Part 5 - Struggling with Temptation

Dave and I did a 6-month marriage course. While it was helpful, it didn't change the underlying situation.

The feelings for my teenage heart-throb had finally dissipated. My ongoing prayer was that I would fall in love with my husband. So it was frustrating to find that over the next ten years or so I found myself attracted to a few different men, at different times and places. I did not purposely go looking for that, and it always really bothered me. As a young woman in her twenties, it probably wasn't surprising. If one feels devoid of meaningful intimacy, and is longing for deep reciprocal love, then one's heart is going to be susceptible to others and may face that kind of temptation. They were people I had some kind of natural affinity with. The struggle was a mental one for me, for the most part.

I believed complete openness with one's spouse was best, so I shared my struggle with Dave, and we also confided in certain counselling folk. I received prayer and a lot of counsel but nothing seemed to help. No amount of counselling helped produce emotions that didn't exist, no amount of counselling could "switch off" emotions that did, no matter how "misplaced" those emotions might seem to be. I continued to blame myself, although I was aware Dave did have some issues of his own.

At the same time, life as a family moved along, enjoyed in many aspects, but always with the awareness of something not right in the background, with apparently no obvious resolution. During some years it was pushed aside completely, as family, work and other matters took the foreground, and we had some good years. But it would eventually surface again.

When we had been married for about eleven years without our own relationship changing, Dave and I agreed to a time of separation. I left with our children, to a remote farming community. I had one thing in mind - to find resolution with God. I suppose many people would have separated long before this, but I'm the kind of person that really digs my toes in, when it comes to commitment. I deeply wanted our marriage to succeed; I wanted to stay the course. I think many of us who are Christians want to be seen to have a wonderful marriage relationship. It grieved me deeply that ours was not a good example of one of those. And of course, as an idealistic 17-yr-old when I got married, I had envisaged a happy marriage that would last for life. I sought the Lord with all my heart about our marriage. My heart's desire was then, and now, to get to know God better, to have a close relationship with God; to have nothing standing in the way of Him and myself.

We were separated for 2 months. It turned out to be a wonderful spiritual retreat, and one of the most precious times of my life. One of my fears had been that if I took the step of separation, God would not be with me any more. It was the opposite. He was with me as much as ever.

Even before I moved there, God showed that He was still with me. There were lovely provisions. I had ended up in this particular community due to the fact that the local country school was in danger of losing one of its two teachers, unless they could get several more children into the school. So they were looking for a large family, and had a house ready for them to move into. That family became the children and I. No sooner had I arrived, than we were offered free milk and cream, as there was a local dairy farmer that had a lot of surplus product. We established a little transport system; the little red country school bus would pick up some children at one end of the bus route, along with large metal pails of milk and cream, and then drive to my end and pick up my children, dropping off the new milk and picking up the empty pails from the day before. It was fun! It was a lovely, supportive community, and while my younger son struggled a bit there, the others really seemed to enjoy it.

When the children had gone to school, I would quickly do the housework, then settle into Bible study and prayer. I followed the leading of the Holy Spirit regarding the Bible study, going through Proverbs and writing down all the positive halves of the verses. At that time I was very self-condemning. Then I went through other parts of the Bible, doing various studies.

I also received answers from the Holy Spirit, to questions which I had asked for a long time, including: how can God have always been there? That one had plagued and frightened me for years. I will share that answer later on the "Gleanings" page (still to come). I received little treats. I had to travel a very windy, hilly road through thick forest to get to my grocery shopping, and nearly every time I would see some beautiful animal. On one occasion I saw four small black deer glide across the road. When I got home I asked my farmer-landlord whether there was such a thing. He thought maybe they were wild goats. I have since found out that there are small black deer. They were certainly very beautiful. Being a nature lover, these kinds of moments were very special to me.

In fact, I have very few, if any, bad memories of that time. It was truly a blessing. Dave came over periodically to see the children. On one of his visits, I had a revelation - an insight. I realized he also had issues that were impacting our marriage. It wasn't just me.

After two months of separation, we got back together. I was refreshed in the Lord, ready to try again. Within six months I was as miserable as before.

It was not long after this, though, that I was miraculously set free completely from lustful fantasy.

I was so tired of struggling with my thought-life. I begged God to set me free from the fantasy habit. One night, I lay down to go to sleep, I suddenly had a vision, rather an ugly one. Some people have visions that appear in front of them like television screens. I often have visions that appear like small videos in my mind; they are usually short and pass in an instant. In this one, I saw the naked bottom half only of a huge man. He was panting and pawing at the ground with one foot, like a stallion looking for a mare. I was shocked! Somehow I knew this was the demon affecting my thoughts! I immediately renounced it in the name of Jesus and commanded it to leave me. Instantly, I felt a terrible pain in the left side of my head that lasted for several seconds. It felt like something was being torn out! As suddenly as it started, it stopped. I went to sleep. In the early hours of the morning, I dreamed I saw a lustful male cat. He was running after other cats lustfully. When I woke, I had the sense that God was showing me that what had been a big problem the night before, was now only a little problem. I decided to get prayer support, so Dave and I went to see our then pastor and his wife together, so that they could agree with me in prayer. As they prayed, I felt the tearing-out feeling again, but this time only for a moment.

From that day onwards, the mental fantasy habit was gone! It was just as though someone had turned out a light. Years later, I can barely remember what it was like to struggle with it, although I remember that I did struggle! What an awesome, powerful and compassionate God we have, who sets us free! As always, Jesus has authority over demons.

During the time we were attending the church of that particular pastor, I had an odd experience. I was in girlfriend's car, and she had to stop somewhere to do an errand. I waited in the car. I was not familiar with the place at all. I saw her talking to a man from there, whom I did not know. As she got back into the car and we left, a voice spoke to me very clearly. It said, "That man is going to fall in love with you." I was shocked! I couldn't believe my ears! I didn't know the man, and was already struggling enough with my marriage! I asked God to forgive me for having such a thought, and yet, I clearly knew this voice did not come from me. I deliberately set out to forget it.

Although I no longer struggled with mental lust fantasy, the relationship with Dave still did not change. A year or so later, I nearly did have an affair, and our marriage ended. It wasn't about fantasy. To cut a long story short, a person that we had got to know over the course of a year or so, began paying a lot of attention to me. I was not interested or even attracted to him at all, initially. However, I eventually realized he had some kind of attraction towards me. The man realized I was not comfortable and admitted his attraction. Somewhere in there, some part of my heart responded. Generally, he was a very nice person and well thought of in the town. It did not become a full-blown affair, thank goodness, although could have. Even in all of this, the old problem of lustful thoughts did not return.

Out of interest, an older lady who counselled me later, told me that she believed that when one person tells another person "I'm attracted to you", that plants a seed in the recipient's mind, which over time comes to fruit. She reckoned if she could have a dollar for all the situations she knew of where an affair started that way, she'd have a lot of dollars. Perhaps she was right. I hadn't been interested in that man at all before he said it. I should have cut contact as soon as he admitted liking me.

By this time, I was ready to leave our marriage permanently. Even without a future with the other man, things were still the same between Dave and I, and the situation was just getting more miserable. The children may not have been aware of the actual content of the problems, but the older ones had picked up on some things. It was around this time that the truth about some other things relating to Dave finally came out, from way back when we were teenagers, along with some other things. It was also around this time that I remembered the voice that spoke to me the day of the errand with my friend, in her car. It was the same man I now knew.

The question of whose that "voice" was is an interesting one. Jesus said that satan is the father of lies. I am also not sure that satan can foretell the future. In this instance, it surely came to pass and had nothing to do with me encouraging it. Therefore, was it the voice of the Lord, or an angel? I well remember how shocked and puzzled I was, given my situation at the time.

Dave finally asked me to leave, very reluctantly. It was actually a kind thing to do. I couldn't make myself leave. I had had it drummed into me that the husband was the final-decision maker (I no longer believe this, at least in the way the traditional church teaches it). And there were the children to consider. Just before our marriage finally broke up, I was driving along praying, feeling sad and miserable, when suddenly a Voice spoke directly to my mind and said, "I come to you with a heart of love and gentleness." That's who God really is.

It was not till we separated that I was able to view some things more objectively. I had made poor choices, but I also had to learn to be fair to myself. There were issues on both sides. However, I believe now that the reason things never came right for us was because our whole relationship was founded on deceit. If I had known the truth, I would have ended things before they had barely begun, or at least there would have been a chance to consider the situation in an informed way, so it truly did impact the course of my life. So for all the years we were going to counsellors, praying for a solution, there was a blockage. Would things have changed if the truth had been known sooner? Who knows? In any case, I stopped blaming myself completely for the failure of our marriage.

I moved out with the children. I remained in the district for another year or so, then decided to move right away, for my sake and also for the children's sake. So, fourteen years of troubled marriage ended, and another chapter began.

Part 1: The Growing Years Part 2: Teenage Relationship Part 3: Marriage & Motherhood Part 4: Touched by Darkness Part 5: Struggling with Temptation Part 6: Divorce & Single Parenthood Part 7: Married Again Part 8: This Present Life