Divorce, American style: What if one mate says no?

Cleveland Plain Dealer ^

[Mike Duke]

And one other thing. Your assumption that the vast majority of couples stay together because of 'unconditional love' is ridiculous. The majority of couples who stay married, row, fight, cheat, lie, beg, curse, flatter and struggle through their marriages but somehow they keep it together. They realise that out of love for God and love for the happiness of their kids they have to try and make the best of it and put up with each other's crap. What ever happened to honor and self-sacrifice and doing the right thing despite your own selfish urges?

Saying the Rosary is fine but these people who come up with new devotions (like fasting) and Rosary tag-ons every month concern me. Just change your kid's diapers and put the trash out without moaning about it and sometimes without being asked. Stop picking your feet in bed, if you know your partner hates that. Forget buying roses on Valentine's day, just clean the kitchen floor or the cooker once in a while or come home early and cook dinner for HER. When she moans at you resist the urge to argue, Women like to moan, just TAKE IT LIKE A MAN.

Heck, you met her mother before you married her didn't you? Given she spent over 20 years growing up with the old dragon, what on earth made you think she would turn out much different?

There are plenty of sacrifices you can make everyday in marriage without going searching for extra devotions. They ain't pretty, you can't sing them in Latin, but they are FAR more effective.

[ChevyZ28]

I did not say they people stay together because of unconditional love, I said he wasn't loving unconditionally. Which admit it or not, is required for you to be able to put up with someone's little annoying habits, and all of the things they say and do that hurt you.
I don't know about this rosary stuff, I attend a Church of Christ. As far as the fasting thing goes, our preacher once said that if you didn't care about an issue enough to fast about it and turn all of your focus completely over to the Lord and seeking his guidance then you didn't really want it. I do admire the woman for wanting to uphold the vows she has taken, God will reward her for her devotion. I can't help but feel great sympathy for her, I know her heart must be breaking. However, you can not possibly believe the happiness of the children or this woman is being provided for when the two are constantly arguing, and he absolutely refuses to come home and be the man he should be. I can see her trying for a while, but doesn't it sooner or later become self evident that resistance is futile? As I said, you can not force someone do the things they should do, and you can not force someone to feel what they do not feel and probably have already made their mind up they don't want to feel.

Self sacrifice comes down to your unconditional love for someone, that no matter how they may err, you will love them and stay with them no matter what. Yes, sometimes you have to "take certain things like a man" Men always get the last word anyway,"Yes Ma'am!"

My wife and I have a very good relationship. No, neither of us are perfect. I can not imagine my life without her. She is my sun in the morning and my moon at night. She has said and done things that hurt me, but then I have done the same to her as well. I could not look her or my daughter in the face and say I don't love you anymore, or I don't want to live with you anymore. I believe that takes an awfully cold hearted person to do that. Yes, God does love us, He loves unconditionally. If He didn't, He would have dumped us a long time ago.

[ChevyZ28]

I do want to point out, this woman is loving unconditionally. She is willing to take him back after he has humiliated her in this way. She is a very strong person.
Preferably, Bud coming around is the best thing. The kids need both of their parents, but evidence clearly and strongly points to Bud as the weak link. He hasn't even told her why he left? I will be surprised if he comes back then, he didn't leave for any reason other than he wanted too, even to the detriment of his family.

[Mike Duke]

I wish I could say I had 'unconditional' love for my better half. Most days it feels pretty conditional on the weather, my mood, how my job is going and how many bills I had to pay and weather the car has a full tank of gas. My own behaviour has very little to do with my wife and kids and far more to do with what a selfish, lazy, self-centered, bald-headed, fat slob I am. If I am really honest 90% of the arguments I start are unjustified by the subject at hand. I just want to shout at someone because I am pissed off about something.

In the end I'm just not that much of a romantic (can you tell?). I work at my own marriage because the alternative is so sad and lonely (for everyone concerned) otherwise. I've never met a happy divorced man, just a lot of men who pretend they are happy because they've got nothing else to hang onto. I don't really want to end up like them, in a titty bar somewhere, drinking watered down drinks and blaming other people for my miserable state.

I'm resigned to the fact that life is a struggle, a cross and that the best I can experienced is reading my little kids nursery rhymes and fairy stories and having the same wife I'm married to now help me bring them up and help get them to heaven. I am not looking for something better because I know there is nothing on this side of the grave.

There are men who think their wife is the sunshine of their life, and I envy you for feeling like that, but I don't think most men think this way.

[ChevyZ28]

Happiness is not only a state of mind, but a decision. You and your family are the only ones that have any control over this. I allow the joy of the Lord set way down deep in my heart. He helps me to deal. There are days when I too start unjustified arguments just to have someone to shout at, but then she sets me down and says, what is wrong. We start talking, before long, we both feel better. It is almost as if that woman has a window straight to my heart.

I will pray for you. things can only get better. God bless you.

[Mike Duke]

http://www.i-wrote-bud.com/

Bud's relations want your help !!!!!!!

Write to bud and tell him to sort himself out.

[nina0113]

I don't know if you've seen this - I know you give out a lot of the tapes too. Very sad, but hopefully not irreparable.

[MudPuppy]

I hadn't seen this. I'm very saddened by it and will offer up extra prayers and my daily communion that this marriage is saved.
Divorce just isn't the answer....

[nina0113]

here's my letter - any comments?

Dear Bud MacFarlane:

I’ve been receiving your Catholicity e-mail for several years. When my husband and I first met, and I told him I was considering signing up for RCIA, if I could find the courage to tell my father (Southern Baptist), he lent me Pierced By A Sword. It didn’t influence my decision to join the Church, but it did help me find my courage. Telling my father went much better than I had expected – he told me that if that’s what I felt God was calling me to do, then I should do it. So my relationship with Catholicity actually predates my relationship with the Church. When I went to make my first Confession (30 years of mortal sin since my Baptism) I played the Confession tape in my car several times before I had the courage to go in. I’ve placed a lot of trust in the Mary Foundation all along.

I was obviously devastated to read of your intent to divorce your wife. Perhaps as a fairly new Catholic (received at Easter Vigil, 2000), I place more emphasis on the Church’s teachings than a cradle Catholic might, but in the light of the many essays you’ve written and sent out as Catholicity Messages, I don’t think so. I cannot comprehend how you can deliberately violate the vows you took as a husband before God. You cannot possibly expect to receive an annulment from the Church – even if your local Canon office issues one, your wife is entitled to appeal to Rome, and again in light of your very public past writings on marriage, will undoubtedly prevail. You and Bai are married for as long as you both shall live. I can’t believe you have overlooked this in your eagerness to divorce. I don’t understand why you feel the need for a legal divorce – you can’t remarry, and it’s difficult to believe you feel the need to protect yourself from your wife either financially or physically.

When you married, you knew that for a marriage to be sacramental, there had to be an openness to life. God has blessed you with four living children, and at least one in Heaven (who I promise you prays constantly for the reconciliation of his/her parents). I expect your children on earth do the same. Your responsibility in this life is now primarily to those children, as I’m sure you know. Do you honestly believe you are fulfilling that responsibility by abandoning their mother and becoming another absentee father?

I’m also concerned with the inherent dishonesty in concealing the breakup of your marriage from your Catholicity subscribers – no one wants or needs to know the intimate details of the problems in your marriage, but to bypass the truth the way you have done (and I re-read all the messages you have sent since last spring) speaks volumes as to the state of your conscience.

I can only assume that it is your intention to turn your back, not only upon your family, but on the Truth of which you have so often written. As a convert, I recognize the preciousness of the Faith, and I am deeply sorry that you do not. Your current actions force me to question the sincerity of any of your writings, and of your beliefs as a Catholic. I hope that your current problems can be traced to a medical disorder, for which I pray healing, as I do for your marriage.

In as much charity as I can muster,

Warm regards,

Nina [personal information redacted]

[Mike Duke]

Very good reply.

Here's mine.

March 30th, 2004

Dear Bud,

I am number 8 of 9 children. When I was three years old my mother's kidneys failed and my father had to hold down a job and bring us all up, while also caring for her on a dialysis unit at home. What would my siblings and I have
made of his Catholic faith if he had cut and run?

Marriage isn't easy, no vocation is. We are called to carry our crosses in life and sometimes they seem too heavy and we fall down just as Christ did. The important thing is that one gets up, picks up the cross again and keeps moving forward to Calvary.

My 8 brothers and sisters now have around 50 Catholic children thanks to their good Catholic upbringing by my parents, and my father is still only 72. You've got 30+ more years ahead of you. What better reward can any man want in this life than 50 grandchildren receiving the faith and the sacraments because of his self-sacrifice? What better answer can any father give to God, when asked to show the profit on those talents he was given?

"And the unprofitable servant cast ye out into the exterior darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth". (Matthew 25:30)


Sincerely yours,

Mike Duke


"Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men".
"In the long run, it is what we do, NOT say, that will destroy us".

(General George Patton)

[Salvation]

Divorced?

Beginning Experience a grief recovery weekend in your area for the widowed, divorced or separated -- also anyone with any significant loss (parent, child, etc.).

[practicalmom]

There are days when I too start unjustified arguments just to have someone to shout at, but then she sets me down and says, what is wrong. We start talking, before long, we both feel better. It is almost as if that woman has a window straight to my heart

A woman could learn a lot from your wife. Thanks :-)

[practicalmom]

We don't know the whole story, we will never know the whole story. Even Bud and Bai will only know the part of the story that they tell each other. Bai wrote recently that Bud hasn't even explained to HER why he left her, so how the heck could we know?

Just came across this (then cryptic, now obvious) text from a newsletter written by Bud the month he abandoned his family:

If you have issues with obeying imperfect men, remember that Mary and Jesus did not have a problem obeying Joseph. They also recognized that he, not they, was the head of his family.

I've recently been challenged, even to the point of slander and intimidation, to abandon my ascent to the universal, timeless, and infallible Catholic teaching that the husband is the head and ruler of his family. I will obey the Truth, of course. I do not want to burn in hell for rejecting Catholic teaching. I'm grateful that my parents taught me to obey without hesitation. That's the greatest gift a parent can give to a son or daughter.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/963610/posts

[Salvation]

For those who are divorced or separated or who have lost a spouse to death -- there is a wonderful peer ministry, Beginning Experience, in your area, waiting for your attendance thus starting your healing journey through grief.

[It's me]

An interview with Bai McFarland.

[It's me]

An interview with Bia McFarland

I wonder where Bud is today. Does he regret what he did?

[jenniet]

Actually, this couple is one and the same as the Mary Foundation couple. Unfortunately, Bud McFarlane, author of Conceived Without Sin, Pierced By a Sword and House of Gold, is seeking a divorce from his wife, Bai. It's a very sad situation.

[nickcarraway]

Yes, unfortunately we found out a long time ago he left his family and belongs to a pseudoCatholic cult.