God decided in advance to adopt us … This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
-Ephesians 1:5ac, NLT
Believing that God loves you is hard enough going through infidelity discovery and divorce.
Believing that God actually likes you seems beyond belief.
But God does. He loves and likes us. He chose us and made a way for us–through Christ’s death and resurrection–to become part of His family forever because He wanted us and bringing us in gave Him pleasure.
This is love.
God choosing us. God dying for us giving His only Son’s blood–i.e. His own blood–so that we can be part of His family. And God not doing this out of obligation but because He delights to welcome us Home into His arms.
On this Valentine’s Day, I hope the truth of God’s love for you dwells richly in your heart. He has marked you forever “acceptable” and not “rejected.” He has already declared His joy comes with you being in His family. And He made this choice knowing all the junk we would experience and/or do.
“That one. I want that one! He’s my boy!”
May the Heavenly Thunder of God’s voice ring in your heart. As He chose you from the very foundations of this earth (see Eph. 1:4).
Happy Valentine’s Day, Mr. & Mrs. DM. I hope you Folks are having s lovely one together. I also hope that it is ok that I ask you this question— how do I actually go minimal contact with an abusive unfaithful spouse who continues to cheat, lie, and vandalize my personal property. We have not lived together for two years since I drew a line in the sand about the unfaithfulness and lies. However, he continues to vandalize my property because I have been foolish enough to still allow him to have a foothold in my life through the child we share, financial help, and transportation. What are the steps that I need to take to remove him as much as possible from my life considering that we share a son? I now have a new job that I’m about to start. And I’m definitely making the decision to file for divorce ASAP. Thanks for any suggestions that you may have. Have s blessed LOVE day! 😊🌼https://www.facebook.com/klaugust/posts/10208084170128823
Ssaeung- if you are concerned about your physical safety, vandalism etc I would suggest contacting the local authorities for assistance. Orders of protection, restraining orders, file a police report for vandalism. See what your options are there. Custody arrangements and schedules are going to be a part of the divorce process, if you file first you can put your initial custody desires in the paperwork. If he contests it that would then be where it’ll take more work between the two of you to figure things out. It’s hard to go no contact when kids are involved. Keep this business-like and through email if you wish, “Son has a game at 5pm. Pick him up at xxxx at 4:30pm.” Chump Lady has some articles on this. If you hit up her home page, scroll all the way down and search by category. One post is “How to co-parent with a narcissist.”
Happy Sunday to you, Mrs. DM and Mr DM. Thank you for response and suggestions. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. And, I agree that I should stay in “business-like” form with him at all times with as limited contact as possible. However, I’ve tried several times in the past to go the legal route without any success. I’ve never been able to produce enough hard evidence that he was the perpetrator of the vandalism to the court. I sought a restraining order in 2014 against him for vandalism. It was denied due to lack of evidence. I’ve filed police reports back in 2009 and 2010 where the officer actually told me and then, BOYFRIEND, that he was allowed to put pornography and rape websites on MY computer anytime he wanted to because he was over the age of 18. I had the evidence on my computer to show the police officer. He refused to look at it. He told my then, boyfriend, it was all ok for him to do this. “Right, Partner?”, he queried. When I questioned him about calling my S.O. “partner” he threaghtened to arrest me. There were other times the police were called on me by then, boyfriend and later husband, after I complied with his wishes to leave his house and property for no apparent reason as he demanded that I do. He stilled called the police on me after I complied and left. Falsely accused me of assaulting him. And, once again they threaghtened to take me into custody. There was more to that story but I won’t babble on about it for your sake. As you can see I don’t have much faith in the justice system. As for filing for divorce it’s been a delayed process because of lack of finances. Up until recently I’ve been going to college full time again. As a result I chose not to work a job at the same time because I know how much responsibility I can and cannot handle at one time. Now I’m currently not enrolled in school but have a new full time job. I start training tomorrow as a new hire employee. I don’t currently have the money to pay a lawyer a retainer fee so I can file for a divorce. So I have to work and save some money in order for that to happen.
I’ve really been wavering back and forth about keeping him out of my home when he picks up or drops off our 6-year old son. I’ve also been leaning too heavily on him to help with finances and transportation since we’ve separated. He hasn’t been court ordered to pay child support. And, we still legally co-own a car together since before the separation. I’m trying now to go in a different direction with those two challenges—– i.e, take the city bus everywhere I go, work a full time job to make an income, as well as, call on other people to help with reasonable requests. Other than that I don’t know how to keep him from continuing to try sabotage my independent progress as he’s tried to do so many times in the past. I just want to be free from all of the abuse. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if GOD wants me to stay in this abusive marriage to be HIS martyr. And, that is an honest statement that I have struggled with for years.