Christianity Crisis

A short essay on the fragility of faith after divorce, struggles with mental health, and the cognitive dissonance from presumptive personal faith in a loving god and the disastrous reality of life.

May 14, 2024

Crisis in Christ

With

Narcissistic Wife

Told in

Song Lyrics

Christianity Crisis

A short essay on the fragility of faith after divorce, struggles with mental health, and the cognitive dissonance from presumptive personal faith in a loving god and the disastrous reality of life.

May 14, 2024

Crisis in Christ

I am recovering from the effects of 8 years of terrible narcissistic abuse from my supposedly Christian wife. Now I am angry and bitter about the divorce, and I am left a broken and horribly unhealthy disabled person.

When I first met my wife in 2015, I was so vulnerable and gullible. I had survived the war in Afghanistan, only to then suffer the fallout the war's aftermath left on my broken mind and spirit. The chaos my life fell into after returning from the war left me shattered and hopelessly lost. It was around this time I put all of my faith into god. And I met my wife who claimed to be a devoted Christian. How could god fool me so maliciously?

I am left to conclude that there either is no god or god is evil. Why couldn't my wife be the one that changed for me.? Instead, she claims that if I had only loved her more, then I would have changed everything to make it exactly as she wished it to be. Why couldn't she just have loved me? In sickness and in health? I hate god for doing this to me.

I hate what she did to me. I am never going to recover from how she treated me. Her narcissistic abuse has so permanently damaged my spirit it has forever changed me. I may never trust anyone or anything ever again. I used to love god so much. Now I fear he is either non-existent or maliciously evil.

I don't know what else to have faith in. There may truly be nothing left to have faith in. Without god, my life feels completely meaningless and pointless. I cannot believe god fooled me; by making me believe that my wife was sent to me by god; by making me believe that I had a partner who would never leave me; by making me believe that I had a family; making me believe that I would have children of my own someday...

When I came to believe, I didn't just pray a few times a day. I truly surrendered myself to god and allowed every thought to be held captive by Christ. I lived every moment in a constant state of prayer and gratitude. I was so grateful to have survived the war while coping with PTSD, and I felt so blessed to have been given that second chance at life and to have a family. I estimated that I prayed to God no less than 30,000 times between 2015 and 2022.

I wasn't just a casual Christian, I really believed that I had a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now I wonder how can I commune with someone that many times, really believing it to be real and true, and yet end up utterly alone, broken, and damn near hopeless.

The cognitive dissonance is frightening. I feel like I married that woman under completely false pretenses of a Christian marriage, with an all-powerful and loving god at the center. I feel like a fool for taking that blind leap of faith. I jumped so enthusiastically into this Christian paradigm only to fall completely flat. And here I am now. How can I still have faith?

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5/14/2024 1806