My husband and I agreed we never should have married. We wondered, did we make a mistake in marrying? Here’s what we did about it.
It could’ve been a scene from Father of the Bride when our daughter Alison and her boyfriend announced they were getting married.
While I whooped and hollered and hugged everyone in sight, my husband grew uncharacteristically quiet and drummed his fingers on his leg. I chalked it up to Barry’s aversion to tuxedos or panic over a wedding’s high cost. But once we were alone, I discovered it was something else altogether.
“I don’t want them to make the same mistake we did,” he told me. I gulped. “But they’re not us,” I assured him. “Besides, look how far we’ve come in 21 years. Do you still think we made a mistake?” Although I knew he would agree that God had transformed our marriage, it was a hard moment.
Barry and I got married three months after we met, with little clear thinking but an overwhelming physical attraction. By the time we discovered we had nothing in common, we had already vowed to love each other. Forever.
Very soon I discovered I was pregnant, and neither of us wanted to break up our family. So Barry and I spent the first decade of our marriage pondering the “if onlys,” each thinking we’d married the wrong person. We had a few laughs, but secretly we believed a truly fulfilling future was out of our reach.
And we weren’t the only ones. Several friends have admitted they reached a point in their marriages where one or both partners said, “We made a mistake. My needs aren’t being met. I want out.” Our friends Mike and Amanda, for instance, were considered a “mistake” before they even got started. A premarital counselor told them they were “totally incompatible.”
“But we were in love!” explains Mike. So he set out to do everything right. He read marriage books and followed every principle. He didn’t understand that no book could dictate how, exactly, to shape his unique marriage to Amanda. But because Mike thought he was doing everything “right,” when something went wrong, it was never his fault.
Amanda says their marriage was like “Pharisee Meets Samaritan Woman” —she was always in the wrong. When she was angry, she’d retreat from Mike, leaving the room and creating emotional distance. Eventually both of them turned their attention to separate friendships and activities.
For a while Barry and I also lived as “divorced marrieds.” Barry sought fulfillment through sports and tinkering around the house, while I worked on crafts and sewing projects, shopped with friends or went to church activities. We kept ourselves detached, each thinking we could’ve done better with someone else as a life partner.
Such extreme emotional detachment can lead to infidelity. A couple from my Bible study fell into the “divorced married” trap. “We didn’t fight,” explained the husband. “It was just nothing.” They both felt their marriage was a mistake, and both had extramarital affairs.
Disappointed couples often dwell too much on what might have been. In his book For Better, For Worse, For Keeps (Multnomah), Bob Moeller points out,
“Retracing our life’s steps and wishing we had made different choices may provide momentary distraction, but ultimately it does nothing to bring reconciliation.”
It does the exact opposite, in fact, by breeding discontent and resentment. Mentally rehearsing where you went wrong keeps you from being thankful for what’s right, and from working to make things better. Emotional distance and the “if onlys” are warning signs that a marriage is in danger.
Another indicator is blame. I blamed my marital unhappiness on the fact that I’d become a Christian early in our marriage and Barry hadn’t. I felt sure he was the reason for all our conflicts and distress. And I let him know often that our life would be so much easier if only he’d obey God. Finally, he told me that if I wanted a Christian husband so bad he’d go to church and pick one out for me. That’s when I realized my pushy behaviors were hurting, not helping.
Where to Go from Here
It’s easy to rationalize: I married the wrong person. Since we’re both miserable, the logical thing to do is get out now. Yet how often do we ask, “Does God think my marriage is a mistake?”
“Dwelling on whether or not you married the right person ignores God’s stake in the choice you already made,” write Dr. Richard Matteson and Janis Long Harris in What If I Married the Wrong Person? (Bethany). Barry and I may not have shown any regard for God’s purposes for us, but our choice to marry didn’t surprise him. Looking back, what we once considered a mistake we now view as part of a higher plan.
“God’s purposes are greater than our poor choices,” writes Moeller. “He can accomplish things we never imagined, in spite of our mistakes.”
I wish I could say Barry and I set up a ten-step plan to improve our marriage once we realized we were living with regrets. Personal growth takes time, but we hung in there long enough to let God work. Here are five steps that will help you set your disappointments aside long enough to focus on what’s good about your marriage.
1. Begin at the beginning.
Go back to your original vow to remain married for the rest of your lives. “The way to renew a marriage doesn’t begin with a change of emotions,” writes Moeller, “but with an act of will.” The restoration of joy and fulfillment is brought about by living by our promises.
My friends from Bible study who both committed adultery could have claimed they had biblical reasons to divorce, but they made the difficult choice to stick with their original commitment. “It wasn’t easy,” the wife admitted, “but with divorce not being an option, it forced us to work toward reconciliation.”
2. Let go of past hurts.
Barry and I began acknowledging our individual failures and seeking each other’s forgiveness. As the verse in Philippians says, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal.” In this case, our goal was a mutually satisfying union.
I stopped viewing Barry as he could be (which he interpreted as disapproval) and began appreciating him for who he was (among other things, trustworthy and responsible). I realized I actually liked him!
3. Keep going until you get there.
As Moeller stresses again and again: “The only way out is through.” That means no giving up-even in adversity. Our friend Mike, who liked to do everything “right,” learned the hard way that no problem is solved by running from it.
When his wife, Amanda, put up a wall of anger, Mike would console himself by saying, “All I need is Jesus.” But a counselor pointed out that unless his retreating into God’s presence resulted in reaching out to his wife, his actions displeased God. Although he likened it to confronting enemy fire on a battlefield, Mike began reaching out to Amanda. “To me,” she said, “more than all the ‘right’ things he does, that shows me that he loves me.”
4. Dare to believe.
Paul reminds us in Ephesians 3:20-21 that God “is able to do super-abundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think-infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes or dreams” (Amplified). That promise is true for marriages —even when only one partner is willing to change. “There’s always hope,” says writer and speaker Claudia Arp, “because God needs only one heart to begin to work in a relationship.”
Instead of bemoaning a “marriage mistake,” I relinquished my ideas of what makes a satisfying marriage and asked God to give me a servant’s heart toward Barry. Packing his lunch, running errands for him, keeping the driveway swept-I did these things (and still do) because I know Barry views them as proof of my love. Over time he responded by staying home more and choosing to spend time with me.
5. Give it time.
Sigmund Freud said, “Someday, given enough time, we will look back on our lives and discover the most difficult moments have become the most precious to us.” My “someday” came about ten years ago when Barry gave me a ring he wore as a child, a gold band with a diamond and ruby chip. He said, “When we first got married, I didn’t love you. But I do now.” Through my tears I confessed my original lack of love and added, “I love you now, too.”
Did we make a mistake? It doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is the love we’ve found from the God who redeems and makes all things new.
This article was featured in the Summer 1997 issue of Marriage Partnership Magazine, which unfortunately, is no longer being printed. But they do have a huge number of archived articles posted on the Todayschristianwoman.com web site. We highly recommend that you visit it to see what you can learn about marriage.
The author of this article, Nancy Kennedy, lives in Inverness, Florida. She is the author of Honey, They’re Playing Our Song (Multnomah/Questar).
(INDIA) This is a very in enlightening blog. I and my husband met 10 years ago and have been married for 4 years with no child. We were both in our first and last relationship until we got married. Before we got settled I asked many times if this is really the man I’d cherish for the rest of my life. Finally, I convinced myself that I would marry him and love all the negative and positive areas of his life.
But after our marriage he started to question his decision of settling down at the age of 29 yrs. old because he’s not done yet with his life. He is not happy being married. He feels that I am the not the right wife for him. It crushed me to a pieces when he told me. He acts distant and isolated from me. He stayed at his mother’s house. I know he had an affair. We don’t know what to do with him because he doesn’t want help from any of us. That’s why this blog help me a lot to overcome our crisis. To God be the glory.
(USA) This is kinda my story –but I didn”t marry my husband until I was 42 years old. I had never been married. He was divorced for over 10 years. It was love at first sight for me –we only “dated” for 3 months. I actually proposed to him. He later asked me to marry him but I know I rushed him into it.
I had been very content and happy single with a career and friends. I had had 3 proposals but none of them felt right. I had a long engagement (10 years) until my late 20’s –it took me a long time to get over him –but I accepted a long time ago that that wasn’t meant to be the path of my life. I have a very large and loving family that I have always been very close to. My husband is jealous of my closeness to them. My husband has 3 grown children –I have never had children but consider my sisters kids like they were my own.
I know that I misled him about some ways that I like to live my life –sorry but I like to have a drink sometimes –I don’t go to bars or anything like that but I want the option of having a drink if I want to! I have been a Christian since I was 12 yrs old and attend Church weekly –so I am not a sot!
We have been married almost 12 years. We don’t argue –he is not abusive –I do wait on him hand and foot –but guess that is my fault. The last couple of years I have been feeling very ‘down’ and it is getting worse. We are pretty well off as far as money so that is not the problem, except he is resentful about my expenses –even though a lot of the money was mine when we married.
I wish I had the nerve to ask for a divorce –but dividing our assets would be so hard and only bring on more anxiety and depression. I guess I am just venting?
(USA) Why does everyone assume they should stick it out and try to make the most if a bad situation? I understand not walking away if you were deeply in love, got married, then grew apart. But most people are saying they felt regret before they even said “I do.”. How can you be do sure this is what God wants? Maybe, just maybe, you made a mistake and it’s okay to stop with the charade. Divorce just can’t always be wrong.
Sacha, Whenever you put the word “always” in it, you are inserting a pretty strong word. There aren’t too many situations where you can apply “always” to it. But we are a fickle people and I can tell you that we receive letters almost everyday where someone will tell us that they filed for divorce (or are now divorced) and now they GREATLY regret it and are in deep grief because the other spouse won’t take them back. Their feelings eventually changed and they now live in regret.
I had a close friend that this happened to. She was unhappy in her marriage for several years. She wanted out. I tried reasoning with her to work on the problems rather than dumping out. Well, she left her marriage. And she GREATLY lived to regret it. She divorced, dated around and then looked back and said to herself, “What was I thinking?” By that time her husband, who faithfully waited for a long time, had met someone else. That’s when my friend came to me and said, “I don’t know what to do, but I realize that I love him and want to try again.” Sadly, her husband, by that time, didn’t. She was devastated but she had no one to blame but herself. She THOUGHT she had made a “marriage mistake” in marrying this man and only later realized that was a lie she had allowed herself to believe. If only…
Sometimes a marriage is going in an unhealthy direction and it could look like a “charade” to keep it alive. But over time circumstances will change and/or one or both spouses learns things that they apply to their lives and their marriage heads in a better direction. Sometimes the commitment –the promises you made in the beginning, can help you to stay the course until the course starts veering in a good direction. (Studies have shown that’s what often happens.) That’s what happened in my marriage. I almost dumped out of our marriage years ago. I thought I didn’t love my husband anymore and thought I never would again. How wrong I was! I’m thankful that I stayed in the marriage because eventually things changed. My husband woke up to some changes that needed to be made –actually, we both did, and we made them. I can’t even start to imagine my life without my precious husband. I’m wild about him. We’ve been married over 40 years and are DEEPLY in love, and yet we almost missed this.
When we first married, we were so young and naive and stupid in many ways. We made all kinds of mistakes, which could have been interpreted as making a mistake in marrying each other. But because we WERE married, and we honored our commitment, and yes, we participated in a “charade” for a while, we have failed forward. It was painful for a while, but it’s SO worth it now!!!
And as far as divorce and how can you “be so sure this is what God wants?” That would seem to be contradictory to God’s ways for him to not be committed to marriage, rather than divorce. Throughout the Bible God compares marriage to Christ’s love for the church –it’s a living picture for those who are in the world to see by how we treat each other in Godly love and commitment. Just because we’re not doing what we should be doing, it doesn’t mean that His will has changed on the importance of marriage commitment. I also pose the same question that Gary Thomas asked in his book, Sacred Marriage. “What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?”
(NIGERIA) I want to mention that in marriage there is supposed to be a loss of identity and also you are permitted to lose all of yourself while you are married.
(USA) Same story; it’s been less than 2 months since I got married. I told several of our close Christian friends and him that I was not “in love” with this man, but that I loved him because he was very good to me. I was reassured that love was not love, but infatuation and a feeling. That the love I had for him would sustain a marriage. He is deeply in love with me and would do anything for me. But that’s just it. Anything includes lying and manipulation. Throughout our relationship he has lied, big and small lies, and all the time. Our Christian friends always convince me to forgive him because he is such a likable person and kind.
However, I voiced during our premarital counseling that my greatest fear is that because I am not in love with him, that he may not love God with all his heart, soul and mind. Once again, I was reassured that I was not put in a position to judge a person’s walk and that they believed he was a genuine Christian and he confirmed this fact.
The week immediately following our wedding, I discovered his vehicle repossessed, he owes 2-3 months of rent to his former roommate, he owes his family thousands of dollars, all of his bills are past due 2-3 months, and he has several warrants out for his arrest because of traffic citations. He was hiding all of this from me so that I would not back out from the wedding.
I had been married before to a man that did almost these exact same things, but he at least didnt try covering them up. I was deeply in love with him, so I just accepted it. However, I vowed that I would never be with someone like that again. In fact, I never wanted to get remarried. But this new man was just so likable and so sweet to me that everyone rooted for him. Now excuses are made for him, that he is still young and just made careless mistakes and it’s nothing we can’t get over.
However, knowing that I would not have married a man who was not in love with God and now clearly seeing that he does not exemplify a person that does, I really do not want to continue. In fact, I never turned in the marriage license and it has now since expired. SO while it’s not official in the judicial system, there is still the covenant made before our friends.
However, I can’t help but wonder could God really not have given me all these gut feelings of something being wrong here, and allowed me to discover this whole mess before turning in the license? It says in His word that he will make a way for us. How can I or anyone really say that this is not my way out? God knows how much I suffered in my first marriage. Eventually, he had turned into a very verbally abusive man, left me over and over again and cheated on my continuously.
I want to do God’s will. I want to put Him before myself. But how do we not know that God had truly intended my life to be lived for Him and Him alone without my attention divided?
(USA) Two Reasons Marriage Can Be a Mistake:
1. Either party is already married.
2. Either party has left a previous marriage for reasons other than death or their ex’s infidelity.
(AUSTRALIA) My husband saw me from afar online (Australia) I in England. We chatted for 3 months and in the meantime I felt he was the one and started making arrangements to move to Australia. When he came over to the UK for the first time to take me back with him after 2 weeks of staying here, the first time I set eyes on him at Heathrow Airport, I was shocked to the core! … he was nothing like I would go for, and he was nothing like the picture he had had displayed on his online profile.
I could not opt out now as I told my family, etc etc. After 3 months in Oz we married, but we knew that there were no feelings for one another, although he did feel for me. I have to live this lie with my grown up children and it kills me inside. I’m not happy and long to be back in the uk with friends, family etc. I sometimes wonder, if I went back to UK would I be happy in my marriage, knowing that I am home?
(UNITED STATES) This site has brought me much peace, direction and advice. It’s been my solace with much prayer. I question whether I was lonely and my spouse was lonely (I’m sure) were the reasons we married…we have been married 3 years, my first, my spouses 4th. I question if we should have married due to not being evenly yoked, but God wrote be ye evenly yoked and I married anyway I had doubts about this one direction in the scripture. Now we are here, and he is not living a life that God has directed. Not forsaking others, not putting me first and not forgiving. So here I am and I still want to be married because I love him and he loves me although he (and I) have enourmous challenges. I pray every day for reconciliation and for the answer to know if living as “divorced marrieds” is God’s plan for us. It hurts and some days are harder. We are currently separated for 1 month, but I still have hope, through all the “hurts” that God has a plan for us that I currently do no understand but will be revealed in due time.
(USA) A lovely article and many encouraging replies. I found this discussion while doing a search on divorce for Christian couples. I do not love my husband, nor am I in love with him. I do not believe he truthfully loves me either. We have been married for 3 years after dating online for a year and meeting each other only 4 times. We are from very different worlds, but same cultures and same faith. I have been previously married/divorced twice. He is widowed from a wife that died of a drug abuse overdose 1 month before we met. He has been clean for 10 years. I have never been a drug abuser. I know I should have never pursued a relationship with a man under these circumstances but I was hurting and alone as a single mother whose children had grown up and just left home for the first time. He should never have entered into a relationship with me under these circumstances. Like someone mentioned in an earlier post, we both counseled with our ministers and were 99% compatible on paper. Also as someone else mentioned, I realized 3 weeks before the marriage that I shouldn’t marry him, but I felt it was too late to call off the wedding. I suggested we postpone it 6 months but we didn’t want to since I had already moved to his state and was in temporary housing.
Our first year was like living a nightmare! It started on our honeymoon, he became suddenly emotionally abusive, hostile, cold, and mean. It continued. I comtemplated suicide, prayed God would allow me to die. Each day before he would come home from work, I would start having real panic attacks. I was beginning to doubt my sanity and I finally had a nervous breakdown, returning home to my parents for a month before returning to him. I am on an antidepressant now. I urged him to seek counseling and he did. They put him on medications and said he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and severe depression. Things began to improve for us, the abuse decreased and we began to heal and start to learn to love each other for the first time. Now, about 3 months ago he decided he didn’t want to be on medications anymore and the emotional abuse is happening again. He has devastated the small amount of love that was growing and we are back to square one again.
We tell each other “I love you” but we don’t really mean it. I know what kind of love God wants us to have for each other, Agape. My husband feels it is his duty to love me. I want him to love me because he loves me, not just because of duty. I want to love him but how can I when he keeps abusing me? I have prayed and prayed, all the things that previous posters have prayed and it is not helping. God hates divorce, but how can he want us to live like this, how long until he changes our marriage, until we are both so crushed and dead inside? We are barely speaking to each other, busying ourselves with work and hobbies and church. We live like roommates sleeping in the same bed.
(NIGERIA) Hi, I have been there and know how it feels to marry the wrong person. I have been married for eight years but presently, I live with my mum and my four kids. My hubby doesn’t care about our welfare. When I first met my hubby, I thought I had met a decent and honest man. I thought we were in love but unknown to me, I was heading for a serious heartbreak. He is dishonest with my money, only likes me when it is time for sex and doesn’t care about taking care of the children’s basic needs (by the way, I have 2 daughters and two sons from this marriage). Extra marital affairs is a regular for him and he doesn’t love me (all this happened while we were married).
I feel I will never forgive him. He has finally abandoned my kids and I and has gone away because he discovered I do not have money anymore. His mum also encourages him to remarry. Right now, I am thinking of divorcing him. Can anyone advise me on what to do?
(USA) Majority of us are so damaged from our upbringings that we have no clue what true love is. Therefore, we find ourselves with the wrong partners over & over. We jump into relationships too fast to avoid being along & then realize after the fact that we’ve chosen the wrong person because we were inexperienced & uneducated.
I’m only 30 & after a long miserable marriage & two kids I have now found myself & what my purpose is in life. And one thing is for sure… If two people aren’t working together & both trying there hardest, staying in a dead marriage is pointless & a waste of life. It took seeing my kids scared for their lives for me to wake up & realize that my marriage could never be saved & all I was doing was prolonging the inevitable & draining my mind, body, & soul.
Life is all about learning & growing, & some people are only brought into your life to teach you a lesson or two. Most are not intended to be in your life forever. Unfortunately since a lot of us in today’s society are either love addicts or emotionally damaged/unavailable from our upbringings, it will take a lot of us going thru a bad marriage or two to learn & grow into healthy individuals, & to finally find happiness within ourselves.
(UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) My wife and I are, well it’s hard to say where we are at in our marriage. She says she will never be able to love me again as anything but a friend. But there are still times when she forgets to restraint her feelings and something comes out. We had some problems before, though we were both emotionally unfaithful at around the same point in our marriage, I was the only one to make things physical with someone outside our marriage; and it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Our son had only been born 6 months before and we had only been married for a year and a few months (got pregnant 1 month after being married).
She has not been able to begin letting go of that event, and its been almost a year since that happened now. She just wants to end it, is what she says, but she still wants to find a house and such. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose my family. I did not commit adultery in the literal sense, but there was infidelity. I’m starting to get worn down by all of her belittling and scorn. Anytime I tried to tell her I don’t like that we get in a fight… Now she even thinks I am having feelings for my step-sister. How do I… I know that there is still a chance and hope for something there. I just want her to admit it can still be there too. Any words of advice or encouragement?
(USA) It’s good to read all these stories. Sadly, I have been married more than once, although only the last time in the Church. After my late wife died I remarried fairly quickly and wonder if I was too hasty. My current wife lives for trips around the country to see her children by a previous marriage, and her grandchildren. She generally goes for about a week or 10 days. After she is gone for 3 or 4 days I begin to wonder if I was too hasty in remarrying.
Divorce is not an option at this point, at least it would be really, really a hard thing to do after a Church marriage. My wife refuses to change her behaviour. Any thoughts?
(USA) My husband and I are separated after being married 1 year. The marriage has been so stressful that I have been in the hospital several times and now have a heart condition. I’m getting better now that we have been apart for a few months. Both of us have been married before and are in our 40’s. I just want to be left alone so that I can get well.
I truly believe that I went against God’s will by marrying this man. I had serious hesitations but went ahead with it anyway. You’d think at my age that I would know better. Any time I have any communication w/ my husband my heart condition gets worse. What do I do now?
Marvelous article by Nancy Kennedy, I have referred to it over and over again. She quotes, “There’s always hope,” says writer and speaker Claudia Arp, “because God needs only one heart to begin to work in a relationship.” Can you send me the reference for this? Thank you! Jeff