Let Me Break it Down for Ya

I was that girl who found the love of her life at only fifteen, the girl who fell in love with her high school sweet heart. He swept me off my feet and carried me all the way down to the altar. He was my shoulder to cry on, my partner, my best friend, the one I saw myself growing old with. On December 20th, 2003 I promised to love, honor and cherish him all the days of my life and so did he.  I… was also the girl who said it could never, ever happen to me.

I never thought that my husband would ever have an (gulp…) affair. Jesse had made some mistakes in the past, but all that was behind us. Jesse also dealt with a lot of demons and watched his father be unfaithful to his mom several times. He was so angry with him, even denouncing his father and what he had done. Jesse saw how it tore down his mother; he saw the heart break it brought to his family. But even all that did not stop the devil from planting one selfish idea and for Jesse to selfishly carry it out.

Let me hit you with a few statistics. Did you know that 60% of men and 40% of women will have an affair at some point in their marriage? It is estimated that 53% of all people will have one or more affairs during their life time and that younger people are more likely candidates; in fact younger woman are just as likely as younger men to be unfaithful (womansavers.com). It breaks my heart to look at these statistics. The numbers have only been getting higher.

Affairs are completely taboo. Those of us who have gone through one almost always do everything in our power to cover it up and try to move on with our healing. It’s such a touchy subject, especially in the Christian community. Now a-days (yes, even us Christians) it’s all about keeping up with the “Jones’s” and the Jones’s are pretty much perfect. Ya hearin’ me?

No one wants to be seen with their family in pieces. No one wants to admit that their happy little marriage is falling apart around them. Nobody ever wants to look like a bad Christian and admit that their walk with Jesus has been seriously lacking. No one wants to look like they are completely clueless, because this might have just come out of left field. No one wants to be judged by others, because LORD knows… you will be judged. Nobody wants to lose people in their life because others feel weird around you now that this has come out.  Nobody wants to deal with all the opinions and advice coming at them while dealing with something that is already too much to process. Lastly, nobody wants to hear, “You are so much stronger than I am, because I would have kicked my husband out on his ass.” People, someone who has just been told that the love of their life cheated on them doesn’t want to hear that… would you?!

If you’ve had an affair or had it happen to you, more than likely you have kept it quite private and only told a handfull of close and trusted friends or family. It’s not like you’re running off telling the world that your man/woman just messed up, I mean, who does that? I’m sure you can also relate a lot to the above comments. In most cases the hurt partner is still very much in love with the affaire' and oftentimes your gut reaction will be to protect that person at all costs whether you think they deserve it or not. This is where it gets hard for the people who love you the most to communicate to you how they feel and how they want to support you because most of the time they just want to kill that person and be done with it.  Right?!

My heart in this is to also help people understand how to help friends in situations like this. Nobody ever wants to see their friend go through something like this and as friends you are going to want to protect that friend as best as you can. Unfortunately, most of the time these close friends and family will rarely have little idea what you are feeling and have no way of verbally comforting you; which will ultimately leave you feeling misunderstood with the choices being made and very much alone.

It’s so important to have a strong support system through all stages of your life. You’ll need it if you go through something like this. I want to help people who have been blessed enough to never see this happen in their own relationship, better understand and be able to help the friends and family that might have this happen to get through it in a more positive way. Bottom line is that not all of us have been there. I want to give insight to those people who don’t know what to do or say to their loved one, and show them that they can be that support system your friend will so desperately need.

For the past year, I have had this ongoing passion to not only make people aware that affairs do happen and it can happen to anyone; but also to communicate that marriages are important and WORTH fighting for even in cases of adultery. Our God is so merciful and gives grace daily even though we don’t deserve it. The Father’s love for us has shown me how I must love my husband even through the worst of times just like I vowed to him and my God 7 years ago. I believe that telling our story will inspire those who have walked this path before to be more open and honest about it. I also believe that in our story, there is a message of redemption and grace that can only be seen because of the amazing faithfulness of our Heavenly Father.

Like I’ve said before, all month we will be giving you access to our deepest hurts and the painful journey we had to walk through to get where we are today. How God’s redeeming love for me showed me how possible it was to have redeeming love in my marriage. We will be touching on almost everything. Through this journey you will also be hearing from the man himself (Jesse) and what he has learned through this process. We will also be taking questions from you all through this series.  Either comment or email us and then every Friday we will be posting those questions for you to see. If you want to comment anonymously, we understand and hope you still do so.

We would so love it if you would join us on this journey of healing and restoration. We are still learning and still in need of more healing, but God is so amazing and has been so faithful throughout this process that we want to be small light of hope for the ones that are struggling to find it in silence. I believe God has big things in store this month and we thank you all so much for joining us!

(I will also be posting songs that have spoken to my heart.  Songs from then and song that are still ministering to me for healing.)

Click link below to hear

Chris August 

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