The Only Way Out is Through

That is called making the right choices that will lead into the emotional growth that leads forward. God isn’t going to “deliver” anyone from their crisis. I have direct experience within a seven and a half year transition, and I know, from that same experience, that the only way out is THROUGH. I wasn’t happy about it, but it was what it was. When I asked God to get me out of there, because the pain was so deep, I didn’t want to be in it for a second longer, God said “NO–the only way out is THROUGH.”

Now, why would God be so mean? He wasn’t being mean, He was telling me the TRUTH at that time. The only way I was going to come out, was THROUGH. God wasn’t “hurting” me. I needed to grow up a whole lot more, and there were past issues that had nothing to do with my husband, and everything to do with ME.

God was with me that whole time, except when I faced the crossroad of temptation, and there were several. Why did He step back? Because He would NOT tamper with my free will to make decisions that were mine to make. I bypassed the temptations, and refused them. And from hindsight, I can truthfully say, that had I not made right choices, I would not be here now, teaching from a number of different experiences I’ve had in this trial.

I’ve had the experience of navigating two bouts of a midlife crisis on his part, and I do understand why that happened, as well as the direct experience of a hard midlife transition I navigated through, and I know why that happened, too. However, for ME, God was not a problem, nor an issue for me, and He helped me. However, because of the painful issues *I* had to navigate through, it took a long time for me to come through this trial that no one but ME, could “fix” “come through” and “navigate in full.”

You see, the biggest problem with midlife spouses is the fact that most of them–not all of them, MOST of them–deny the Most High, and when you deny the Most High, is He going to help you in full? NO, and you can’t expect God to help someone who has denied Him. God will only give the minimum of help–not because He’s vindictive, but because the midlife spouse has REFUSED HIS HELP.

Remember one of the problems you encountered from the unwanted emotional bomb drop? They said they didn’t need help, and they refused to accept help–well, that help isn’t just yours (the left behind spouse), or an individual counselor, or a marriage counselor–the midlife spouse also refuses GOD’S help, too. They inform you they don’t need anyone but themselves.

This upsets you, because you’d always been able to “fix” them, “calm them down” “comfort them” “counsel them” “help them” “tell them what to do”–and the list continues, but you get the point. However, they clearly state they don’t need help, don’t want help, and they refuse any help given, including God’s, UNLESS they are choosing to accept HIS help…and there are a few that do, and will.

But, most turn their backs on God, because in many ways, they also blame HIM for where they are. That’s because they don’t understand Him at all. This is the God of their childhood whom they felt deserted them, when they were being damaged. The same God they felt abandoned them, when they were struggling through puberty, and this same damage returned. The same God they’re denying now, because He has become an issue to them.

(1)What kind of God lets ME hurt?
(2)What kind of God let me sustain damage when I was a kid, and didn’t do anything about it?
(3)What kind of God let my parents divorce, and didn’t answer my prayers that they stay together?
(4)What kind of God lets so many bad things happen in the World, and turns His back on people who are hurting?
(5)Where was God when (fill in the blank) passed away in (accident, illness).

A lot of those questions don’t get answered, because that lies with God, who knows all things, why all things happen, when all things are supposed to happen, and He lets them all happen for a reason. What you don’t understand, you learn that it becomes enough to just believe, have faith, and trust that God knows what He’s doing at all times.

I didn’t always understand why, how, and when, about God, but I learned to just believe, have faith, and trust in God, who knows all things. I’ve seen, endured through, and experienced, some things in my own life that were so much worse than my husband’s two bouts of midlife crisis, yet, I still believe that God knows what is best. I trust that God will work in a situation, I have faith that God knows all things, and that everything happens for a reason.

Even when I don’t understand why, how, or when. God doesn’t always explain Himself to me, and I know not to expect Him to do so, because I’m not going to understand all things, but GOD DOES.

A midlife spouse who has an issue with God, has to work it out on their own.

They don’t call upon Him, because they have denied Him, in their pride and arrogance, and that causes a serious spiritual problem within them, and this opens the door for Satan, and his Path of Least Resistance to be shown. Unfortunately, this wrongly perceived easier path is taken by nearly all midlife spouses who do NOT trust, believe in, or have faith in, God to help them.

That’s what the denial of God is about–lack of trust, belief, faith on their part, and it’s their problem, and yes, God will leave them to it, because an act of sin isn’t all about God forsaking the midlife spouse–it’s because the midlife spouse has forsaken GOD, with their heated, and angry denials that there is NO God at all.

You’ve heard midlife spouses say this, and you’ve heard the midlife spouse twist God’s Word to fit their sin, and God won’t have that. There are consequences for every sin the midlife spouse commits, those consequences will continue for a season, and a season is what GOD makes it, not what human people, and midlife spouses think it should be. The season will be long enough to drive that lesson home.

You expect God to give the fullness of help, but He can’t give what that midlife spouse refuses to receive, because they’ve turned on Him. It’s the same with the left behind spouse–you want God to help, but you’re not letting Him do His Work, when you choose to jump in ahead of Him, and interfere with Him. He will stand back, fold His hands, and leave you to it, and believe me, human beings are NOT God, and they can’t do what God can do, IF they would just let Him do what He has in mind.

Sometimes the pain has to become worse, as a situation becomes worse, before it might become better. Midlife spouses don’t understand anything, but loss, and fear. It’s the truth that these two aspects were what began their crisis, and these two things will drive their crisis forward, or backward, whichever way THEY choose to go. Sin takes them backward, growth will take them forward.

It’s THEIR CHOICE, and they’ll make each one, for better or for worse, then they’ll walk into the consequences of their choices. Some of them will choose wrongly, and the situation will become worse, while some will choose rightly, and the situation will become better, but both aspects will take TIME, before results are shown in either direction.

For a wrong choice, a battle is fought on the inside, because they’re not lacking in intelligence, they are in a major midlife crisis, they were raised to know right from wrong, and a loss will be shown to them. They can’t have it both ways, and God works with the left behind spouse to know what to do, and when to do it in response to a wrong decision.

For a right choice, they’ll remember the past mistakes, fear will drive their actions as well, and again, God will work with the left behind spouse so they’ll know how to respond.

Intuition works on both sides, and God always has a plan, if you’ll trust Him with the situation.

God creates all things, but God also chooses the way that is required to come out of anything that is set before a human person, and this requires certain lessons to be learned, and a journey to be walked by the person going through.

Do you really think that God is going to swing open a door and tell you that you’re going to be able to go through it without the journey that’s involved? God doesn’t work that way–I know from experience that He doesn’t allow a trial of any kind to be short-circuited nor does He allow one to have a short cut to get anyone out any faster than TIME is going to allow.

The worst way to stay in a trial, and to continue to emotionally cycle, is:

(1)To keep your focus on the midlife spouse, to keep your mind on something that you can’t control.

(2)To keep on pursuing the midlife spouse, so they can reject you each time, because they see your pursuit as being manipulating and controlling of their lives. Each time you contact them with details on something, they see it as trying to get them to take some kind of responsibility–they don’t like it, and don’t want it.

(3)To keep trying to “fix” them so they can keep blaming you for what is their problems.

(4)To keep staying in their faces so they can continue to avoid their own journeys.

(5)To keep looking at God as this ‘genie in a bottle’ who is expected to fix a situation you’ve contributed to, years before it happened, but did NOT cause.

God doesn’t “fix” anything–human beings are expected to learn to “fix” themselves.

God will show you what’s needed in yourself, so that YOU can learn to fix it, but God isn’t going to snap His fingers and “fix” it for you–you’re going to learn how to do that for yourself. You know, God could come in at any time, and automatically “fix” every trial on this Earth, but He won’t do that. Why? Because if God did that, we would not learn anything at all, and we certainly wouldn’t grow up. God would have us learn life’s lessons, beginning with the lesson that says, we don’t control anyone but ourselves, our actions, our reactions, and our responses.

Every lesson we learn afterward, is built upon that first lesson. You want a relationship with your midlife spouse, but you learn to ask yourself WHY do you want a relationship in the first place. Early in this trial, you once learned to love, because you had a need—and later in this trial you learn that will need, because you love. You don’t NEED anyone, but God to fill your deepest needs, and before you get started with the standard argument that I’ve always heard, “But I can’t see God,” think about how God has taken care of you for the whole of your lives. No, you don’t directly see Him, but you do see His Work, as you have seen it for all of your lives.

God has made the impossible, possible so many times in your lives, but when you get into a trial, you start asking where God is. He’s right where He’s always been, with you, for you, and He will take care of you. God even orchestrated circumstances to provide you with exactly what you needed to emotionally grow up, when you married your spouse so long ago.

It might not seem like God is taking care of you at times, but I would argue to the contrary, because you have something to eat, something to wear, shoes on your feet, a roof over your head, and God provided all of that. Your spouse worked for all these things, yes, but all these things belonged to GOD, before they ever came to you.

When you complain about how your midlife spouse is so deep in crisis, and you become envious of other people who are farther ahead of you, consider the fact that you’re exactly where you need to be, and it’s because of something you need to learn. Stop focusing on the midlife spouse, stop complaining about where you are, and understand they are where they are, and you are where you are, so that God can work with you from the place you’re in at this moment in time.

Your midlife spouse might not be where you think they need to be, but that’s not in your control, nor is it your place to worry about them. They’re adults, they can take care of themselves–you need to focus on your own care, on your children’s care (IF young ones exist), and what you can’t do anything about, you learn to let God have it, because only GOD can do certain work that no human being could ever do in this life, in this crisis, in this trial.

God has the capability to work within the heart of the most stubborn midlife spouse to help them move forward, but first, you must let them go, and learn that at the same time, God can also work in your heart. However, the stubborn midlife spouse has to accept the workings that God places in their hearts, just like you would hopefully do the same for yourself.

If the midlife spouse isn’t ready to accept God’s Work, they’ll emotionally cycle in nonacceptance at first, then as the outside consequences continue to become harder, and the left behind spouse begins moving forward, leaving the midlife spouse behind to their own devices, STOPS trying to “fix” them, STOPS trying to “control” them, STOPS trying to manipulate them, and STOPS trying to do anything with them, only then, you may see the midlife spouse begin to slowly turn around, and turn your way….but your changes must be such they can clearly see, and they must be allowed to come to you on their own, when THEY are ready to do so.

The first thing I’m going to tell you is that I’ve already been down this road of looking for a way “out”–and God let me know right up front there was NO way out, NO way under, NO way over, and NO way around this trial. Yes, I could have fought this trial, I could have refused to walk through the journey this trial demanded of ME, but what I didn’t face, would always return to take me through it again. No matter what I tried to do to get out of it, was NOT going to work. I could not “fix” him, I could not “fix” the situation, I could not “fix” anything about him—I could only choose to “fix” ME, because I was the only one whom I could control. No one else was going to be able to do anything, except God, who could work that I could NOT do. And, He would only do that work, IF I would do mine, FIRST.

You see, we have to make the steps in faith, plant the seeds within US, before God will give the increase, in every way HE knows is best.

GOD was the one who advised me to stop pursuing a man who clearly didn’t want anything to do with me anymore, and I had no say in this. GOD was the one who advised me that I had a journey to walk, because it was time to for me to grow up–and one of the major aspects He did for me, was put me into total detachment, which wasn’t indifference, that allowed me to heal within myself so I could clearly see exactly what I was dealing with–not WHO, WHAT. His actions were driven by a crisis that was clearly driving him into places he chose to go into, and sin that brought him down. There was nothing I could do, except let God have this man.

It didn’t mean that I didn’t make a lot of mistakes, and try to override the Lord in His instruction, but when I went my own way, the situation became worse, and worse over time. I was eventually forced to follow His instructions, or see the situation become even worse. His instructions to me then, are the same as I give people now…let go, let God do His work, walk your journey, so you can learn the lessons, you have no control over what will happen, all you can do is trust the Lord in all things, while you are learning how to delve deep into Self to learn what has been set before you to learn.

Intuition is an important gift, why do you think I do the best I can to teach the importance of connecting to it? God knows your spouse better than you do, and when HE gives you a directive, it would behoove you to do what He says, because He has that bigger picture that you will never have, of not just your own life, but of the life of your midlife spouse, and God knows what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.

When a midlife spouse is deep in an emotional battle, you need to leave them alone, because only they can choose the path that they want to take for themselves. They are caught between right and wrong, and this inner battle they’re fighting is a major part of their consequences for choosing the wrong path to begin with.

The only way out is to go straight THROUGH it.

God does, indeed, make a way of escape, from TEMPTATION, because God does NOT tempt people, only Satan does that. However, every trial you face must be walked in full, the inner work completed within your Self, and I’m here to testify to the fact that God was my individual counselor for that entire time I walked through two bouts of midlife crisis, that was overlapped my midlife transition. God is STILL my individual counselor, my Guide, my Mentor, my Teacher, and my Leader.

The lessons He taught me are the same lessons I teach others. And the first one is the fact we cannot control anyone but OURSELVES, OUR actions, OUR reactions, OUR responses. Our spouse’s midlife crisis is NOT about US, but about THEM.

Trials are to build our strength, our character, our faith, our belief in God AND in ourselves.

I suggest you stop worrying about a trial you cannot control, and focus on yourself, whom you can control, and put your focus on a God who controls all things in this life, and in this trial.

Food for thought.

((HUGS))