Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn't Good Enough (17 page)

That was where God was taking our church and our marriage. Although at the time we didn’t realize it, God was preparing to use destruction and hurt in our lives to realign our hearts with his.

Sometimes going beyond ordinary requires more than you think you can give—and requires more dependence on God than you think you can have.

QUESTIONS

1. What are some situations that have caused you to depend on God in your marriage? What has been the outcome of that dependence?
   
2. When you’re not on the same page with your spouse, are you tempted to withhold truth? If so, what prompts you to do this? Why?
   
3. Do you feel pressure to make up for mistakes made in your marriage? Why or why not?
   
4. How have you seen the idea of “they also” apply to your life or marriage? Have you been brought through this “they also” season? If so, how? If not, how might you be?
   

October 9, 2005, the day after we returned from Catalyst, Trisha had just led worship at church and I (Justin) had just spoken about the importance of godly relationships. Now back at home, Trisha was upstairs in our bedroom getting ready to take a nap. Our kids were downstairs watching TV. It seemed like a typical Sunday afternoon.

I sat down on our bed. “Trisha, we need to talk.”

“What is it?” she said.

“Trisha, I can’t keep this from you anymore. I’m having an affair. I’m having an affair with your best friend. I don’t love you. I don’t want to be married to you. I want out.”

It wasn’t a confession of remorse, regret, or repentance. It was a confession of resignation. I was finished.

Trisha left the house in a hysterical panic, but I was cold, calculated. A few minutes later, one of the elders of our church called. Trisha must have called him as soon as she pulled out of the driveway. I asked him to call the other elders together and meet at my house. It wasn’t long before they arrived, and I had already printed out my resignation letter. I had cheated on them, too, made worse by the fact that Trisha’s best friend was the children’s director at church.

I wanted out of all of it. I was as done with ministry as I was with my marriage. Despite the elders’ words of admonition, despite their pleading to give my marriage a chance, I wanted out.

It was over.

TRISHA:

With Justin’s confession:

I lost my church family.

I lost my best friend.

I lost my husband.

I lost my identity.

I lost everything.

The following week became a crossroads of choosing to lean into God in every moment, not just the ones I thought he should be a part of. Life was going to be different—that was clear—but I had to choose if I would continue to live as I always had or if I would allow God to break me and trust that he is who he said he is. I would have to make painful decisions either way, with some of them being made after different pieces of the puzzle came together. The bigger question for me was, would I be willing to choose redemption even when it would cost me something more, after already paying such a high price?

JUSTIN:

I had resigned from our church and left my wife and three boys. My plan was to pursue the relationship with Trisha’s best friend. My church office was cleaned out. My mind was made up. I wanted to leave my ordinary marriage and have an extraordinary relationship with this other woman. I checked into a hotel just down the street from our church and planned on moving forward in that direction.

Trisha called me the night of my confession and begged me to come home. She loved me and wanted to do anything she could to make our marriage work. I was convinced it couldn’t be fixed. I had messed up too bad. I had gone too far. I had hurt her beyond repair. Our marriage was beyond redemption.

She asked me, “Do you love me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Are you in love with me?”

“No, I’m not in love with you.”

Her voice shook. “Are you in love with my best friend?”

“Yes.”

That was the last time I heard Trisha’s voice for the next fifteen days. Later that night, I got a phone call from a church member who was with Trisha. She told me that if I had any hope at all of restoring our marriage, I needed to show up at a counseling appointment she had made for me the following morning.

Now that I had resigned from the church, I had nothing else to do, so I went to the appointment. I shared with the counselor what had taken place the day before. She asked me a question I didn’t expect. “What do you want to accomplish through this counseling session? What are your expectations?”

I was done hiding. I was done pretending. It was time to be honest. “I want you to help me figure out how God is going to bless me no matter who I choose. If I stay in this marriage or if I choose to pursue the other relationship, I want God to bless me.”

The counselor told me she couldn’t help me. I was on my own.

I left the counseling session feeling liberated. I wasn’t saying what I should say anymore; I said what I felt. I wasn’t doing what other people thought I should do anymore. I was doing what I wanted to do—what I
deserved
to do.

I left Noblesville for my parents’ house. I had called my parents to tell them what was going on, and I asked that they gather my brothers and sister so I could inform them of my decision. My parents had been separated for different lengths of time when I was growing up. My sister was divorced and remarried. My youngest brother was divorced and dating again. My other brother was married to a divorced woman. If I were to have a cheering section, my family would be it. They would understand where I was coming from.

I arrived at my parents’ house and could tell things weren’t going to go as I had envisioned. There were no hugs. There were no sympathetic
I’m sorr
y
s. There was only hurt. There was only disappointment. One of my brothers asked why I would throw my life away. The other told me that everything he respected about me and my relationship with God was over. My sister said, “What will your boys think of you when you tell them that you want to marry someone other than their mom? What kind of legacy is that?” I’m sure there was a lot more said, but those were the words that punctured the armor I had built around my heart over the past few months.

I wanted to go home.

I got in my car, determined to fight for my family. I wanted to fight for Trish. I wanted to fight for my kids. I was sorry. I called my friend Tom and told him I was coming home. He told me he would let Trisha know.

When I arrived home, my mother-in-law and the board member by the creek were waiting for me. I ran past them and into the garage, where Trisha was standing with another lady from our church. I fell at her feet and begged her to take me back. It was immediately obvious that my begging wasn’t going to solve anything. My mother-in-law informed me that the choice to come home wasn’t mine to make anymore. That window had closed.
Trisha didn’t want to see me. She didn’t want to talk to me. She didn’t want me at the house. She wasn’t sure she wanted me back. With that, Trisha walked back into that house.

For the first time, my choices had consequences. I didn’t realize the depth of those consequences at this point, but I realized that the control and manipulation I had worked to sustain for the past ten years were gone. I wasn’t in control of this situation. I wasn’t welcome to stay at the house. I had nowhere to go, so I went back to the hotel—alone. God seemed as unapproachable as Trisha.

I’m not one to overspiritualize everything. Up to this point in my life, I believed in spiritual warfare, I just didn’t take it very seriously. But on this night in my hotel room, I felt a demonic presence unlike I had ever felt before. I don’t remember everything that happened that night, but I remember screaming as loud as I could, “Satan, get out of here! Get out of here! Jesus, meet me right now! Jesus, save me from this darkness! I invite you, Jesus, into this room. I invite you into my heart again, Jesus. Jesus, help!”

I woke up the next morning lying next to my bed. I felt the first burst of repentance. I felt sorry for my sin and not just for the consequences of my sin. For the first time in a long time, I saw how far I had drifted from God and from my wife. The weight of the choices I had made crashed on me.

How did I get here? How did I allow my relationship with God and Trisha to become so inauthentic and broken? I had more questions than answers, but simply asking the questions seemed like a good first step.

A few hours after I woke up, a friend from our church came to my hotel room. Tony and his wife, Suzy, had been our friends for a long time and had helped us start the church three years before. We drove to the park and talked. He was so disappointed and hurt. He had so many questions, and I had very few answers. There is really no way to justify sin; all I could do was ask for his forgiveness. Tony and Suzy extended to me the first of many acts of grace.

Tony said he had talked to Trisha and wanted to offer me
a place to stay until we either divorced or put the pieces back together. He told me that Trisha would no longer be taking my calls. She didn’t want me to text or e-mail her. She was requiring me to work through a mediator to communicate with her and to see our boys. He said to me, “You have messed your life and your ministry and your marriage up bad. But this woman loves you. She loves you so much. You need to figure out how you allowed yourself to get so broken.” I wanted to know the answer to that too. I agreed to stay with Tony and Suzy.

When we walked into Tony’s house, he said to me, “It’s going to feel like it’s over, but it’s not over.” I had no idea what that meant, but I soon found out. As we walked upstairs, he explained to me that I would be sleeping in his seven-year-old daughter’s room. They had moved her stuff into her sister’s room, and I could stay as long as I needed. In my mind, that wouldn’t be more than a few days.

I walked into her room, and it felt like it was over. Everything I owned was stacked in boxes against the wall. Every shirt. Every pair of pants. Every pair of shoes. Every jacket. Every pair of socks and underwear. Everything. I fell to my knees, and the gravity of my choices overwhelmed me.

The next day, I went back to the counselor’s office. I was desperate to make things right. I was broken. I was sorry. I desperately wanted a second chance. The distance between Trisha and me was immense. The mountain we had to climb seemed insurmountable. Beyond my marriage, I felt like I was starting over in my relationship with God. I had hurt him, too. I had taken advantage of grace. I had squandered my gifts and my position, and I had no idea where to start, but I was committed to figuring it out.

In my heart, I had hope—for my marriage and for my relationship with God.

TRISHA:

It wasn’t my idea to kick Justin out. I wanted him home, but he wanted out of our marriage.

On Monday afternoon, I talked to a counselor on the phone, and what he said forever changed the direction of my life. He said, “Until you let Justin go, you will be his scapegoat for all of his issues. If you stop trying to fix him and start telling him it’s okay, he will continue on this path. And what he’s done is not okay. Justin needs to seek God first, not you. He needs to believe that if he allows God to bring him to a place of brokenness and if you allow God to bring you to a place of brokenness, then your natural response will be to choose each other.”

My first thought was,
This guy is an idiot and shouldn’t be counseling!
I replied, “But if I let him go, he will only choose her!”

His response was deafening: “He already has.”

I hung up the phone, and with my mom and my sweet friend Shelly by my side, I went up to our bedroom and started packing Justin’s stuff. I smelled every piece of clothing I folded. I sobbed when I placed the last shirt in the packing tub. It was like he was dead, but he wasn’t. In fact, it was
worse
than death. Justin was alive, but didn’t choose me.

You can imagine the shock on my face when just hours after packing Justin’s clothes, our friend Tom called and told my mom that Justin was on his way to the house! Sheer panic came over me. Before I could respond, Justin pulled into the driveway with Tom following close behind. It was like time stopped. I met Justin in the garage, where he fell to my feet sobbing and saying, “I’m sorry!” over and over again.

Everything in me wanted to hold him, but anger took over. I screamed for him to leave. I have never shared this part of our story before because it’s so painful even to think about. But this event was my first step onto the narrow path. I could no longer be a shortcut for Justin. He needed to find his own path of broken
ness. The narrow path meant I no longer could ignore my own issues in order to deal with his. My new journey had begun, and I was scared to death of what God would uncover.

I chose not to talk to Justin for the next fifteen days, not because I was punishing him, but because I knew that if I was going to embrace change, I couldn’t allow myself to try to help him. Those next fifteen days were some of the hardest yet most intimate days with God.

JUSTIN & TRISHA:

COPING MECHANISMS

I think the hardest part about sin is that each of us has a coping mechanism we use to deal with it. Some of us overeat, some of us stuff our emotions, while others retreat or stay in denial. Whatever our coping mechanisms happen to be, we use them to keep ourselves from having to confront our painful situations head on. I (Trisha) had been asking God for help in my prayers, but I wasn’t allowing him to transform me. The price was too high, and it was easier to hide behind my method of coping with the situation—being mean—than it was to take the narrower and more costly path of facing what was happening.

James describes our tendency to simultaneously ask God for help and use coping mechanisms as being “double-minded”: