Imagination

Imagination is a wonderful thing, isn't it? Currently I imagine the day I'm debt free, traveling and the day my divorce is final. 

Imagination also kept me going on those hard days. I was yelled at, belittled or frightened by his actions and I would lay in bed waiting for him to fall asleep and imagine a post-apocalyptic world where he had died during the disaster and I would have to bury him in the back yard. I imagined being found by some buff outdoorsy man who would rescue and take care of me. He wouldn't try and scare me or make me feel bad about myself. He would be sweet and caring. 

My imagination also played a part in my staying as long as I did. I thought I loved him, I imagined him being the man he pretended to be in public. I was in love with the man I wanted him to be, not the man he was. I imagined him as chivalrous, thoughtful and that he really had changed since the last fight. Thing is, he never did. That was my imagination playing tricks on me. That and the years I spent being manipulated. 

His manipulation tactics had such a stronghold on me. I remember being asked by him if I would remarry if he died. I said probably and felt guilty about it. He said he wouldn't remarry because he only loved me and couldn't imagine marrying anyone else. 

He professed that during his adulthood that he would never marry, that he didn't believe in it. How the heck did I change his mind?! Is it because he knew that I wasn't looking for just a long-term relationship? Did he realize that I was easy to manipulate and thus figured I would be a good person to marry and push around? 

We know that it certainly wasn't because of his religious beliefs. He had convinced me that he was agnostic before we married. I remember the first time I went to our church without him after the wedding. He had told me a few days before that in fact he was certain that God didn't exist. I was crushed and my "perfect" little married life world began to crumble. This was before the first incident of physical abuse but after the financial blow I mentioned in a previous post.

I wasn't a Christian went I married but found my faith in the months after the wedding. The closer to God I felt and the more I learned about God the harder my marriage became. It was just another way he could hurt me. The other way he could use my faith against me was that Christians aren't supposed to divorce. I thought that God hated divorce; that it was right up there with murder.

I'm now learning that while divorce isn't God's design for marriage, He doesn't group it in with murder. God hates abuse. This weeks homework is to study and find passages that will help me feel more solid about how I was a good wife and went through the proper processes to try and fix my marriage. I know I had a right to leave because he was unrepentant but my counselor wants me to fell 100% confident that I was supposed to according to the bible.