Break Up and Divorce - Should You Condemn Yourself to a Bad Relationship for Life Because of Religion and Guilt?

Others may react to your decisions with a negative emotion, but remember what we said in the beginning - You can only control your responses, not theirs. If another person chooses to respond to something you do with a negative emotion, that’s their decision and you can’t control what they do. You can only accept their reaction with love and understanding.

Make your life decisions based on what feels right for you. Many, but not all, will disagree with me, but the only person that you are ultimately responsible for in this life is you. Others come and go from your life so that you can further the experience of life, but you come into this life on your own and you leave on your own, so make sure that while your here you take care of YOU.

Religion and Guilt

I told D and my church counselor that if S really has changed then I thought I should give him another chance. My church counselor said I needed to forgive S and try again.

What else would a church counselor say? Your church counselor is bound by the rules and regulations of whichever religion he chooses to follow. And those rules and regulations are not always based on love, but are based on control. Having said that, forgiveness is the most powerful tool that you have in this life. I believe there’s a quote that goes something like… "Forgiveness is God’s gift to the forgiver, not the forgiven" - something like that. It’s very true because you let go of all the negative emotions around the situation whether or not the other person even knows that you forgave them. So whether or not your stay married, try to forgive him.

D was very upset and told me I was not thinking straight. He told me I had been emotionally abused through both my marriages and that S was manipulating me. D said that my marriage to S was over the minute he abandoned me. I still felt guilty.

There’s absolutely no reason for you to feel guilty. He left you. Remember? You are under no obligation to take him back - unless you wish to keep repeating that same pattern until you’ve learned everything you need to learn from it.

I went to psychiatric counseling with D and the doctor couldn’t understand why I considered going back to S. I felt such pressure and told D I needed some space to figure this out. He left me alone for about a month. Meanwhile S kept calling and following me. I finally agreed to go see my church counselor with S. The counselor said that we couldn’t rebuild our marriage if we lived apart. So I allowed S to move back in.

This may sound harsh, but…