to get involved in a multiple sclerosis support group. I’m sure your physician can recommend a local one or find one on line. In addition, Joni and Friends (joniandfriends.org.) ministers to the disabled and Rest Ministries (restministries.org.) is a website devoted to helping those with chronic illness. Much of the content is geared to women but the issues and struggles are the same. They have seminars during invisible illness week that you can attend on your computer that host guest speakers who talk about various issues pertaining to the struggles of living with a with chronic illness, including the effects on marriages.

Lastly, if possible continue your own counseling, even if your wife won’t attend. It is crucial that you receive encouragement and support for handling your negative and painful emotions as this will have an effect on your health. It’s impossible to live in this situation without struggling with some toxic emotions of your own. Sometimes counselors will do telephone sessions if you are unable to make regular in-office appointments. Perhaps you and your children could also do some family sessions, even if your wife refuses to attend. If she sees that you are taking some positive action to take care of yourself and take care of your needs, perhaps she will be more willing to have further conversation about the state of your marriage.

I’m sorry I don’t have any magic bullet that will turn things around for you. Life is very hard at times. Yet, prayer is one thing that can keep us sane and peaceful, even in an extremely trying and painful situation. I will pray for you as I’m sure my readers will too. Let me leave you with this prayer that the apostle Paul prayed for his friends. “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace, because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13). God Bless.

My thoughts! Are they true?

Today I am in sunny California. I just finished a wonderful retreat with ladies at First Covenant Church in Sacramento and then flew down here to Burbank to see my new granddaughter again for a week. My sister and I had the opportunity to meet and fellowship with some relatives from my mother's side that we did not know about our entire lives. It was so much fun to connect with them and to share stories of our mom's and connect the dots on our family history. My sister discovered that our grandmother, Jolan, emmigrated from Hungary when she was only 15 years old (although she stated she was 17). Our cousin had a photo of her during this time. It was so interesting to see the family resemblances and photo's of our mother when she was just a child.

This week I'm taking a week off from answering a question so I can fully be present to my family but I want to leave you with a thought I just read out of an excellent book called Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God by Francis Frangipane. It is this.

"We guard our ignorance with our arrogance presuming our thoughts must be right simply because we think them."

How profound is that? Ponder and chew his words for a while. The apostle Paul says we are transformed by the renewing of our mind and so our thoughts, even when powerful, need to be open to reexamination and review because they may be lies from the pit of hell. The psalmist says, "My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught." (Psalm 55:2) and Proverbs tells us to guard our heart, above all else, from it are the welllsprings of life."

So readers, share with one another how you guard your thoughts and reexamine what you're telling yourself so that you are transformed by God's truth!

See you next week!

Warmly,
Leslie

How do I let go of my dream?

Thanks for your encouraging words about last week’s blog. Today’s question has to do with letting go.

Question: I read your book, The Emotionally Destructive Relationship, and am working to grow and heal but there is something I can’t seem to get past. I met my husband (now ex-husband) in high school and we married young. We both had a lot of growing up to do but he was physically and emotionally abusive, not to mention addicted to pornography and struggling with alcohol and our marriage ended after about two years.

All this time I have not stopped loving him. I always hoped that he would come to his senses, find Christ, and change. I kept trying to see if it would work but I could see deep down he hadn’t really changed yet. I tried dating other men, got pregnant and had a child. I know that wasn’t right but I thank God every day for this wonderful child and don’t understand why God chose me to be his mother. I’m learning how to trust God and deepen my relationship with him but here is my question.

Recently my ex-husband told me how much he loved me and he wanted me to know he could love my son. I finally decided to shared my heart with him and told him that I still loved him and had completely forgiven him for the past. After seeing him seek Christ and change by taking it one day at a time I wanted to try dating again to see if we could put our marriage back together again.

I have waited for this moment a long time – seven years. I wanted my husband back, but healed. Then he devastated me but saying that he realized he does not love me after all. He said it was a dream that he had but it is now gone. He wants to find love again but it isn’t with me. I have cried every day since.

How do I live life without him? I just wasted eleven years of my life waiting for him and how he says it’s too late! I haven’t dated in a couple of years so I could focus on my son and relationship with God because I knew inside I had a hope for this new family we could create. I feel this as a loss and my reaction has been grief. Am I wrong? What in the world do I do now?

Answer: You are not wrong to grieve over this loss. That is the only way you will be able to let go and heal enough to move forward with your own life. Grieving is a process where we come to emotionally accept what we know to be true. That takes time and it sounds as though for eleven years you have held on to the hope that somehow your marriage would be restored. Letting go of that dream, and emotionally accepting that it’s over, is what is necessary now. There is no rushing grieving. I know we wish we could just have a good cry and have it be over but you have invested a lot of emotional energy in keeping this hope alive in your heart and to emotionally divest yourself of that energy and put it into building a new life for yourself without him takes time.

However grieving is different than depression and it will be important to guard your heart against getting depressed during this time. Some of the symptoms may be the same (such as sadness, and helpless feelings) but with mourning there is not a loss of self-esteem, feelings of guilt normally associated with depression.

Most of us want to take a shortcut around the pain of our loss instead of feeling the pain and going through it. I commend you for recognizing your need to grieve. However, here are some things you can do to help yourself through this process.

Let go of the dream: Letting go of what you have longed for all these years feels horrible at first, much like grieving a death. Perhaps you’ve already gone through the denial and anger stages to bargaining with God to get him to change your ex-husband’s heart. But you will need to move forward toward acceptance. Your ex-husband has moved on and so must you. It does you no good to keep the fantasy alive that someday he’ll change his mind. It only keeps you emotionally invested in a lie that is not going to happen. Let it go. You need to trust God now with your future and believe that he has one in mind for you (Jeremiah 29:11).

Let go of negative emotions: It is tempting to stew in a sea of anger, hurt, bitterness and sadness. Although you will feel these emotions, work to release them in constructive ways. Don’t brood, distract yourself with other things, journal and let them out, talk with trusted friends, cry, join a grief support group. Do something that will help you process them and let them go. I have an entire chapter on letting go of negative emotions in my book, Lord, I Just Want to be Happy, and if you go to my website at www.leslievernick.com you can listen to a talk I give on being happy where I give you 3 specific techniques that will help you let negative emotions go.

Let go of lies: You didn’t reference specific lies that you are battling but here might be a few. “I have no future without him.” Or “God isn’t good because he didn’t give me the desire of my heart.” Or “I must not deserve a loving relationship.” These are all lies that might be in your own head and certainly lies that Satan, the master deceiver will tempt you with. Be careful. The writer of Proverbs tells us to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.” (Proverbs 4:23). Jesus tells us to “watch and pray because the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.” “Watchfulness”, says St. Hesychuis, “is a firm control of the mind and posting it at the door of the heart, so that it sees marauding thoughts as they come, hears what they say, and knows what these robbers are doing and what images are being projected and set up by the demons, so as to seduce the mind by fantasy.” If you can recognize them for what they are, it’s easier to reject them instead of embracing them as truth.

Remember, God loves you and has a plan for your life. He’s given you a purpose even if it no longer includes sharing your journey with your ex-husband. By grieving and letting it go, you will be freer to discover specifically what that the future holds. God Bless.

How do I know what is biblical?

Happy Easter Everyone! We had a wonderful weekend celebrating my father’s 80th birthday in Chicago. Grandchildren and great grandchildren flew in to honor a man who has had a life well lived. The best part was a creative memory/photo album my sister and sister-in-law put together of letters we all wrote my dad, sharing a special memory from the past or just how much he meant to us or how he impacted our lives. We all were in tears. My father couldn’t even read it. He said he had to wait until he was alone.

Today I thought I’d share with you an experience I had in one of my travels instead of answering a weekly question. I shared some of these thoughts in a professional blog I wrote but I thought it might be helpful to you as well.

Not too long ago my husband Howard and I were heading to Florida for a much needed vacation. Right after we dragged ourselves through airport security we sat down to reassemble ourselves. Glancing up at the airport information center, we observed a troubling and odd scene going on behind the desk.

“Inappropriate!” “Weird” were the words my husband and I muttered to one another as we watched a uniformed male employee repeatedly stroke a female employee’s face sitting in front of him.

What is he doing?” I asked.

“Is he giving her a facial massage?”my husband queried.

“No. I think he’s putting some sort of cream on her face.” I said.

We continued to stare. “There must be some rules against employees publically touching one another like that,” I said. So taken with this inappropriate display of public affection by these employees I encouraged him to snap a picture with his cell phone. Then as I stood up to leave I saw things from a totally new perspective.

The woman was confined to a wheelchair. Her arms and hands curled tightly at her sides, useless. Her friend and fellow employee was tenderly rubbing moisturizer or makeup in to her parched skin. My heart sank. How quick I was to jump to conclusions and to judge his actions as wrong. How naturally and automatically I made up a story about what I saw when in fact, I did not see clearly at all.

At first glance this man’s behavior appeared unquestionably wrong and inappropriate. It was only when I saw things from a different vantage point did I discern that his actions were actually the opposite. They were loving, kind and gracious.

In the same way, Jesus repeatedly attempted to show the Pharisee’s of his day that everything wasn’t so easily explained in terms of what is they thought was lawful or right and wrong.

For example, Rahab the prostitute was spared by Joshua because she protect the spies from being captured (by lying about which way they went) even though one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to bear false witness (see Joshua 6:25). Jesus did not follow the Jewish law when the woman was caught in adultery as the crowd expected. Instead of sentencing her to death by stoning, he said “Whoever is without sin cast the first stone.” (Luke 14:3-6)

The Pharisees condemned Jesus as a lawbreaker when he healed on the Sabbath yet he challenged their deeply held beliefs by asking them, “Which one of you wouldn’t rescue a son or an ox on the Sabbath if they had fallen into a deep well?” (Luke 14:3-6). Jesus taught that doing good, helping others, and loving well was more important to God than legalistic adherence to biblical law.

In my weekly blog I’m often asked questions about whether or not something is biblical. In other words, does God approve or disapprove of what I’m about to do? Here are a few recent examples I’ve blogged about.

“Am I disobeying God or dishonoring my mother when I put boundaries around her contact with my children?” Or “Is it biblical for my daughter to get a legal annulment from her new husband because she’s discovered he lied to her about who he really was? Had she known these things before hand, she would not have married him.” Or “Is it lawful for me to separate from an emotionally abusive husband? My church tells me that God hates divorce and I’m not allowed to leave under any circumstances.”

Sometimes when I read these tragic situations with their final question asking me what I think God says is right and what’s wrong I imagine how Jesus must have felt when the Pharisees tried to trap him. Is there only one right biblical answer for every situation?

At times I see Christians use the bible as a rule book to find what God says is permissible and/or unacceptable. But even Jesus had exceptions to his laws and the higher law of love and doing good always triumphed (see Jesus’ teaching on this in Mark 3:1-6). Biblical love never implies that we always do what the other person wants or prefers, but godly love means we actively seek the other person’s long term best interest, which may include setting boundaries, implementing consequences, or initiating separation when those actions are done to help bring a sinful person to their senses and change.

So readers, I want you to know that I struggle with your questions and how to answer them. Sometimes you and I may see things differently, which is good, because there are various perspectives and none of us sees the whole picture all the time.

But we do know that God does see and he knows and he promises us that he will instruct us and guide us in the way we should go, he will counsel us with his eye upon us. (Psalm 32:8) As we struggle and pray, we grow to learn and trust that God will show us what his will for our lives is.

Here are some questions I ask myself when trying to discern “what is God saying” to me about a particular situation.

1. What is the whole counsel of God on this matter, not just one or two verses?

2. What is the context? Not just the biblical context but also the life story context. We can’t just take a single observation and make a judgment upon it. Just as I was very wrong in my initial assessment at the airport about what was truly happening, sometimes we can’t always discern what’s right and what’s wrong. Changing our vantage point might open our eyes to an entirely different perspective.

3. What are the biblical exceptions? When were they permitted, or even sometimes commended? When the woman poured expensive perfume on Jesus’ head, the disciples judged it to be a waste of a valuable resource. Jesus thought otherwise and through this example, taught us that what seems right or even logical isn’t the only biblical way to make a good decision. Although what she did was extravagant Jesus said she’d always be remembered for her great love (Matthew 26:6-13).

In striving to be Christ-centered in my counseling, I am learning more and more that there is often more than one biblical answer. My job isn’t to judge or decide what’s biblical. Part of my job is to help you, my reader, see your situation from different vantage points, (for example, temporal, eternal, short term, long term), talk about what God might be up to in your particular situation and how to listen to the Holy Spirit so that you are empowered to walk by faith, not by sight.