When we got married, we knew it will not always be joy and bliss. We knew trials and tribulations would be part of the mix, but after what we have encountered, our lives have shattered and it feels like the pain and damage cannot be repaired. I wake up in sorrow and sleep in sorrow. My husband who I used to look up to for support has declared he doesn’t believe in God anymore. He has lost his faith in the very practice he led me through. When we met, I was a churchgoer or a baby Christian. I was going to church on Sundays because that was how our parents raised us and it was a part of us.
It was my husband who taught me it is better to be hot or cold than lukewarm. That if I was a Christian, I should be all in. He helped me study the Bible. He wasn’t a pastor or leader but he was a very serious Christian who discipled people. We got married in 2019 and around the end of 2020, we had a very beautiful daughter. She resembled my husband so much and the two of them were inseparable. Unfortunately around the beginning of this year, she developed a lung problem. She had difficulties breathing. The doctors said she was born with the condition but it wasn’t detected at birth. We did everything we could possibly do as human beings. We went to all the hospitals and made appointments with experts. On the spiritual side, we brought our church on board to support us in prayers. We followed online prayers. My husband and I fasted a lot. At a point he was fasting more than I.
Our daughter’s illness drained us and even though doctors told us to prepare to say goodbye to our precious jewel, we refused to accept it. On the 3rd of April, our daughter left us. Since her death, my husband has not been the same. Something has changed in him. It is difficult to put it in words but as women, we can cry out our grief and feel better, but many men internalize grief and it damages them. My daughter’s death drew me closer to God and I have cried out to him. But my husband stopped going to church. He started giving excuses and then just recently he told me plainly that he doesn’t believe in the existence of God anymore. He has found a few friends who consisted of atheists and agnostics and they met often to have intellectual discussions about religion and life as a whole. He wanted me to join them because he believes he is now enlightened and I am being deceived.
False preachers exist, but there are true men of God. I believe in God with all my heart and I will not let the painful death of my daughter take me away from my faith. I have consulted our pastors and all they keep admonishing me to do is to pray for my husband. Now the actual problem is that I am pregnant again. My husband informed me he wanted a divorce because he didn’t want to be associated with people who have been deceived by religion. (referring to me) He was acting distant, but all this while, when he came home from work, he will have s*x with me. When I told him I was pregnant he said the pregnancy changes nothing. He wants to divorce me. I am in so much pain. I haven’t recovered from losing a daughter at such a young age and I don’t know if I want to have this child in such chaos. My sister just wants me to accept the divorce and take care of my child as a single parent. But I want my husband back. I want the devout, God-fearing man back and he keeps getting worse all the time. I don’t know what to do anymore.
