Portrait of a troubled marriage is more like it.

From the first moment we started the "portrait of a biblical marriage" study I was INSPIRED! Everything I read was like food for a dying soul. I knew I was not happy because I was not fulfilling the role God had intended me too: helpmate, submissive wife. My theory was all I had to do was to submit to my husband and in time, all would fall into place.

It doesn't quite work that way. Perhaps you can be blessed by God for obeying His word, but it doesn't change the other person like I thought it would.

Jim heard that I had to obey him and that he could do whatever he wanted. He had his friends in the house and smoked grass while I was out. He drank. When I caught him online talking dirty to some woman he said he was head of household and I was to help him. And that eventually ment allow him to do what he wanted. He said it was harmless and since it was something that filled his needs I should not be upset about it. After all, he said, his happiness was what I was suppose to be focused on that is what the "pastor" said.

That was all my focus had been for years. How can I help Jim get over his mothers death? How can I help Jim while he is scared in jail? How can I heal the hurts of Jim's past so he can move forward? I became resentful that I got nothing back. His "love" was self-centered on only him. He said only his mother had ever truly loved him and that if really loved him it would be like she did: doing anything for him and asking nothing in return. I tried to explain that marriage was give/take, not like a mother's love for her child.

I was mad at God because I felt He had lead me to Jim and that surely I was worthy of more than this. I still saw a man struggling with re-dedicating his life to the Lord, not a man that had never truly accepted Jesus as his savior. I still felt it had been His will to marry Jim.

It was a very dark time in my life and then Jim begged me to have my Mother move in with us while she looked for a place closer to Waterville. I knew this was a bad idea but Jim said "submit to me, remember?" He said he would step up and clean the house while I worked, look for a job, go to church, but he needed a mother in the house. I relented.

I regretted.