This posting is not part of the story, I need to vent a little and let the world see what I am thinking.

 I have been struggling this last week with the eternal consequences of my divorce. My wife abandoned me or as she says separated from me some time ago. In my religion this was a sin because she broke our temple vows. I am not saying I was a great husband, but facts are facts. My religious leaders have told me that she broke the vows and that I was free to stop waiting for her to come to her senses and I could get a divorce. I was willing to wait forever if that was what it took to not break my covenants from the temple. Either you believe or you don’t. They said as far as my marriage was concerned those vows were done away when she left me. This is a very important distinction to me.

So now that it looks like there is no hope, I have to face the fact that my wife believes in a different God than me. My religion and God have laid out the grounds for divorce and when she left me, those grounds were not met. I did not cheat, am not addicted, and did not beat my wife.

 So I was thinking how does she repent, because she will want to go back to the temple. Eventually she will get a temple recommend, the church doesn’t stop you forever from going to the temple even if you did one of those things. I was thinking of the four R’s of repentance, Recognize, Remorse, Restitution, Resolve. Not sure I have those right. The thing is what was really hanging me up was the restitution. I think one day she will recognize and have remorse, and resolve to not do it again, but how does she handle restitution?

 The priesthood lesson was on repentance and part of the lesson went to the For the Strength of Youth book, and page 29.

 To repent, you need to confess your sins to the Lord. Then seek forgiveness from those you have wronged, and restore as far as possible what has been damaged by your actions.

 Are we not going to be an eternal family? How do you repent when you break temple covenants? Will this keep her from the highest level of the celestial kingdom? Will my children treat me like a favorite uncle in heaven because we are not an eternal family? How do you possibly make restitution from this? In my mind this was a simple act to commit, pack up and leave, but such consequences.

 Now I made a lot of mistakes in my marriage and was stupid a number of times, manipulated to the point that I could not act the way I should have. I couldn’t list all of the things I did wrong if I just stuck to the big things. One of the really big things was when she brought the Secret into our home. At the time I thought it was wrong, the philosophies of man mingled with scriptures, but how do you say that to someone that you can’t reason with. I should have said not in my home, this is not from God, but I was not strong enough. I went along trying to make peace. This is my biggest mistake in my life, trying to keep peace in my home instead of taking the risk she would walk out at any time. When I thought something was wrong I might weakly try to protest but I didn’t act like a priesthood leader of the family should have and said no. When I received what I thought was revelation I should have known how to communicate.

 Witchcraft might be to strong a word and Voodoo isn't right but when it was being introduced into the home I received what I thought was revelation. I had a dream and I told my wife about it and she blew it off, not related to what she was doing. Now I read the Handbook Two and see that I should have tried to say no, or talk about it more, persuade with long suffering. She had the best of intentions wanting to help others, what harm could it do. There is no reasoning. I gave up without a fight, it probably would have brought me to a divorce years ago if I had kept pushing.

 When I stood up and said not in my home I paid a price. When I said no, she tried to hurt me with whatever was handy that she knew would cause the most mental anguish so that she could get her way. What she didn’t anticipate is that she showed me that I didn’t feel loved, and I didn’t want to be treated badly any more. For a few weeks she lost control of me. For the first time in our marriage I tried to let her know how bad she really hurt me. Not from what she said, but that she would say it. In a very nice way she tried to amend things, but I was so hurt I didn’t know how to express it or communicate it. I prayed to know what to say, how to communicate my feelings and nothing came. How do you tell someone that you are so afraid to do anything because anything you do is wrong? How do you tell someone that has such control over you that you have to work up your strength just to talk to them because they will use anything you say to prove that you don’t love them. They turn “I love you” into a bad thing. Nothing was ever right and you have reached a point without even realizing yourself that you are so afraid of making a mistake that you don’t dare do anything. If you don’t agree with something the thing to do is do nothing.

 Why did things get to this point. I don’t know for sure but I think it was in part because I wanted a celestial family. I sacrificed my friends, family, the things I enjoyed, to try and give my children an eternal family.

 So now the problem. Can we even qualify in some way as a celestial family? How would she repent even if she wanted to, not that she will ever see she has done wrong? How do you make restitution for this? When will the fourth watch come? What do I dare say? Is eternity gone? What can I do to help my children through this time?