Sometimes I wonder if I’m just totally different.  I’ve had the opportunity to talk with several amazing women who’ve been through a divorce that was literally forced on them. (Like me). But they all seem to have the same reaction: “I’m better off. I’m moving on.”

I’m so not there. I’m just about fifteen months into this and I still. want. him. back.
I loved him. I never planned to be without him. Yes, he cheated on me so many times. Is it wrong that I still love him? Where do you cross the line from mercy/forgiveness to tragically addicted? Perhaps it’s a soul tie. I have some amazing counselors and wise people in my life who can explain a soul tie. For now, I’ll just give the cliff note definition here that I found on The Great Bible Study blog:

“The Bible speaks of what is today known as soul ties. In the Bible, it doesn’t use the word soul tie, but it speaks of them when it talks about souls being knit together, becoming one flesh, etc. A soul tie can serve many functions, but in it’s simplest form, it ties two souls together in the spiritual realm. Soul ties between married couples draw them together like magnets, while soul ties between fornicators can draw a beaten and abused woman to the man which in the natural realm she would hate and run from, but instead she runs to him even though he doesn’t love her, and treats her like dirt.” Read more here

Perhaps, my soul is still so strongly tied to his. Perhaps I was so in love with him and never planned to fall out of love with him. My heart just can’t catch up to today. I can’t catch up to the person he is today. It won’t catch up to every betrayal dating back from year two of our marriage; that first confession that he “messed up at the gym.” I got used to forgiving. I got used to waiting those god awful two weeks to find out if he’s ‘clean.’ I got used to “walking this out together.” Isn’t that what a wife is supposed to do: forgive and walk it out together? Now all of a sudden, I have to cut that off. I am being counseled left and right to cut off that commitment and devotion.

I remember one of my first sessions with my sweet counselor. We were praying. She asked me to tell her what I saw when she told me to “die to wife.” I told her I saw myself in a coffin. She paused. She said, “Why do you see your whole self in there? Is there not more to you than wife?” “No. That was all of me,” I responded. All of me.

How do these women cut that off? How did they find the rest of their ‘self’ when the wife role was stolen from them? How do they see their husbands for what they are now and let go of the good husband they used to be. I need new lenses. I can’t let go of my old ones. I can’t let go of my old husband lost somewhere inside this stranger I see.