A Wife’s Recovery From An Affair

Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming.  Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.   ~Isaiah 43:19

My journey began last year on a warm September night on the beach in Duck, NC. The sound of the waves crashing on the shore and the sky lit with stars beckoned me to come. With the children in bed and my husband having fallen asleep early, I took a moment to go be in God’s presence. Being with God in His beautiful creation is one of my favorite pastimes. I listened to worship music in my headphones and danced in the waves.

My heart was heavy that night worried about my husbands walk with God. We always seemed like we were never on the same page spiritually. I could feel the distance and the inability for us as a couple to connect spiritually. Earlier that year I had been using the book ” The Power of a Praying Wife”. I fasted for one meal a week and spent that day in prayer for my husband.

That night the song “It is Well” sung by Bethel Music played. I was believing God, that no matter where my husband was spiritually, or what struggles we were facing in our marriage; that it was well. It was well because God was with me.  Those lyrics said…. that mountain that’s in front of me will be thrown into the midst of the sea, …. well I didn’t realize just how big those mountains would become or what they would be….

 

Fast forward to June 2017.  My husband and I were going to a routine counseling session that had been scheduled. We had been going since the fall and I felt that our communication was better and that we had been given the tools to work on and strengthen our marriage. We had an upcoming move to a new city for a new job he had just gotten. I felt our weekend prior to this session had been great. We had run the Tough Mudder and spent the night on an air mattress in our new place which didn’t have the furniture moved in yet. It had been a nice weekend retreat with just the two of us. There had been a confusing distance that I had been feeling for months from my husband that was broken by that weekend. For the first time since all those months I felt like he was tuned in and very affectionate. I really felt hope again and looked forward to this new chapter in our life.

Usually we talked beforehand about what we wanted to discuss in our session, and this day I really had no idea what to bring up. However within the first few minutes of sitting down I knew something was different about this meeting. I knew that I was about to hear something that would change my life, something that I did not want to hear. It was like a movie. I think about the 1st Episode of Breaking Bad, as Walter sits there and as the doctor tells him he has cancer, words swirl around the room but in Walter’s ears there is ringing. The world just stops, life as you know it is suddenly forever changed.  My husband had had an affair….

There were so many emotions that day. Shock, anger, hurt, hate, love, numbness….and sympathy for this broken man beside me weeping over this choice he’d made.

The ride home and that afternoon was the question of why? The practice of trying to process and digest the information and where to go from there.

Friend I don’t know where you are or what kind of betrayal you have been through in your marriage, but I want to tell you that you are not alone. Jesus is there. The weeks and months that followed have been a hard journey but I have found comfort and healing in Jesus. This is my story. I will continue to tell in hopes that it will be used for God’s glory and maybe encourage someone going through the same thing. Someone who just needs to know they aren’t the only one and that God can make beauty from broken. He can make a way, when there is no way.