When we find ourselves in the midst of a marriage crisis, it can feel like all is lost. The relationship is dead.
This week on To Love, Honor and Vacuum I’ve been looking at legacy. I told you about our 25th anniversary party, but then we pivoted and looked at how our American political system means we need to try even harder to leave a good legacy, among other things.
And today I just want to talk about how when we’re thinking of what we’ll leave behind, we don’t need to think that our lives have to be perfect. Sometimes our biggest legacy can simply be honesty.
Sheila’s Marriage Moment: How a Marriage Crisis Can Bring Healing
I receive a lot of emails and comments from hurting wives. And some of the most heartbreaking are from the women who have just discovered that their husbands are using porn. They’re devastated. They thought they had these good marriages, and now they’ve discovered this big secret. Everything they thought they had was based on a lie.
And it feels as if the marriage is over.
Can I offer a different interpretation today?
When you are in the middle of a marriage crisis because you have discovered some secret about the other person, or because you’ve finally decided to talk about a big issue that’s been kept under the rug for years–that’s when you’re marriage is the closest to real health.
It doesn’t feel like it. It feels like everything is falling apart.
But let’s back up a minute. What is it that is falling apart?
What’s disintegrating before your eyes is the false image of what you were together.
And, as Ecclesiastes 3:3-5 says, there is:
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
There can actually be a time to scatter stones, to tear things down. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, or that it feels good, but it is of God.
When we start tearing down that which is built on a false foundation, we’ll be able to rebuild something which is based on truth.
I watched two friends walk through this over the last few years. She had so many unresolved issues from her childhood which left her in great difficulty building intimacy. He reacted to withdrawing and turning to porn at times. Finally he couldn’t take it, and said that they needed to get help or he was leaving. She resisted for a while, but when they started going to counselling, all the false fronts they had both built up cam crashing down. All that was left was really raw, but once it was exposed, it could be healed.
And the two of them are now so honest and open with what happened to them, and are telling everyone who will listen how important it is to deal with your stuff.
If you are going through a crisis today, I am deeply sorry for your pain. But my prayer for you is that you can see that this pain is not the end of something beautiful, but instead the beginning of real honesty and a true chance at a real legacy. Yes, it’s good to mourn the death of what you thought you had. But after that, maybe it’s time to start gathering those stones back up, to start building things once again, but this time on a foundation of truth, honesty, and openness.
What’s #1 at To Love, Honor and Vacuum?
2 of last weeks posts made the #1 spots, that’s awesome! So what does your next date night look like?
#1 Post on the Blog: What The Musical Hamilton Taught Me About My Legacy To My Kids
#1 on the Blog Overall: Top 10 Effects Of Porn On Your Brain, Your Marriage, And Your Sex Life
#1 from Facebook: The One Thing Most Couples Get Wrong About Date Nights
#1 from Pinterest: An Awesome List Of 79 Hobbies To Do With Your Spouse
Keith and I are off to speak in Ottawa this weekend!
We’re giving a one day marriage conference in Barrhaven, so we’ll get to see our kids again plus have a great time speaking. But I’m about to start packing, so that’s all for today.
Have a great weekend!
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
This sounds so easy. However my husband asked for a divorce and to leave the home which I did. He’s very confused and lost and struggling with unresolved feelings for his ex wife.
This is so true. It’s not easy (I don’t think it sounds easy, either) it’s really, really hard, actually. You do need to tear down the facade to expose and destroy the rot that’s hidden underneath. And start fresh with the proper foundation. And it may mean you’re feeling scared and homeless (figuratively) for awhile.
And not every marriage makes it but many do.
This is a really beautiful encouragement. What about the couples that don’t get through the crisis? The ones that end up not making it with one another? What is the hope there.
That life goes on? That a marriage shouldn’t be the “be all and end all” of a person’s life? That’s the closest I can get to answer that question. We are all humans after all.
This has been the case for several of my friends. While it was certainly excruciating for them, personally I’d rather be set free than living in bondage indefinitely. If my spouse refused repentence and insisted on divorce (or left me no choice) then I’d look forward to a life free from an unbearable yoke. A bad marriage can destroy a person. I’m sure we’ve all met someone who became nothing more than a shell of herself after years and years of abuse or neglect.
I can totally relate to this. It’s always better by far to live in “reality” then some kind of illusion. I feel like hubby and I are finally building a new standard for our relationship after 7 years of lies about the porn addiction. However, what I do struggle with now is knowing how to look back on these 7 years and still cherish memories we made. Every time I remember something from the past even a memory I used to cherish, I feel that it was all fake, like I was living a lie and I get this sick feeling in my stomach. I can accept my husband is changing and I’m committed to our marriage. I want to create a relationship undefiled by sexual sin, but I don’t know how to look at the “pre-porn-discovery” days without a sense of everything being tainted by lies.
THAT is a really good question! I’m doing a week soon on how to rebuild trust, and I think I may use this for a post during that week. So let me think and pray about it, and hopefully in two or three weeks I’ll have a good answer for you! My quick one would be: people can be both good and bad at the same time. They can be chasing after God while still struggling with a sin. And your husband can genuinely love you and want to please you and at the same time be totally in knots over an addiction. Just because he was addicted to porn does not mean that he did not also still love you. I know that’s hard to accept and feel, but I do think it’s true. And now let me think of a good and biblical way of explaining it!
If both spouses are willing to work toward resolution and reconciliation, then there is certainly good reason to believe that the end result will be a marriage that is better than it ever was. I think of when Christ said to Simon in Luke 7, that those who are forgiven of much, love much. When deep wounds are healed with true forgiveness love deepens.
How do you fight for a marraige when the other has an addiction that has ran so deep and you have caught them on more then one occasion not only looking at porn but talking to single people of the opposite gender or ex loves? Also how do you save the marriage when both sides have had emotional affairs and the one talks about the wrongs of the one partner and now there are rumors floating around and the other partner says that can’t do this anymore and moves out and asks for a divorce? When I love you is spoken the one that moved out says that it’s over but the one saying it has hope still?
I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with this! That must be so hard. I really think you need to see a counsellor who can help you navigate this and walk through this with you, because this is so stressful and really, really big. You likely need someone to help you. Many churches have counsellors on staff, or they can refer you to someone in the area. I’d really encourage you to reach out, because often they can help you deal with the emotions and develop practical things you can do to walk through this.
I’m so down trodden Right now. Im 26 and have been struggling with chronic pain issues for 8 years now, been married for 3. We have two beautiful boys who bless me every day, especially since do to my health we didn’t know if we could have kids. I’m a stay at home mom and have been struggling with helping my husband understand that I can’t do it all. Some days I can’t do anything at all.
When I’m doing really bad and the house work piles up and we have nothing to wear or eat he will help, but only for a few days then he runs out of patience and I can feel his resentment through his passive aggressive remarks. I think a lot of it comes from the fact that he has never been sick a day in his life so he can’t wrap his brain around someone as sick as me. He is a mind over matter kind of person. If you feel like you are coming down with something just power though like you aren’t and you won’t be.
I also have inachievable standards to live up to. His moms house is spotless (not exaggerating) and it was even when she was working full time with three kids.
I hurt so much sometimes, and just want him to show compassion and come along side me and help. Heck is even take just him lowering his standards so I don’t have to feel like such a failure if I have a bad day.
I’m just SO tired. its been a hard week.