Marriage Did In My Faith In God

[Tyson]

Just a few days ago I was rehashing in my mind what caused me to start doubting and eventually cashing it in. All this time I thought it had to do with just coming to grips that the Bible was a pile of crap and in great part it was, however, I realize now that it ay have started with my marriage. For those of you who did not grow up in some stict, puritnical, backwards West Indian church, you might not understand what I am about to say, but try.

 

The church I grew up in did not believe in divorce and remarriages except if you caught your partner taking dick or giving dick to someone else other than you. They also did not believe in fornication and/or premarital sex. Well the latter caused a lot of horny 19, 20, 22, 24 year olds to get married at an age some will say was rather young. You see, once you were dating, most of the older miserable farts gave you the subtle impression that they knew you could not be dating for 1 year or more and not sexing up each other so they started applying slight pressure toward marriage. You then began to hear things like, "marriage is honorable" and "children are a blessing from the lord and blessed is the man who's quiver if full of them." Then, because you were in a church setting with lots of young people, the old Lemming theory applied. So if one "young person" married, other young people followed suit with the help of the church veterans dropping little hints. Worse if you had a younger sibling in the church who got married before you.

 

Well I did not really get married at 25 because of the peer pressure per se but more because I was conditioned to believe that if I loved the woman (we all do or think we do a few months or even years in) marriage was the right thing to do. Also, keep in mind that because I got "saved" at 14 and had been taught I should not mingle with the world or fornicate, I was essentially isolated and insulated so I never really did much of the dating scene. By the time I met my wife, I did not have much to compae her to. All that mattered was that she "loved the lord" and I did too and if we prayed together, sought the lord with all of our hearts and put him first our marriage would be blessed and fruitful. WRONG!!!

 

So about a year in it became evident to me that my wife, while a great woman in many respects, was a very volatile woman with a vicious temper. In retrospect I now realize she is suffering from either some kind of thyroid problem, paranoia, or manic depression and problem her grandmother and mother suffers from (I did not meet any of them until AFTER 2 years of marriage). At the time I did not know about any of these things, but suffice it to say, we began having problems every other day with my wife flying off into explicable rages from time to time. So what did I do? Pray about it. Dug deeper into church and placed "faith" in God that he would work things out because after all, "marriage is honorable" and he would bless such unions. To compound the matter, we ended up having 4 children, a definite blessing from the lord, right? Yes and no. Love my kids with such a love, but they have handcuffed and snuffed out just about any chance at being spontaneous. I want to travel the world, do BBC documentaries, get up and go as I please to get away from the stress from time to time and can't do it.

 

Anyway, it was when I began realizing that no amount of prayer and faithfulness to the "work of God" was doing anything to improve my marriage was when I began wondering if there was really any light on up in heaven, but by then I was about 10 years and 4 children deep into marriage.

 

The irony to all of this is that my wife feels that it is because I have abandoned "God" that is when I became a bad husband with no conscience (meaning I don't show that sappy Christian "love" and patience anymore that led me to putting up with shit for years). It's not that I do not love my wife, but I now realize I would have waited a little longer and used my common sense as opposed to blind faith in these idealized notions in Christianity I might have made a different decision OR looked at my wife a little more closely and helped her to seek the necessary help at the time.

 

Now I don't want anyoe to get the idea that it was ONLY about a problematic marriage so they can conclude, "oh you left the lord because you were disappointed in your marriage" bullshit. That was only ONE aspect, but it did show me that there is NO god up there answering pennitent prayers. This is not to say I do not know that all marriages have their issues, but mine did not have to get that far or be compounded with religious idealism.

 

 

Your thoughts?