OK. I'm in a bit of a pickle, which is why I came here. Currently, I find myself in a situation where, outside of work, I have no one to talk to, no one to do anything with, and no one who understands what I am going through. I know I need fellowship and friendship with other believers, but almost everything I once had has been severed, and I now find myself extremely isolated and depressed.
A little background: My wife and I were in full and part-time ministry for over 10 years, until a couple of years ago when her "personality issues" (what I believe to be Narcissistic Personality Disorder) forced me to leave the ministry due to the obvious damage it was causing to the churches and the people I was trying to minister to. We left our last church and moved to another city for work, have kind of plugged into a pretty good Bible-believing church here, but there are not a lot of opportunities for making connections with other believers here and it doesn't quite feel like home to me like my old church. When we were busy in ministry and had a lot of friends in the church, things weren't so bad, but now that it is just us two (we have no children), it is completely unbearable. She is from another country and her English is not very good even after 15 years living and working in the US. I am fluent in her language and speak it all day every day in my job with little problem, but she corrects every little mistake I make, so even very simple communication in either language is very difficult. Now that we are on our own, it is also becoming very obvious that we have absolutely nothing in common. I love to do a lot of different things, but she has no interests or hobbies to speak of, and I'm even questioning whether she is actually a Christian, because so much of what she says seems to just parrot what she's heard from TV preachers with no real impact on her behavior or attitudes. She seems to have no desire to give back and minister to others, something I am very passionate about. So this leaves us very little to talk about even if we could understand each other. The NPD makes it even worse, because so much of what she talks about is negative -- for example, belittling and attacking old friends or coworkers of ours, even if we haven't seen them or heard from them in years. And I want to be able to build up new relationships and really plug in to a new church, but I am afraid of when she will blow everything up again, and I will once more have to say goodbye to good friends and start over from scratch. It is so excruciating to want to have an adult conversation with someone, be able to have someone who can empathize with what you are feeling or going through, or just talk about how your day went at work, but all I can do is come home, be quiet and sit on the couch. It feels like I am literally watching myself die piece by piece. I have gone to some of my pastor friends to talk about this, but for the most part they had trouble really understanding what I am going through, so our interactions were largely even more disappointing. So I came here looking for people to connect with and have conversations with about things that matter, and maybe try to find a way to still minister to others even though I have been marooned on a desert island, so to speak.
A little background: My wife and I were in full and part-time ministry for over 10 years, until a couple of years ago when her "personality issues" (what I believe to be Narcissistic Personality Disorder) forced me to leave the ministry due to the obvious damage it was causing to the churches and the people I was trying to minister to. We left our last church and moved to another city for work, have kind of plugged into a pretty good Bible-believing church here, but there are not a lot of opportunities for making connections with other believers here and it doesn't quite feel like home to me like my old church. When we were busy in ministry and had a lot of friends in the church, things weren't so bad, but now that it is just us two (we have no children), it is completely unbearable. She is from another country and her English is not very good even after 15 years living and working in the US. I am fluent in her language and speak it all day every day in my job with little problem, but she corrects every little mistake I make, so even very simple communication in either language is very difficult. Now that we are on our own, it is also becoming very obvious that we have absolutely nothing in common. I love to do a lot of different things, but she has no interests or hobbies to speak of, and I'm even questioning whether she is actually a Christian, because so much of what she says seems to just parrot what she's heard from TV preachers with no real impact on her behavior or attitudes. She seems to have no desire to give back and minister to others, something I am very passionate about. So this leaves us very little to talk about even if we could understand each other. The NPD makes it even worse, because so much of what she talks about is negative -- for example, belittling and attacking old friends or coworkers of ours, even if we haven't seen them or heard from them in years. And I want to be able to build up new relationships and really plug in to a new church, but I am afraid of when she will blow everything up again, and I will once more have to say goodbye to good friends and start over from scratch. It is so excruciating to want to have an adult conversation with someone, be able to have someone who can empathize with what you are feeling or going through, or just talk about how your day went at work, but all I can do is come home, be quiet and sit on the couch. It feels like I am literally watching myself die piece by piece. I have gone to some of my pastor friends to talk about this, but for the most part they had trouble really understanding what I am going through, so our interactions were largely even more disappointing. So I came here looking for people to connect with and have conversations with about things that matter, and maybe try to find a way to still minister to others even though I have been marooned on a desert island, so to speak.
-
5
- Show all
