Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Brokenናሙና

We’ve been to plenty of weddings in our lives. Sometimes we want to attend, others times we don’t. We’ve been told “my, how much you’ve grown” more times that we can remember by an aunt we haven’t seen in ages. We’ve listened to sappy love songs being sung. We can practically recite the traditional wedding vows by memory…”for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health…” and so on. Those words are simple but meaningful. But just because they mean something on the wedding day doesn’t mean that stays the same as the marital years pass on.

When my husband chose to walk the road of unfaithfulness, many were stunned and shocked. They could not believe he would do such a thing. But as he shared everything that led him to do “such a thing,” the picture became more clear. His choice to be unfaithful didn’t happen overnight. It began with one poor choice.

Most people don’t plan to commit such gross acts of sin like unfaithfulness. It happens very slowly. One small step to the left or right, away from the path God has for us. One inappropriate conversation with a man who flirts with us. One innocent lunch appointment with the new, single girl at work. And before we know it, we have done the unthinkable. And broken our spouse’s heart in the process.

It doesn’t make sense, and yet, it makes total sense. 

It didn’t make sense that my pastor husband would step outside of his marriage to commit adultery. Yet, it made total sense when I learned that he’d struggled with an addiction to pornography for the better part of two decades. 

The betrayal you’re experiencing in your own marriage is probably something you never saw coming. Not once on your wedding day did you imagine this day would come. I mean, love will keep us together, right? Love will but we have to decide to make wise choices along the way. We can’t expect to have a strong, vibrant marriage if we don’t plan for one. The opposite is the same as well. If we don’t plan to have it, we won’t. And we’ll find ourselves apologizing for things we “never thought we’d do.” 

What have you experienced in your marriage that caused catastrophic consequences? What led you there? What are some guidelines you can put into place in your life to prevent you from making a poor decision?