Dear Tom,

The following is my miracle story:

A few years ago, my wife and I had several years in and out of marriage counseling. At that time, my wife had a few male email acquaintances that I was jealous of due to the level of intimacy in their emails. I decided I wanted to move out for a day or two and said that kind of behavior could lead to divorce. She was upset I said the divorce word, because whenever things go bad, I would say “Maybe we should get a divorce.” She said if you want to move out, move out for a separation.

So we separated and lived apart. Over the next 8 months things deteriorated. We both got involved with other people out of pain and hurt. We both got lawyers and started fighting for custody of our two boys. The lawyers seemed like they had our interests in mind but they scared both of us into escalating the battles and increasing the divisiveness and mistrust of each other. Many misleading statements were made in court based on fearful thoughts. All former love between me and my wife quickly vanished.

At this same time, my oldest son, who was 6 at the time, said that he had seen a shooting star and he wished for Mommy and Daddy to be together again. This broke my heart but I told him it would never happen because Mommy and Daddy just could not make it work. Something in that interaction with my son shifted things in me slightly and I told one of my best friends (who was friends with both my wife and me) that if God would do two things I would go back to my wife: 1) I needed to have the desire to go back to my wife. 2) I needed the relationships skills to know how to make it work. These two criteria seemed impossible to come true at the time because the girlfriend I had wanted me to move in with her after my divorce was finalized. Also, by this time the former love between my wife and I had mostly been completely destroyed. We had been to three or more years of marriage counseling and never could get our relationship to improve. Sometimes the marriage counseling would keep our relationship out of a tailspin, but it didn't actually make it better.

Around this time I meet some men who had done a men's weekend that they said I might like. They said it was a great experience and that it would improve my relationships with women forever onward. So, two months later I attended this weekend retreat. Coming back from the men's retreat weekend, I told my wife that I was getting married, and then pulled out my wedding ring, put it on and said to her, “If you'll have me back.” At the time she was in despair about how our marriage had come to such on awful place and was willing to try a different direction. By the end of that week I moved back in the house and now, three years later, our marriage is better than the early newlywed years. This all came about after the men’s weekend where I learned that our predicament was not all my wife's fault. The only thing I could do to improve our relationship was to change myself. I learned that trust is a choice. I also learned over the next months, through the rebuilding of our love, that love is a choice to live connected to the source (God) who is nothing but love and trust.

Today, my wife and I have a relationship that is based on love and trust. We don't read each others email. We allow each other to grow on the path that God/Life intended for each of us. We relish what time we do have together.

Light, Love & God,
Anonymous (New Hampshire)