I am so sorry to read of the pain you have been through, and greatly admire your perseverance in prayer for restoration of your marriage. Here are my thoughts, and I write with a very heavy heart and choose my words carefully...
I am in separation at the moment. My wife and I have been apart for 18 months. We have 3 lovely children aged 15, 13 and 10. We were a very close family unit but unresolved issues in the marriage that I will explain in a new post here caused us to separate. I spent many agonising months seeking God and praying for reconciliation. During that time I made mistakes in communication with my wife that caused her to harden her heart. She is also away from God, never really having had a close relationship with the Lord. Every now and again things would happen or praying Christian friends would give me encouragement and it felt that indeed God would intervene and reconciliation would come.
But months went by and my wife continued to be sure about divorce. She had good reason to due to my failings as a Godly husband. But we were such a tight knit family unit and there had been a great love and affection between us for years, so I found it so hard to get my head around it all being over. Just seemed impossible. But my wife feels differently, she has emotionally shut down and as a virtual non-christian now she feels no compulsion to work with God and myself to repair hurts and rebuild.
I am in my heart still her husband and the thought of 'moving on' makes me feel physically ill. But I have reached the point where I am trying to accept the door is firmly closed from her side. Without miraculous work from the Lord, which is possible but not promised, I will be served divorce papers in the not too distant future. It is agony facing this but I have decided that I must get myself strong for my children, so that I can still be there for them as the loving and strong, fun dad I was. This week a solicitors letter is going to my wife requesting re-establishing a good visiting pattern.
I love you in the Lord Mary55 and my heart aches for the restoration of your marriage. But I would ask you to consider...many sick people are healed dramatically and physically through the Lord in answer to prayer. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have prayed for non-Christians and seen them instantly healed. But I have also agonised and prayed with faithful Christians who are really suffering and no healing has come physically. I believe that same principle of 'potential but not promise' of healing applies to marriages that need healing. Gods plan A is that two become one in marriage and that it be for life. God hates divorce! But in this fallen world christians do seperate and divorce. Paul indicates that not every separation is healed, please see 1 Corinthians 7 v 10 & 11, where he adds a proviso for a wife who leaves and does not return.
Gods will is always for restoration, reconciliation of marriages and families. But humans who turn from Him can thwart His will for this, just as it is Gods will that non should perish in eternal seperation from Him, but most humans will perish through taking the broad way instead of the narrow.
Because you husband has remarried, I think you need very clear direct guidance from the Holy Spirit if you want to continue to hold out for reconciliation. Anecdotal evidence from others who have seen reconciliation out of the same circumstances as you is not enough. You need absolute clarity for YOUR situation. You mention that you know God wants you to hold out in prayer for reconciliation, how has that specific direction come? I believe Gods Word allows for the possibility of our prayers for physical healing and marital healing to go unanswered.
I have prayed for that direction so earnestly for myself in the face of total resistance from my wife, and have had no specific leading from God other than to love my wife unconditionally. That does not offer promise that she will return to me, it simply tells me what God wants of me in the midst of the agony. I am preparing myself to face life without my wife and it has been harder than words can describe. But I know that after all the immense agony of fighting against divorce and hitting a glass wall until I was at the very threshold of death, I now want to put my energy into my relationship with my Heavenly Father and surrender my wife to Him. I will not pray for reconciliation any longer, I now say 'Father your will be done..' and try to rest in the knowledge that with Jesus in the centre of our life good can come from the very worst circumstances. That may be family reconciliation. Naturally speaking it will not be. God may release supernatural work upon my wife, but I have reached the place where I cannot say for sure He has promised me that.
I will pray fro you, your future with your ex husband (I know that is painful, I can barely use 'ex' in ref to my wife but I have to rewire my mind to the reality of her absolute insistence that it is over) and I will certainly pray about your precious children.
This world is hard and cruel and Satan is very active. But the Lord is greater by far, and whatever happens for your marriage Mary, God will bring light out of darkness as you trust in Him for YOUR future and that of your children.
