When Will The Tears Stop?

Tears. They can be such a blessed relief and comfort sometimes, but they can also feel never ending. When I first learned about my husband’s affair I strangely couldn’t cry very much. I wanted to but it just wouldn’t come. Slowly, as processing happened they did start to flow and I was able to grieve and feel cleansed somewhat. With the holidays and busyness of life I got distracted and didn’t cry much or dwell on the pain. We were so busy my husband and I hadn’t had a meeting with our counselor for several months. Around Christmas with some of the reminders of the anniversary of the affair, I was feeling increasingly more emotional and wanted to have another session. It was good to touch base for accountability and talk about some of our progress and recent struggles. Yet I found myself spiraling down into deep emotions again. All the healing and progress I felt I had made may have been because of a full schedule that didn’t allow for reflection or grief. Typically I blog about past events of my healing, but I’m going to be real and talk about struggles even now.

I know we have come far, and that I feel fairly secure in us at the moment. We have bonded considerably and are starting to make strides to develop our romance again. I feel in love with him. Love is a choice, but it is nice to also have the emotions accompanied with that. However our marriage is not where I want it to be yet. And that is the hard part for me. The waiting. The pain that still exists. The process.

I find great comfort in true stories of people that have been through this and that God has restored and healed. I want to see success stories. A friend of mine sent me a YouTube video of a couple who had been through an affair. In this case it was the wife who cheated. The story was truly inspiring. The husband wanted to shame her and expose her, but through godly counsel chose to cover his wife with the love of God and embrace and protect her. What’s even more amazing is the husband’s choice to love and accept the baby she had from the affair as his own son. A truly beautiful, redemptive story. I typed in their names and watched several videos and there were spans of time between them. But this is what struck me. The guy still cried every time he told the story. 16 years later they were much older looking and you could clearly see the comfort and playfulness and love between them on stage. But there were still tears….

My question is when do the tears stop? I don’t want to be crying and crying years later! Perhaps what I think are bad tears really aren’t. Right now my tears feel bad. Why? Because they come from pain, insecurity, doubts, fear of the future, and feeling inadequate. The biggest grief though is the death of my dream. The death of a faithful love. I wanted a marriage untouched by infidelity. I wanted to be the only sexual partner my husband ever had. I wanted my knight in shining armor to forsake all others and cling to me making me feel like the prized princess.

Sunday morning I was feeling very emotional I had been for two days. I missed my husband who had been on duty for several days. He came home that morning and I just felt needy and wanting extra confirmation from him. I could sense what I was doing. I was looking for my husband to fill the emptiness in my heart when I needed to seek God. We were taking separate cars to church and my husband went on ahead with the kids. I went upstairs, but was so overwhelmed with emotion I just collapsed on the floor and had an ugly cry. I haven’t cried like that for months. I just felt so much hurt resurface and the grief of that dead dream. I prayed and stared out my bedroom window at the woods outside. I told God I wished my heart was like nature outside, calm and still and just showing His glory.
Gathering myself and emotions together, I headed to church even though I was late. I missed the worship and caught the middle of the sermon. After service I went to get prayer from a friend. We socialized with people after the second service began. After my husband was done talking with a friend, I was ready to head home. He asked me if I wanted to slip into the back of the sanctuary to catch the worship. I knew they were about to do their last song. But I reluctantly agreed to it since I’d missed the first service worship. During the last song my emotions came crashing in again. At one point the feelings were so strong I couldn’t even sing, just cry.  One of our pastors came up to the stage after the song and said she had a word God laid on her heart to share. She felt that someone there had experienced a death of something in 2017. The death of a dream, relationship, or something, and that the stench of it even now was very strong. She said she couldn’t help but think of the story of Lazarus and how sometimes things have to die to become better, but that God is bringing new life to this dream or relationship. I went home and read the story. Jesus said that Lazarus’ sickness wouldn’t end in death. Lazarus did die but Jesus raised him. He didn’t stay down. And God used Lazarus’ death to show His glory by raising him. Jesus asked Martha if she believed He was the Resurrection and the Life. She did, but then she doubted when he asked for the stone to be removed. He told her “Didn’t I tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40) That hit me. God’s glory will be seen in my marriage and He will breathe new life into it, but I have to stop doubting and believe.

God keeps affirming again and again that He is making things new in our marriage. It still takes time and I don’t like the process and healing it takes to get there, but when I doubt that we will ever get to that place, I’m not trusting God with my marriage. Lord help my unbelief! Help me to trust you, to trust your plan for my marriage. To believe you are who you say you are. You are the Resurrection and the Life. You bring life to me and you will bring life to my marriage.
So maybe the tears these couples shed is not the fear, doubts and fresh pain of betrayal, but thankfulness for what God has done. Tears of remembering how far he has brought them and what he has blessed and restored in their marriage. If those are the kind of tears I cry years from now then I think I’m ok with that.