Vicar Philip

To what post are you referring, Intensity?

Yes, she is communicating. But it's always the same message.

Darren must believe in god and Jesus.

Darren must not allow his evil thoughts to migrate to the children.

Darren is wrong and his god-fearing wife is right.

Just because.

Listen to that message about 25 times in the last two months and let me know how excited YOU'D be to discuss it again.

seebs

The one positive side I see is that no real problems are that simple, therefore, we can reasonably assume there *is* a problem other than that which she has not yet recognized or acknowledged... so there is good reason to believe that, once her stress eases off, she'll be more livable.

Vicar Philip

I like that, EL.

Thank you.

seebs

Earlier (I think in this board), someone was pushed by religious family into saying grace, so he (she?) said "There is no God, open your eyes, Amen."

I assume the situation did not recur.

There's a Japanese phrase which sounds something like "gomi ma sen" which is apparently similar in sense to "Thanks for the food!", and totally unspecific about to whom the thanks are directed.

BadBadBad

Come on Seebs. You keep saying this over and over and over. Darren just made it real simple. Explain to us how this is going away when she gets some anti-depressants. You don't see this as the real problem, she does. As long as she does, it is the real problem.

How are the simple bullets Darren just posted not real christian problems? I think we started on Friday? It's been days now. Where is the christian doctrine we can discuss calmly and intelligently with Darren's wife to get her to see that these bullets that Darren just posted aren't a real problem at all. Why wait. Let's beat that christian counselling to the punch. I don't mean to put you down. If you can honestly support your position with the Bible, it would be helpful. We've seen the references for not divorcing. That's very helpful. Now show how she lives her life surrounded by church and God without her husband. How can you center your family around something that excludes the father and husband? Where is there room for happiness and a good marriage in that? Show us also how she's not supposed to worry about the kids salvation. I'm not kidding, that would be very useful to all of us in this discussion. Stop just saying it's not the real problem.

I think the real problem is that she believes in a bunch of crap, and she's pushing the God button incessantly to the brink of divorce, destruction of this family, and without regard to the happiness of anyone involved. My 2 cents aren't particularly useful either.

seebs

Experience. When my wife was really depressed and stressed, many of our relationship problems were "clearly" my fault; when she was less depressed, she stopped caring about some of those things, because they were just scapegoats.

Depression and stress tend to be expressed in unrelated ways. Nothing unusual or magical about it.

I guess, my claim isn't that it's not an issue at all; it's that it's a very poor candidate for "The Problem", when we're talking about a likely bipolar person under extreme stress from external circumstances.

As to those problems, my thinking is this: If those problems trumped the marriage problem, the Bible wouldn't advise people to stay with non-believing spouses. Especially when you consider that the "non-believer" in those times was almost certainly *actively worshipping other gods*.

I dunno. I just think she should have faith; it's clear that her current strategy isn't going to convert anyone. If she relaxes and trusts God to sort things out, they will improve dramatically, and I don't mean that as a religious claim; it's just common psychology.

I think that's symptomatic of the "real" problem, which is stress and probable bipolar disorder.

Basically, I believe that if Darren were a Christian, and there were no religious conflict, she would be finding something else, and hammering on it.

It is, admittedly, made worse by the fact that the issue she latched on to is clearly a hot-button issue.

I still plan to try to get my thoughts on this together; I'm afraid I'm a horrible procrastinator. Sometimes, moral answers are the hardest to articulate; it's just *obvious* to me that she should relax and try to get along with her husband, and especially, seek treatment; she clearly needs help, whether she's actually bipolar or not.

This suggests that perhaps the best thing for Darren to do would be to try to find ways to ease the stress on her. Yeah, that's horribly unfair, but what else can you do? Marriages aren't always fair in the short run.

HelenM

I don't think anti-depressants will fix her problematic assumptions that she can't be happy unless Darren is a Christian. They might make it easier to fix but it won't 'just happen'.

I posted links to 2 sermons about ways for Christians to overcome disappointment and disappointment but that crossed the line into being inappropriate here and one of the moderators removed them. You know there are strict limits on what we say here. Anyway I would assume this is the approach a Bible-believing Christian would take in counseling an unhappy Christian wife: no, she's not 'wrong' to be unhappy about her husband not believing; yes, it's a valid concern that he might go to hell and yes, it's a valid concern that he might influence the children into unbelief. Yes, it's harder to have an unbelieving husband than a believing one, of course - you have less in common. But it doesn't mean you have to be unhappy or have to force him to church - which would be wrong anyway. You can find hope, peace and joy in God (would say the Christian doing the counseling). And yes there are verses that they would use to back this up but I'm not sure it's ok to get into that much detail here. Maybe what I already said is too much for this board.

With all due respect, do you really think it would be helpful? How could you use it? Do you think your wife would listen to an atheist citing Bible verses? I think she might have a problem with that - I think she'd say "Yeah right. Don't quote the Bible to me until you're willing to live by it yourself..." I'm not sure but she might...

take care
Helen

BadBadBad

Please PM me the links, I am truly interested. I don't really expect to find any answers here, but I'm interested in hearing it.


Yes I do! A very good defense for me and Darren is that the christians expect us to stop rejecting God, when they reject almost in its entirety everything the Bible has to say about women, not to mention all the rest they throw out. If she didn't reject God's word herself, as you've described, there would be no problem. How does the quote go? We're both atheists, I just believe in one less god than you. If you understand why you reject all other gods, you can understand why I reject yours. Plus, if it's no good for Darren, it could help to prepare the Pastor.

I've discussed the verses about submissiveness, Matthew 6, and not divorcing with my wife. She cringed when she heard that coming from me, but it damn sure stopped her cold. End of discussion.

HelenM

Ok, I PMed you the links and a couple of verses that pertain to being happy in spite of difficult circumstances.

I do think it would help.

The Pastor is probably used to trying to encourage discouraged Christians by helping them not to base their happiness on external circumstances, which they can't control, but rather in God's promises, which are unchanging.

Well, I'm happy to try to provide relevant verses or Christian teaching - to the extent I have time - if you think you can make use of it.

take care
Helen

BadBadBad

When my wife is clearly getting hit with some serious PMS hormones, I take a much worse beating than any other time. However, dare I not accuse her that PMS is the issue. Dare I not dismiss her complaint as trivial just because PMS is pumping up her frustration level. I know you know what I mean. Yes, I've learned this is a particularly bad time to talk about the budget and our checkbook. There are numerous inter-related issues in any marriage. Religion is a common conflict in a lot of marriages. It's a big damn deal here, and we sure can't write it off to bad hormones.


I don't understand your point. The Bible is contradictory on this. Is she supposed to worship him, or gather up the neighbors and church cronies to stone him like in Deuteronomy? You never explained how worshipping other gods is better, worse or different than rejecting God. You just asserted, that's different. Is God jealous or vain or both? Let's not be so quick to exclude this clear direction from God. Maybe she is thinking a good stoning is in order. Maybe that is the crux of God's solution. I mean, wouldn't that solve the problem from God's point of view? Which part of the Bible trumps other parts? Probably baiting us to run off topic again. Probably subject to bringing Pescifish into this again, but it definitely gets me thinking. No offense in advance ok!

Alright, ok. Faith is the answer for everything, and I understand what you're saying. I was hoping for something a little more specific, but I'm not surprised that's all we have to fall back on.

Still patiently waiting.