Dear Pastor,

My problem is that I have been married for almost two years, but now it's going downhill. My husband is very close to my former best friend. She calls him at all hours of the night or morning and he does the same thing. She leaves him messages and tells him that she loves him. She calls him baby, sweetheart and other love names. I overheard him telling her that he loves her. Whenever I ask him what is going on with him and her, he gets upset and shuts me out; then he calls her and they talk for hours. He has now moved into our spare room and put a lock on it. Everytime he comes in from work, he finds some excuse to go out again and he does not come back until late in the night.

Sometimes I just curl up in a ball and cry. I don't know what to do anymore. Every once in a while he will come to me and say he loves me and will ask if we can have sex. If I say no, he explodes. And if I say yes, by the time it's over he can't stand to be around me. We used to go to church and now he has stopped. I asked him to go to counselling with me and he said no. Pastor, there is so much more to say. Sometimes he locks himself in the spare room talking to this girl on the phone and I lie down in my bed and hear them talking. He even calls out her name in his sleep.

Pastor, I am awaiting your fatherly advice.

P.F., Ontario, Canada

Dear P.F.,

Evidently this man doesn't need this marriage. He believes that he can do without you because he has the woman you described as your friend. Perhaps she was, indeed, your friend, but surely not now. She has taken over your husband and she doesn't care about what happens between both of you. Your husband is not married to her; he is married to you, and so he should be respectful to you and protect his marriage if he loves you. But the message is clear.

If he loved you once, he surely doesn't love you now. If he was in love with you and he made a mistake, he would have been glad to go for counselling. He has moved out of the matrimonial bedroom, and according to you, it is only when he feels like having sex that he comes in and does his own thing then returns to his dirty ways.

I want to suggest that you go and see a counsellor without him. I say that because you need to learn how to cope and to avoid becoming depressed. I know for sure that if your husband continues to ignore you and to verbally abuse you, the marriage will eventually end. Nevertheless, I want to encourage you to do your very best to see whether it can be saved. Perhaps you may ask the marriage counsellor to come to your home. Some counsellors are pastors and they can visit to see whether they can help to save and strengthen the marriage.

In the meantime, do not get into any verbal confrontation with the girl with whom he is having the affair. Keep out of her way. She is a bad friend.