We’re in a situation now where we’re praying for a friend’s marriage. It’s so incredibly sad. The husband has been my husband’s good friend for years. When he first started dating, and later proposed to, his wife, my husband and all of his other friends urged caution, practically begging him not to marry her. Everyone but my husband’s friend himself saw what a bad fit they are. The woman is not an evil person, but she’s very childish, self-centered, and entitled. She hurts people constantly, and seems to feel badly about it when it’s pointed out to her, but she just doesn’t see it unless it’s pointed out, and even then, she thinks others misinterpret her rather than that she behaved badly, so she keeps right on doing the same things, assuming that it was only that one person who would misinterpret her. Right up until the wedding day, the groom’s friends tried to get him to back out. Once the vows were said, though, everyone stopped the criticism and started trying to support the marriage as best they could. It hasn’t been enough. The husband recently acknowledged to himself and to my husband that he’d deceived himself when he was dating his wife–she never lied to him, but he lied to himself about her personality, their expectations for marriage, and what he could and could not live with. Now he’s miserable. My husband was able to help him soften his stance from “immediate, unilateral divorce; I just want out” to “six month separation to see if we can work things out,” but it’s going to take an act of God to keep them together. There are no children, so it’s good that no innocents are being hurt here, but there’s also not that joint concern to pull them together.

Any suggestions here? I’m not close to the wife, and we live half a world away, so my role seems to be prayer. My husband, however, is very close to his friend and communicates with him most days–he’s working to influence him toward saving the marriage, but he also says that his friend feels that he’s already given up so much and allowed so much to go on for so long, that he can’t meet her halfway; he’s already gone farther than halfway toward her and needs her to meet all the demands he recently gave her. (Both parties acknowledge that there are no biblical grounds for divorce, but I think they’re past caring about that.)
Deborah recently posted..Rain

I agree with Heather – it is just another negative we ‘allow’ in today’s society.