Surviving The Affair - Beautiful Restoration Among the Rubble: HIStory Part 2

This was one of the hardest stories I have ever had to write. Spiritual attacks were waged in our lives throughout this entire process, sometimes overwhelmingly so. I have had to walk away, days & weeks at a time, before coming back to try again. I have written & rewritten this several times, attempting to divulge only what God is leading me to reveal & nothing more. Despite these attacks, I pray I can convey the restoration story of our marriage so that it brings glory to Him. Please know that I have my husband’s, as well as our children’s, blessings to write our story in prayerful faith that someone will be able to take His grace, love, & hope from it so they, too, can rebuild that which has been torn down.

Crumbling Down

“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”

~ Proverbs 16:18 ~

“For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things.”

~ Philippians 3:18 ~

      

On April 1, 2010, my husband of 14 years, the man I had loved since I was 17, told me, “There is someone else.” This admission shattered everything I knew, everything we had built since we met 17 years ago. How could this happen?! My husband, my white knight that took me away from a life of chaos, would never do this, would he?! Yet, sitting across from me on our bed was my husband professing love for another woman.

At our pastor’s office just an hour after this admission, my heart was torn in two listening to Bryan explain that he was miserable in our marriage & refused to be unhappy anymore. Although I was deeply hurt, this was a wakeup call for me. I immediately saw my wrongs in our marriage & from that point on, as long as my husband would allow, I was determined to “fix” myself & our marriage. We both promised we would seek the recommended biblical counseling & would work on our marriage, with Bryan agreeing to sever all ties with this woman.

About a month later, I received a phone call that shattered anything else that remained or had been built back up. This woman’s husband called to inform me of the truth about his wife’s & Bryan’s relationship, as well as to inform me that they were still talking. As strange as it sounds, I was hurt so much more from this revelation as when my husband first told me about this other woman. Maybe this was due to the fact that I tried to “right my wrongs” in our marriage, the ones Bryan mentioned were reasons for his straying. I had been fighting so hard to keep us together. Whatever reason, I just knew this had to be the end, right? I mean, if we couldn’t get past “her”, if he couldn’t be truthful with me, then where do we go? How do we fix our marriage? How do we fix us? And our children! They had overheard us fighting & discovered this truth, so now how to help them get past this? How could we even begin to repair the damage?

Rebuilding on Solid Foundation

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

~ Matthew 7:24-27 ~

“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.”

~ Psalm 127:1 ~

             This was unquestionably one of the longest nights of my life. As Bryan went upstairs to one of the kid’s bedrooms to get some rest & as the children lay on my bed to attempt to sleep, I sat on the couch in our room & did the only thing I knew to do: I pulled my Bible out, seeking comfort in the words it contained. Even though we had been faithfully going to church for a couple of years at this point, I had never picked my Bible up outside of church, never read it at home. But this night, I knew in the depths of my broken heart that I needed God. I turned to a section in my study Bible about forgiveness & read. When a verse was referenced, I quickly turned to the verse to soak up God’s Word, seeking some sort of healing balm. His Word did bring me comfort that night, even if only because it took my mind off of the whirling thoughts that invaded it.

            At this point, Bryan & I had not gotten into see our biblical counselor yet, but our first appointment was scheduled for the very next week. Our counseling routine became a weekly rotation of “me, him, us, me, him, us…” After about 6 weeks, it morphed into “me, us, me us, me, him, us…” with “him” quickly fading out after a couple more weeks. Counseling came with homework assignments, different each time, tailored to our specific stage in the rebuilding process. During one of my “me” sessions, I was given the task of discovering each of the elements of the Fruit of the Spirit & finding 10 Bible verses that spoke of that particular characteristic. I was instructed to write them down & bring them to my next appointment, which was 2 weeks away. Are you kidding me?! That’s 90 verses! I quickly became irritated because I couldn’t understand why I, who had not had this affair, had to go all the time & find all of these verses. Bryan never had an assignment this detailed or time-consuming! This was his fault, so why not see him more?! Plus he was the one with an addiction, so he obviously needed more help, right?! Obviously, our counselor did not see things that way, so I thought I would show him. When I started that dreaded homework assignment, I set out to only look into the concordance of every Bible in our home & find any verse that had that particular word in it. But God! Our wonderful Heavenly Father does what He does best & convicted me. Soon after starting this assignment, it was as if my heart became ravenous for what His Word said that would speak life into me & my pain. I couldn’t tell you how many verses I actually read, but I do know it was so many more than 90! And God’s Word did exactly as it promises & did not return void!

            You see, although we mess up so often, our Lord knows what will happen & He knows just what we need. Prior to Bryan’s affair, I had spoken to him about how I felt the Lord convicting me of my salvation, or lack thereof. I had gone down to the altar before, I had prayed the prayer, & I had been baptized, but something in me was unsettled. This homework assignment, & truthfully, all of the in-depth, personal counseling, was stirring something in my heart I could not explain. This stirring erupted one night at a revival in our church where Pastor Fred Luter (the pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in New Orleans) was our guest speaker. I honestly could not tell you the particulars of what that sermon was about, but I can tell you that the Lord put such a conviction in my heart that I could no longer deny. When Pastor Luter gave the invitation, it was as if God Himself pulled me out of my seat & down to the altar. Shaking uncontrollably & crying hysterically, on August 9, 2010, I finally surrendered my life to my Heavenly Father! Praise God for His unconditional love for even a damaged sinner like me!

This decision, besides being the best one of, & for, my life, was one that kick started the restoration of our marriage. I believe in my heart that our counselor could sense this misdirection, this lost soul within me, which led him to see me more often than Bryan. I know nothing surprises my God & I truly believe He placed someone with such discernment into my path to bring truth into my life in such a way that would bring about the realization that apart from God, I could do nothing. Even though I had been going through the motions in counseling before, I could not help rebuild our marriage on Christ because I was not Christ’s. But now! Oh, praise Him, but now, everything changed! My husband was being healed of his addiction & our marriage was being restored beyond what I could have ever imagined, all because we finally surrendered our marriage, & lives, to Him. For now & forever, our lives were going to be built on the solid foundation of our Lord Jesus Christ!

Investigating the Cause

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord...Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her...”

~ Ephesians 5:22 & 25 ~

“But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.”

~ 1 Corinthians 7:2-5 ~

            A large part of counseling was looking at things that led to the destruction of our marriage. Just like our home’s structural integrity depends on the strength of its foundation, so do our individual lives, our souls. Over time, the different stressors & trials of life can cause our foundations to shift, crack, or settle unevenly if it is not built upon The Rock. It is always a good idea to check for troubles to prevent any damage because the longer you wait to take care of visible signs, the more serious the damage can become. Only when you do some honest self-reflection will any attempts at restoration become possible.

The most significant reasons our marriage failed was because we didn’t build our lives on Christ; we couldn’t have with one of us not having received her salvation. If you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ, there is no way that anything else can work out in your life. Beyond that, the root issue can only be boiled down to selfishness. Our society teaches that we, as individuals, deserve & have the right to be happy. What society doesn’t teach is that reason alone is the cause of so many divorces or of breakdowns in any relationship. When I believe that I have the right to be happy, but my happiness doesn’t align with that of my husband, then how will we, as a couple, be happy? One of us will have to make concessions, to give in & go “without” (or so the perception is), which only leads to resentment & bitterness. This is what ate away at our marriage.

The affair my husband had in 2010 was not the reason for our destruction, but only one of many deadly blows our marriage took at our own hands. My husband has had an addiction to pornography since he was about 14 or so that fed into his selfish side. The title of my post doesn’t have a grammatical error in it; it signifies that it this was “The Affair” that changed the tides. We both have gone outside our marriage (physically & emotionally), searching for the acceptance & love we felt we deserved but were not getting from each other. We invited sin right into our marriage & never attempted to clean up the debris that would eventually cause our foundation to rot away.

Only when we stopped being “self” focused & became “others” focused were we able to truly change how we rebuilt our marriage. When we stopped looking at the “I” & looked at the “him/her”, the changes were amazing! The drastic difference in our life then & our life now is due to so much more than getting older & wiser (if there is such a thing.) It’s only by the grace, love, & forgiveness through Christ Jesus that we have been restored.

Preventing Future Damage

“By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established”

~ Proverbs 24:3 ~

“Therefore, holy brothers and sisters, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, whom we acknowledge as our apostle and high priest. He was faithful to the one who appointed him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honor than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything. “Moses was faithful as a servant in all God’s house,” bearing witness to what would be spoken by God in the future. But Christ is faithful as the Son over God’s house. And we are his house, if indeed we hold firmly to our confidence and the hope in which we glory.”

~ Hebrews 3:1-6 ~

“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care. For no one can lay any foundations other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved - even though only as one escaping through the flames.”

~ 1 Corinthians 3:10-11 ~

            As with any home, if you don’t protect your marriage from harmful elements, it will crumble. Once crumbled, you must decide if you wish to rebuild what was destroyed. If you rebuild, you must decide to build in such a way that will protect it from future damage by looking for potential signs of damage and addressing the issues as soon as they appear.

            According to Property Casualty 360, there are five common signs that your home’s foundation is having problems that need to be addressed. I want to take a moment to compare these issues to our marriages so that we can see how we need to continually inspect them to protect from further damage.

Cracked, crumbling, or compromised foundations

            “When doing routine property inspections, start with the foundation itself. Built to last, this underlying support should never show any noticeable signs of structural damage.” As I’ve already mentioned, the foundation for your marriage MUST be built upon The Rock that is Jesus Christ. Building your marriage on anything else is going to cause everything else to crumble & fall. You may not notice it right away or for several years, but it will fall. You, personally, have to be secure in your relationship with Him before your marriage, or any other relationship for that matter, will work.

Water damage & soil shifting

            “Improper water drainage is one of the leading causes of foundation failure. When soil surrounding the home rapidly expands (during wet spells) & contracts (during dry spells,) this can lead to unnatural soil shifting - a process that places pressure on the underlying foundation.” When you have a marriage built upon Christ, no matter the trials or tribulations that are sure to come, your marriage can withstand it. As I mentioned earlier, we crushed our marriage over & over again, but even though we stayed together despite them, we were not better. The issues that brought us there remained the same. If our lives had been built upon Christ from the moment we said “I do” (or better yet, before,) we would have been better prepared to withstand the shifting sands & waves that tossed our marriage to & fro.

Sagging floors & warped ceilings

            The floors & ceilings in our homes protect us from the elements. “Issues that originate in the foundation of our homes sometimes appear in some of the upper levels of the home - often in the form of sagging floors & warped ceilings.” If our foundation in Him isn’t solid, or is faulty, then we can’t expect our walls & ceilings to be strong enough to keep the sinful world out. However, if we have built our marriages on Him & seek His ways, then we are afforded the protection His love for us provides & will never have sagging floors or warped ceilings in our marriages.

Cracked, crumbling, or buckling walls

            All homes settle with time, but “excessive settling is another common sign of foundation failure, with the most obvious symptoms manifesting as cracks, buckling, & crumbling in the upper walls in the home.” The walls of our marriage can be likened to the barriers you put up around your marriage, such as the Word of God. If your marriage is built on that secure foundation that is Jesus Christ, then the walls of your marriage will be relatively free from self-inflected pains & hurts. You will be less likely to buckle & crack under the weight & temptations that sin brings into your life.

Improperly fitting doors & windows

            “All of the windows & doors throughout the home should fit snugly in place - neither too tight nor too loose.” The doors & windows in our marriage symbolize how we see the world (though the windows) & how we go out into the world (doors.) If your marriage is built on Christ, then the way you see the world & interact with it will be full of His love. You will show His light to world by living in a loving, committed marriage based on His Word. You will also see the world with a better mind & eyes. Be careful not to be too legalistic or too open, lest you be tempted with sinful ways or tempt others.

            These areas in our marriages must be inspected all the time to prevent any damage to any other area. After Bryan & I determined we were going to live like Christ & rebuild our marriage on Him, our relationship took such a radical turn. We set out to do things for each other, not just because we loved each other, but because we wanted to see that nothing entered into our marriage that could tear it apart again. We each took time to pay attention to what was important to the other & show our love in whatever way needed. This took time & effort. I have many, many cherished notes Bryan left around our home because he knew, in this season, I needed to be assured of his love. Even during this painful time of our life, I prayed that God would give me such an overpowering desire for my husband because I knew that he needed to be reassured of my need & want for him. Each couple will be different. You will have to study your spouse through observing or talking to find out what needs are there. When you know what they are, attempting to fulfill them selflessly is the key to keeping any future damage from being heaped upon your marriage.

The Bricks & Stones

“He is to order that the contaminated stones be torn out and thrown into an unclean place outside the town.”

~ Leviticus 14:40 ~

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes. The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.”

~ Psalm 118:22-24 ~

Let me talk about the bricks & stones of our lives: the details, the experiences, the memories. Far too often, we tend to focus on the bad details & experiences, forgetting the good. After this happened, I became obsessed with details! Details about everything: dates, times, locations, etc. The details are what consumed my mind, tormented my soul at all hours of the day. I remember our pastor telling me that I didn’t need to be concerned with the details, but that didn’t discourage me from obsessing. It wasn’t until we finally met with our biblical counselor did I stop to think about why these details were so important to me. Instead of telling me I didn’t need to know the details, he asked me why I needed to know them, if knowing them would change my mind about restoring my marriage. Of course, the answer was no. I can’t say that I didn’t still think of the details of the affair, but I can say that they didn’t control my life.

I have intentionally left a LOT of detail out of our story because I didn’t want to focus on those bad things. Yes, this affair, the one that brought us to this breaking point in our marriage, is a bad thing, but to hash out all of the bad throughout this season in our lives would only give the enemy a foothold to close someone’s mind off to the glorious redemption & restoration in our story. So I choose to focus on the good, the wonderful, the miraculous. This was an awfully painful time in our marriage, but looking forward, this was the best thing that could have happened. This is not to excuse any wrong doings on either of us, but to fall to our knees in thanksgiving for the wonderful love, grace, mercy our Lord has shown us these past six years.

I want to leave you with one of the most beautiful stones we have collected from this storm. Bryan & I had planned to renew our vows on our 20^th wedding anniversary, but on January 12, 2012, this sweet man of mine surprised me with a vow renewal ceremony, with all of our friends that had walked with us through this storm in attendance. My son walked me down the aisle to a song that will forever represent the journey Bryan & I had been on: Warren Barfield’s “Love is not a Fight”. If you have never heard this song, please click on the link above as it so powerfully reminds us how we need to protect, shelter & fight for our marriages.

 

During this ceremony, Bryan & I exchanged new wedding bands, ones that we created to complement our existing sets. The symbolism for both sets is essentially the same, just different in looks. Originally, Bryan had just his wide wedding band, while I had my band & engagement ring. My engagement ring / his wedding band symbolize who we were prior to our restoration. The additions symbolize who we are now: renewed people, brought together by Christ (my red rubies & his cross) who have committed in covenant to always bring our marriage to the foot of the Cross (my outer diamonds & his outer gold bands.)

These vows we said this day were not the same we recited on our wedding day 16 years prior, ones to love, honor, cherish, obey. No, these were vows of covenant: a vow to God, to each other, our families, & our community to remain steadfast in unconditional love, reconciliation, & sexual purity, while purposefully growing in our covenant marriage relationship. We have not always been perfect in our growing, but we have always remained faithful to that covenant, sticking beside one another, seeking God’s will & His answers, no matter what. Praise God!

 

 

“I will praise you with my whole heart”

~ Psalm 138:1 ~