Keeping Hope Alive (for the wife of a sex addict)

“If you trust in God, this shall be your verdict at the close of life. When you come to die you shall look back upon a life which has not been without its trials and its difficulties, but you shall bless God for it all: and if there is any one thing in life for which you will have to praise God more than for another, it will probably be that very event which seems darkest to you.

Did God ever do a better thing for Jacob than when he took Joseph away and sent him to Egypt to preserve the whole family alive? It was the severest trial of the poor old man’s career, and yet the brightest blessing after all . . . rest assured of that. Your father’s rumbling wagons have woke you out of sleep, and you are frightened at them; but they are loaded with ingots of gold. You never have been so rich as you will be after your great trouble shall have passed away.”

--quote from Charles Spurgeon

It may not feel this way now, but whatever is happening in your marriage right now, whatever defining moments you have experienced in your life, can be "the brightest blessing" if you are open to the Lord and trusting in what He is trying to accomplish in your life.

"Your father's rumbling wagons have woke you out of sleep"...such an amazing line because I can so identify. For years I was "asleep", in my faith and in my relationship with my husband. Lots of things were going on around me, but I just didn't know. I was naive and ignorant, but God woke me up. He opened my eyes to see the truth that I couldn't see. When you find out your husband has a sexual addiction it feels like your world is falling apart, but in all reality it was the Lord waking us up! I feel strongly that I would rather know the truth and deal with it. It's the hidden, secret stuff that scares me because Satan uses that to keep you right where he wants you, ineffective and bound to sin.

"You never have been so rich as you will be after your great trouble shall have passed away"...It's likely if you are reading this that you are in the midst of that "great trouble". And maybe it's hard to imagine a time after that trouble has passed. I want to encourage you to not lose hope. The same God that can move mountains, walk on water, bring the dead to life, is with you now working and moving within this great trouble. He has promised many times in the Bible that He will never leave you, that He will be with you always. It is in times likes these that we need to hold on to those promises from God and trust Him.

I believe in a forever marriage. I am willing to fight tooth and nail to keep it. I will go down fighting for it. I know that God's plan is different for each of us. After sincere attempts to reconcile, staying together may not be the best thing for everyone. But I strongly believe that everyone deserves an opportunity to change, we all deserve a second chance, we all deserve to have someone believe in us, even when we don't believe in ourselves.

Sexual addiction does not just happen. It is a symptom of deeper issues, that more then likely go back to childhood and/or a trauma that was never dealt with. For me, once I understood the deep hurt and situations that led my husband to act out sexually, I found myself having compassion for him. Compassion for the boy that was struggling and confused. Now that boy is a man and those issues don't magically go away. Have you and your spouse dug into the why behind the addiction? What happened in your spouses life that contributed to this particular path of sin? We all have an idol, the very thing we turn to when we are stressed out, tired, disappointed, etc. These feelings are usually triggers for us to turn to that idol. Do we turn to God when the going gets tough? Or do we turn to sex, food, people, or shopping to make us feel better?

I know you are angry, but as you start to work through the crisis it may be wise to start asking these questions. It may help you to love your spouse better, even though he doesn't "deserve" it. Loving your spouse even though it's undeserved is called grace and God has been gracious to you. He wants us to love boldly. He wants you to support your spouse in making the necessary changes. You are His ally in the war for your spouse's heart.

"If there is any one thing in life for which you will have to praise God more than for another, it will probably be that very event which seems darkest to you"...I pray you will one day agree with this statement. My darkest time was a turning point in drawing me closer to God and it was an opportunity to see God's care and commitment to being there for me always. My darkest time eventually brought my husband and I closer in our marriage then we ever could have been before. You can't be close with secret sin blocking your way to each other.

It may be a long process. You may take 10 steps forward and 11 back sometimes. It may feel like it's not happening fast enough for you. You may be feeling impatient with your spouse, demanding, frustrated. But it could also be an opportunity to love, support, and help your spouse at a time that most people would have already given up on them. A time when God will give you the strength to dig in your heals and plant your roots deep into the soil of marriage, hoping and trusting in God and His plan. Surrendering your will to His and believing His promises. And that's not easy.

When You Raise the White Flag

School lunches need to be made, noses wiped, diapers changed, grocery shopping, laundry and dishes...you are a Mom, after all. And yet the busyness of your day can only drown out the questions for so long. Why? How could he? How could He? Will I ever trust him again? Do I even want to stay married to him? How can you love him let alone live with him?

Where do you find the answers? Where do you find the answers to any of life's questions? Unless you have been down this road before I don't think anyone truly understands or knows how to overcome it. Like a "Dear Abby" letter I've been asked many questions. It's been many years since the truth came out and the light came on and I remember how we managed; at that time we were stumbling through it, reaching, grasping for anything we could use to hold us together.

Then came the Truth. That was the glue. And the tremendous grace He bestowed on us, bringing us to what we both needed and still need the most...surrender. You are fighting, fighting, fighting and you realize you can't do it anymore. You're tired and beaten down, weak and confused. Have you reached the point where if you don't raise the white flag in surrender then you know you're going to die? Maybe not physical death, but maybe you will just give up. Hopeless is a desperate place to be.

Whether you have stopped trusting your spouse or you have stopped trusting yourself. When it all seems lost, there is a moment, when you get to choose. Is it about you? Or is it about love? Is it about Him?

It is easy to make this all about your spouse. What choices they made that hurt you so much. When they aren't who you thought they were. There comes a point when all the anger and bitterness can turn on you if you can't see Him in the struggle with you anymore.

Are you ready to surrender? Can you give up trying to understand why? Because what feels like another betrayal may be the door for you to see things a new way. To see things within yourself that need changing. What does your heart look like? When everything is going well in your life it's easy to love God, but when the trials hit, that's when your true heart for Christ is revealed.

Are you willing to let His light shine into your darkest places, too?

There was a moment when this suffering felt like it was about me, my pain, my betrayal. How could God do this to me? He knew about my childhood betrayal so why would he allow this? Why did he not allow the one thing my heart had always wanted...a man to love and cherish me the way I deserved? This was a poignant moment because I realized (with help) that this suffering was about me, but not in the way I first thought. It was about my heart and who I was; who I was as a spouse, a mother, a woman; who I was in my relationship with Him. God could have kept the light out. The secrets could have remained secrets for all of time. We could have lived a status quo, unhappy married life and passed that example onto our children. Could the painful truth coming out actually be FOR ME? out of love for me? Was this the way, the ONLY way, out of an unhappy marriage? Was this His way of giving me my heart's desire?

When the light came on and the darkness exposed, God had brought my husband through the pit. God graciously convicted him to the point that he was done with the lies and he repented. By exposing the darkness, the secret sin could be dealt with, worked on, and healed. The Light is desirable. The Light is love. The Light filled my husband with the desire to love me and our children more perfectly. Something I had always desired, but feared would never happen in our marriage.

So allow yourself the freedom to experience ALL that this crisis has for you. Be angry, sad, disappointed, or worse. Forgive and forgive again as often as you need. But I pray that when God brings you through He will also soften your heart to all that He has in store for YOU, all that YOU need to see in yourself.

"I can tell you these things because I have been in dark places -- which is the only way any of us ever learn to love the light." (Tony Woodlief, "Somewhere More Holy")