When Doing the “Right” Thing Leaves You Feeling Confused and Inadequate
Hello Friends! This summer has brought more than just stifling heat to West Michigan. For several days, the smoke from far-off wildfires drifted into my area. The sky looked hazy, the sun struggled to shine through, and the air quality index deemed the conditions hazardous. For several days, people were urged to stay indoors. What should have been life-giving had become contaminated.
Sometimes this happens with relationships as well. What should bring love, safety, and companionship instead leaves us feeling anxious, confused, and struggling to breathe. We know something is off, but the source of the problem isn’t always easy to detect. Contaminated air has drifted over from somewhere else, clouding what would otherwise be clear.
Today’s question reminds me of those smoke-filled days when the sun was obscured. The sun had not changed; it was still present, but it couldn’t be seen clearly. In the same way, sometimes our emotional and spiritual atmosphere becomes so clouded it becomes difficult to discern what is true. As you read, you may recognize a similar longing for clarity in your own life.
Today’s Question: I feel so confused in my marriage. I’ve come to a point where I only feel anxiety and disappointment. I can’t stand to be around my spouse. It started out with him forcing me to do things prior to marriage that I didn’t want to do and I thought it would get better, but now 17 years later I’m basically repulsed at the thought of him. I’m at a loss of how it could get better and I don’t know what to do. We have children and the thought of breaking their hearts is unbearable so it’s worth it to me to stay, but I don’t know what to do to save my own mental health. It’s like a roller coaster of emotions living with him. One moment up, the next down, always telling me I need to have mercy and forgiveness because the Bible demands it (which I know, and it makes me feel so confused and inadequate) and “we” just need to do the right thing. I don’t know what to do.
Susan’s Response: It makes sense that you feel confused. You have spent 17 years with your heart, mind, and body sending you one message while someone you love has been telling you another. You have described feeling repulsed and worn down while also believing that a good Christian woman should simply show more mercy and forgiveness. Vacillating between those messages would leave anyone feeling confused. Beautiful virtues have become so tangled with fear and obligation that it’s difficult to see God’s heart clearly.
You mentioned that your husband forced you to do things prior to marriage. I don’t know exactly what you mean by that, but I don’t want to gloss over it. If you mean that your wishes and boundaries were repeatedly ignored, that is significant. Or perhaps the forcefulness was physical and you were overtly violated. Nonetheless, from the beginning your “no” was not honored or respected.
Experiences like that don’t just disappear with time. They create damage and affect relational trust and safety, as well as how your mind and body respond in the relationship. You thought it would get better, and yet you are seeing that those behaviors have not been repaired. In fact, you are now being asked to ignore what your body is saying and simply show more mercy, forgive, and do the right thing. It makes sense that, over time, you have begun to question not only your own perceptions but also your understanding of what God actually desires for you.
I wonder if one of the deepest struggles you are facing isn’t just relational, but also spiritual. When there is this type of relational harm, precious biblical virtues can become distorted when separated from the heart and character of God. Love becomes synonymous with enduring harm. Mercy becomes tolerating destructive behaviors in silence. And forgiveness becomes removing consequences.
In our desire to honor God, we can slowly begin to believe faithfulness requires repeated override of wisdom, dignity, and discernment. That isn’t the true message of Christ. If your husband is forcing you to do things that go against your conscience, your dignity, or your boundaries, is that something God is asking of you to accept? I don’t believe scripture calls us to participate in our own violation in order to prove faithfulness.
Mercy is a beautiful gift, but it never requires pretending that harm is not harmful. Forgiveness is central to Christian teaching, but forgiveness and reconciliation are not the same. Relational repair requires genuine repentance, changed behavior, and rebuilt trust. And godly love brings clarity, not confusion.
Sometimes our confusion isn’t the result of disobedience to God. Sometimes it’s the result of trying to reconcile God’s heart with messages that don’t actually reflect His character. For some, messages about God have become so intertwined with ongoing harm, it becomes difficult to recognize His true character.
So what do you do now? I don’t think it’s helpful to force yourself to feel differently than you do or simply try harder to do the “right” thing. Allow yourself to be honest about what you’ve experienced and what you need. You don’t have to deny your pain to prove yourself righteous. Bring the truth into God’s presence.
I hear your desire to protect your children from hurt. That desire reflects the heart of a loving mother. Children are not only shaped by the hard things they endure, but they are also shaped by the ways they see important adults respond to those hard things. They are quietly absorbing what love, truth, respect, and dignity look like in real life. What do you imagine they are learning by what they experience in the home currently?
Before you decide what comes next in your marriage, I wonder if God is inviting you to recover your own clarity. You don’t have to make any major life-altering decisions today. You have been encouraged not to listen to your discernment. As the smoke begins to clear, you may find yourself better able to discern between false guilt and conviction, between fear and wisdom, and between sacrifice and self-abandonment. Building back self-trust and your ability to discern what is true may be your next right step forward.
Destructive people can try to undermine biblical virtues so that they become distorted. “But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” (James 3:17-18) Throughout Scripture, God never asks us to separate one virtue from another.
God’s wisdom is never mercy without discernment, forgiveness without truth, humility without dignity, or submission without sincerity. His character holds these virtues together, and as we grow more like Christ, He teaches us to do the same. And dear one, recovering your clarity and finding stability may be important steps forward toward good mental health.
In order to do that, begin to pay attention rather than pushing yourself aside. Notice where you feel pressure to ignore your conscience or over spiritualize your way into dismissing harm. Notice where fear, obligation and guilt threaten your wise discernment. Bring those places to the Lord, to mature believers and a trained professional in order to help you navigate toward greater health.
If this blog resonates with you, perhaps your next step isn’t making a major decision today but it’s to gain greater clarity. Join LV&Co for a live webinar, 4 Lies That Make Women Feel Crazy and Powerless in a Destructive Relationship. Together we will uncover common misconceptions that keep women stuck in confusion, examine what God’s word actually says, and begin untangling harmful messages.
Be well!
Beloved reader, have you ever discovered that something you believed was pleasing to God was actually keeping you from experiencing His goodness? What helped you see God’s heart more clearly?
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I completely understand every word this woman is going through. It hurts my heart to read that another woman of God is being tricked by satan. Please!! Take heed every word Susan gave to you here. Especially the part about your children watching everything. Because we can trick our own minds into thinking that staying is best for the kids. But do you want your kids to act like him to their spouse? Or do you want your kids to marry someone just like him? Because they are learning from your marriage what marriage is supposed to look like. And that’s what will happen. They will either be like him or marry him. Kids are going to hurt period! You can not shield them from the realities of life itself. And no one gets through life without pain. You are at a place to pick their pain because no matter what…..they are enduring pain. Not sure of the ages of your children but I will assume not that young. If you decided to leave, they very well may thank you. Does he treat them just like he treats you? Stick with Leslie’s teachings. Sign up for everything you can. Because it’s also ok to stay but it is not ok to stay and let things continue as they are. You either have to make a ton of changes and stop accepting his mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse beginning now, or you need to make a plan to leave this behind. Leslie can help you find your voice and take back your dignity and control over your life. Please don’t let this go on another day. Perhaps just a seperation can serve the marriage right now so you can see if he will make changes. Please do this for you and your kids. Love and prayers for you.
I too have been in the exact same place. I may be a little further down the road in that I’ve taken time to find my own voice and recognize manipulative patterns, I too feel a bit stuck. I want to protect my children, their father has begun a very subtle smear campaign against me and my family of origin. He is sometimes gentle, sometimes a lot of fun, but occasionally, volatile, unpredictable, reactive and his words are hurtful to my girls. He almost always comes along after the explosive event and says, “this is what I did that was bad, and it hurt you. I’m sorry.” But he never completely apologizes or commits do doing anything differently, and my kids have begun to notice the disparity.
He also expects me to WANT physical intimacy with him. In many ways it’s easier to just do the “thing” and get it over with, buy myself some time… But as I recently became aware, that’s just another form of Fawning. (fight, flight, freeze, fawn etc.), And I have reached a place in my healing where I refuse to abandon myself, ie being physically intimate with someone I despise, and am repulsed by–just to keep the peace. Even though, the peace will definitely be shattered soon, and he’ll begin using passive aggressive and manipulative language again once he thinks he’s overdue for some “lovin’ time”. I have been working with a therapist for about 8 years now, and am still a little afraid to enforce boundaries with him. He nearly always reacts strongly against them. But I am WORLDS away stronger and more confident in myself than I was when this all started.
I too am not quite sure what to do next. I feel called to stay for my kids, but he will not accept a life without physical intimacy, and anticipating that difficult conversation terrifies me. All of that to say YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
I’m not saying what you should do, but I’ll tell you what I felt God told me to do with my fist husband. I was led to read 1Peter. I was puzzled at first, so.I cried out to God again, what does this mean? Clarity came. I went to h and said, I believe God said to tell you to you can have all the sex you want. But you must choose what kind of relationship you want with me. There are two choices – master/slave or Christ/church. Either you command it and I lie there and let you do it to me, or you must win me,because you have lost me. At first he yelled that he was my master, I must obey, and he was commanding me to feel affection for him. We s!ept in the same bed 3 more years and never did it again. Of course, he said that I wouldn’t let him touch me, etc. but I had peace and the counsellor s we went to said it made sense. You see, either choice required his humbling himself, and admitting that he really didn’t want to do God’s will and that, he couldn’t do.
I love that “win me or command it,” wish i wouldve tried it. my exhusband was the same way, expecting sex every day even though i did get to where he repulsed me in every way. He did not wait 3 years, but within 3 weeks stated he would kill himself if i didnt have sex with him. I knew when He said it, it was just manipulative so i said that is your choice and ive made my decision. But i still wish i would have called the police then about his self harm. That was one of my biggest realizations, he had used something very similar multiple times in our 27 year marraige, but every other time i had comforted him and surely forgot what my issue was.
I got some poor pastoral counsel when I brought abuse and infidelity forward. I got “we don’t get credit for loving them when it’s easy” and “I can never counsel for divorce”. So I buckled down and tried harder. What I actually did was tolerate what was intolerable and give sin a place to run rampant. There’s a book called love must be tough. I found it helpful. It’s about calling things what they are. I think God puts us in partnership for growth. Sometimes it’s the friction and difficulties where we grow the most. Sometimes we do our husbands greater service by labeling the truth and saying this, this is not ok.
Saying this is not ok. Naming a thing what it is. Isn’t wrong. That’s truth. Now I understand if safety is a factor That maybe confrontation or even plain talk could land you in a bad way-I get it. So caution there if that’s your situation. But if that is the case that’s not how God wants us to live. Under threat. So our husband get to run a muck.
On another note and Speaking from experience sigh…kids see more than you think. And they are learning how a man should treat a woman and woman a man by the dynamics that play out in front of them.
It’s all hard stuff sister. I wish you wisdom, discernment, strength and peace.
Leslie and her team and a good counselor who understood destructive patterns helped me get clarity. I separated from my husband 2 years ago after 44 years of marriage. The decision did not come easily. I spent 3 years in conquer and have been working with my counselor for 6 years now. During some of that time I tried to stay well but I have found more healing in the separation period. I do not see reconciliation happening but I am better able to extend compassion and mercy to my husband now that I have exited the emotional roller coaster. I am able to see him, converse with him, (on a platonic level) and even go places with him occasionally. We are married with different zip codes and right now that is working for me. I must say that physical abuse was never an issue in my relationship with him or I’m sure I would not have made the decisions that I have. You and you alone know what you have been through and how it is affecting you. And you will be the one to make the decisions for your future but there is help for you as you walk it out. There are really many choices and Susan is right; it starts with getting clarity. Peace and love to you dear sister in Christ.