Survivors Blog: 

Nicole

Today, I came across a picture that was posted on our group's GroupMe wall a while back. A depiction of hope, a moment captured by a camera, a view of grace, healing, and growth, revealing a glimmer of rescue and new life. You've probably seen something like it, or the one I'm referring to, where determined little white flowers are growing out of a crack in an otherwise lifeless slab of concrete sidewalk. At the time this was shared with me, and when I wrote this journal entry, feelings of hope finally started to emerge, much like the ray of light and the new life, emerging with these little flowers through the slab. Where my heart was once in a place consumed with hopelessness, absent of joy, with no healing in sight (to the human eye), time and faith now uncovered proof that change and healing were not only possible, but certain. May this writing be a reminder to you, that a season of hope is emerging. Just a drop or a hint of hope can bring great faith and thus, change. I pray a spirit of hope and comfort overwhelms you today. Sept 2020 (4 years post D-Day) It's been such a long journey of uncertainty and fear and trying to right all the wrongs. For several years I feel like I've walked on a dark broken road, with very little hope, to a destination I'm not sure where. I have been carrying the burden of shame on my shoulders, holding the blame for someone else's pain, and limping along suffering from my own unattended wounds. At about the 3-year mark, I had already begun to let go of saving our marriage. Things were the same kind of awful for so long that I knew we had to make a change for any smidgen of hope left for reconciling. But that took a long time to figure out what that change was going to be. We dreaded making any drastic decisions, but we were miserable just the same. At this point, I just wanted peace. I was tired. Tired of wanting things to be different. And I just wanted our kids to have two parents that could execute a civil conversation about regular things, even if that meant we were no longer married. At the beginning of our separation, for about eight months, my husband did not do anything we had agreed upon prior to the separation. Looking back, it was absurd to think he would. He was not reasonable, he was still in so much pain and had so much anger, and he had to go deal with all of it. By himself, without me. I also had to let him go. I had to separate my progress from his, and his from mine. I had to let go of the idea that my worth and value was somehow tied to the resolution, the reconciliation, the forgiveness (by him) of what I had done. I had to set a lot of hard boundaries. By hard, I mean hard to enforce and hard not to feel awful by doing something as uncomfortable as that is. As suggested by my counselor, I also had to set a boundary about how we talked about my affair. This didn't give me permission to dismiss his need to bring it up, or excuse myself from conversations, but it gave us a platform to discuss without looping back to destruction and transmitting pain. It gave us an "in" to begin healthy conversations. We had to do things differently. And we had to heal. This took time. It took many prayers and intentional work to change my heart. It took faith that something good was coming. (Isaiah 40:31) I am not dismissing the pain I caused or the price tag on my choices. There are certainly (no less than) 100 things I would have done differently. Knowing now just how badly I acted toward my husband, then the shame that had wrapped itself around me once it all unraveled, it was a perfect formula of destruction and prolonged misery. The way I did things stunted my surrender and repentance, and only prolonged pain for my husband. Living in this reality for all these years nearly destroyed us. I had so much peace when I could let it all go. There was room for God to work and for my heart (and my husband's) to heal. (Matthew 11:28) Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28-30) It took 10 months being separated for us to be able to sit and start having conversations. But we did it. I fought back my need for him to ease my pain. I fought back my need to be heard or known by him. I left that to God, and God alone. We began to hear one another, and I found the ability to keep my mouth shut without FEELING bound to do so but listening from a loving and understanding place. BUT I absolutely could not have gotten here if there had not been that time away, that rearranging, that intentional time apart from each other, and time reserved with God. I lived peacefully for over a year, though I have cried and had many sleepless nights, healing is happening. My husband and I have had meaningful conversations and even took a family trip together at the end of June. We spent so much time together as a family over the summer and my husband started making some huge leaps, putting effort into our relationship, versus just with the kids. We do not argue, we discuss. We have changed a lot (not all) of our old patterns. The space is the BEST thing that could have happened for us. It allowed us fewer opportunities to hurt each other further; it allowed us to heal wounds apart from each other and seek God alone for that, and allowed opportunities (after a while) for us to start showing up for each other in ways we hadn't seen in a long time, or ever. The Lord has a plan for you and already knows how He will use your own story. The seeds of healing and new life have already been planted, even if you cannot see it now. The good news is that God loves to sustain those who are fainting and give life to those who feel completely depleted. Wait for the Lord and he will give you life. He has promised to renew your strength even though you don't feel it now. He has good things in store for you. ...but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31) Trust the process. Your heart will be restored and your story will be redeemed. You are His beloved, gifted in so many ways, worthy, and forgiven. Continue to be repentant and steadfast in renewing your heart, mind and soul. I pray He will give you a nudge to keep your hope alive and to keep putting one foot in front of the other. ~Nicole

November 2021 On a road trip across Texas over Thanksgiving I was listening to the song Come Alive (Dry Bones) by Lauren Daigle, which reminded me of one of my favorite stories in the Bible. Some of you may know the story of Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones... For me, road trips are notorious for bringing up old thoughts, on the long stretch of quiet highway miles. Some good thoughts - worth dwelling on - that give me time of praise with God; some not so good - where God will bring things to light that need to be given up and surrendered, and thus healed. As the song on my playlist played over my speakers, I relived a time when this story spoke volumes to me - a time that was one of loneliest times in my life, and one of grave desperation. A time when I desperately needed some hope. Five years ago. Before I retell the Bible story, as it was spoken to my heart, I want to paint a picture of the life I was living at this time. I was desperate for a good day. Desperate for a good night's sleep...a good meal... a good conversation... a good hug...a good day at work...a good thought... a good friend... a good parenting moment... a good memory... something good, anything. Everything was tainted, broken, crumbling, sickening, awful, foul, rotten, miserable, and awful. Dead. What do I mean by good? A feeling that wasn't any of those feelings - anything that wasn't my reality, anything not related to my affair or the accompanying shame. Day in and day out, night after night, things in my home were awful. Worse than I ever thought imaginable. The feelings of my raging, angry, bitter, hurting, betrayed husband was what determined our existence. Our marital circumstances were up against other big things going on in our life at the time, such that my husband couldn’t choose to divorce me or be away from our boys, so he stayed. He didn’t get help nor get any less angry for over two years after D-Day. He hated me, I hated me. I was dead inside. With no hope for our situation to change. I was stuck in hell, dying each day. There was a part of me just trying to survive. However, the decay in the rest of me felt like it was taking over any last remnant that resembled life. So back to the Bible story - Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones - was told to me during a sermon at church. How I managed to show my face in church and overcome my shame to the point where I yearned to be there, is only possible because of God. In a vision, Ezekiel sees a huge valley filled up with dry human bones and skeletons (this image is a metaphor for Israel's spiritual state) and God tells Ezekiel that He is coming to bring His people back to life. Ezekiel 37:1-10 My recollection is this wind comes and it causes all the bones to stand up and it fills them with breath and life. The portrayal of this scenario was so real to me, as I felt I was right there in the valley. Dried up and left for dead, barely any life being breathed into my body. My ears perked and I listened so intensely as my pastor went on. Now, new humans with skin on their bones are standing in front of Ezekiel! This vision is recalling the story about the creation of humans in Genesis 2 where God made humans out of dirt and divine breath. After spiritual death (and some instances of real death) The only hope is that GOD would perform a new act of creation and remake humans in such a way that they can truly live in a relationship of love with God and with each other. The main message was that the dead things in your life, whatever they may be, can be restored, and new life can be breathed into them. What I love about this passage is that God asks Ezekiel if the bones can be restored. [Ezekiel 37: 3] He is essentially asking him if he had faith in Him to restore the bones. Yes, that is what I so badly needed to happen for me! I needed this kind of faith; I needed this kind of help. The pastor went on to say how this valley may represent your marriage (and other relationships) and God is the only hope to resurrect the death that has occurred. Everything in my life seemed like a valley of dry bones. I cried and cried from this story of hope!! I was a wreck, God knew it, everyone around me knew it, my kids knew it and I needed God's help. And this message stuck with me and breathed life into the dry bones I was barely surviving within. "We call out to dead hearts, come alive. Up out of the ashes, let us see an army rise." Lauren Daigle I've read it somewhere that no prophet equals Ezekiel, in his message of hope. Through divine grace the dead may live. Though the context of this chapter is related to the resurrection of a nation (fallen to evil and beyond repair), this vision shows that however beyond redemption a human can seem from a human point of view, GOD, by his gracious spirit, CAN STILL SAVE. WOW! How can God have the power to rescue? How does he have the power alone to save? How can he breathe a breath of life into a soul that is beyond repair? How can he restore all that is broken and lost for good? How can he redeem a situation that was meant for evil and caused imaginable destruction? These are the thoughts that engulfed me day after day during the aftermath. My message for you is that God has the power to redeem you, your heart, your past and your story. And He will. I began to come alive and trust in God's plan for my life. You will too. Have faith, dear one, this can be redeemed. Unpack and overcome your shame with Hope for Healing. Learn More Overcoming shame and understanding the Lord's love for me took a long time. I had a lot of help, but I couldn't get any further down the road until I began to do this work, one step at a time. I had to work on forgiving myself, listening to hurts, taking ownership of my actions without carrying the shame, and growing my faith in God. Messages of hope, and truths from Scripture like this helped me along the way. Each week, for four years after my affair, I saw an amazing Christian counselor. In one of my therapy sessions with him, I was crying about how even after overcoming shame and the brokenness of this life, and the awful choices I made, why did I still grieve how THIS now had to be part of my story? How could I go on, knowing everyday this unwanted passenger (my old self and my old sin) was in tow, no matter where the journey took me from here, I always had it with me. How can I ever "unhave" this? I felt healed, I felt alive, I felt loved, I felt reassured of so many things. But why did this have to taint the rest of our history? How could I truly move on? He said to me that this (what felt like a constant) reminder of the past, was not a tool to condemn me, but a tool to keep me grateful for God's work in my life. This is to remind me that mine is a story of His power to restore the broken, and His ability and desire to redeem my life. This is now a view from the rear-view mirror, a reminder of something that once was, but that is no more. I am renewed, I am restored, I am a beloved daughter of God who is adored and who was saved from myself. Regarding his own past sin, my counselor always says, "Thank God, I am never going back there." "Thank God that I have been renewed in Christ". "Thank God, He saved me from myself." As I looked in my rearview mirror, I praised God for leading me to a journey of healing and for riding alongside me every step of the way. I praised Him for His power to restore the broken and to resurrect my dry bones that once lay in this valley of death. I trust His greater plan for me... He is my navigator... and thank God, I am never going back.

Beloved reader, I wanted to continue my story and provide an update on our lives since the last blog entry, which was written about 3.5 years after D-day. It's now been another 6 months (so 4 years after D-day) and so many thoughts of praise are coming to my mind I'm not sure where to begin. Though there is so much suffering around right now with the pandemic, I can't help but be thankful for God's provision during this time. Quarantine time (Spring 2020) - was well, chaotic and loud and crazy, and proved very hard to work; however, it was a blessing to have the kids home for such an extended time, as well as my husband being more available (with new restrictions in his job) and being able to spend more time with all of us. Certainly, God has been working for a long time, but it became humanly obvious to us that our hearts were opening and softening towards one another around the June timeframe. We took a divine-appointed vacation in June, (one that I actually protested even the thought of!) This began on a road trip to Eastern Oklahoma, the four of us, in our van, which was the best time we've had in about five years. God worked through the quiet woods, campfires, barbeques, miles on the road, and no Wi-Fi. Looking back, He planned that trip, not us. My husband and I have been separated, living apart for over a year now. It was a rough beginning, but it has been the best thing for us over all of these months. A lot of people said that separation would be the beginning of the end, and I was scared that it only prolonged our requirement to make a decision. However, the Lord had a better plan for us. During this separation, the quality of the time that we have spent together and the conversations that we have been able to have are clearly God's handiwork (and not our own). This summer - post-road trip - I reached a point where I was willing to mildly discuss "plans" and "options" for us as a family, which included my husband's timeline for the 4th year of his school program (happening now) and beyond. This was a big decision that we knew would have to be dealt with and loomed over us these last 4 years. Knowing we still had so much ground to cover in our reconciliation, I prayed for a soft heart and for us to be able to "hear" each other. Much of my time with God over the summer (and prayers with friends and family) made me realize I was clinging to things - things and people that were clearly God-given during the hard season in our life. I was holding on so tightly - metaphorically clenching my fists - to not let go of anything I knew that was certain and good. One of those things was the location where we lived, the place where everyone had loved me so well in my time of crisis. I didn't want to leave, and I didn't want to follow my husband for his convenience, with no guarantees of our future together. One amazing day, my sweet friend Linda talked with me and gently spoke this truth - my grasp on these things was preventing my palms from being open to what God may have in store for us. I had to let go of "my plans" and open my palms to Him. God has given me peace about having or not having "future plans", and the capacity and willingness to embrace His plan. I feel like I've arrived at this anointed place, and have actually started looking forward to new things (not better, or different, but something greater than I can conceive). That "closed vs open palm" realization provided a new perspective - for my heart and mind to be open to new possibilities, and to be expectant for what God was doing in our lives and in our marriage. As most of my close friends know, over the last year I have felt like my husband and I are in a race against time, with his medical school timeline and application requirements for the next step, and yet I knew that we both needed the level of healing and reconciliation that only God could give, and on His time. The fears that were always under the surface in this "race against time" - I finally had to let go of those too. Regarding our marriage - I have seen changes in my husband that can only be God's doing. The fact that there are miraculous things to see and that I have "eyes to see" them, are ALL God. Things that even in MAY of this year, I didn't see coming, nor could I even conceive as possible. I see a reflective, more mindful, considerate, gentle person God is continuing to shape and heal right in front of me. I have heard things from his mouth that I never thought would come out. I have heard him speak of sorrow and hope in ways I never thought we'd share. I asked him, "why now?" (after all the time that had lapsed) - he said he has time now to think and process his feelings (now that his load at school has lightened.) He knows where he belongs, and that we all belong together. He said he was angry at God for a long time and has had to come to terms with that. He said "you aren't the only one who wasn't walking with God back then, Nicole. I made my mistakes and have a lot of regrets, too." In recent months, he started to bring up God and how He is working, almost on a daily basis, when discussing his experiences with his patients and the doctors on his hospital rounds. When conflicts arise between us (that we have similarly dealt with for years), we both react to one another differently and handle it better. We talk about dreams and future plans again. We talk about money (something we have never done in 10 years of marriage), which is a good thing for us to start doing. We consult one another in plans and give considerations; again, something we didn't do for most of our marriage. He has led our prayers at dinnertime. No one asks him to; he just assumed the responsibility after seeing the other 3 of us doing it all this time. He now listens to Christian podcasts and radio and likes to discuss the topics. There are so many ways God is showing up and answering prayers - (my prayers, and the prayers others have prayed over us). Each one of these changes is huge, but all of them together are proof there is real divine change happening within us. For me, I am still grieving "time lost" for us in these last few years, but I know this "time lost" isn't lost in God's timeline, He is shaping us, sanctifying us, as my counselor would say, and this is part of our testimony. So not "time lost"... but a lot more, gained... Over the last 3 months, my husband and I have started to discuss his residency applications/process, and the uncertainty around the entire thing that has hovered over us like a dark cloud this whole time, now seems to be something that the Lord is using to bring us together. This is only possible with God working in many of the other areas between us - some of the most important of those areas being: trust, consideration, listening, unity, kindness, respect, sharing emotions and embracing new opportunities... and growing in faith… to name a few. Thanks be to God, who is blessing us so. If anyone doubts the power of prayer, our story will prove it. This draft sat unfinished for a while... I almost wished not to speak of this out loud, for fear that I would wake up and be back to the old reality. But God is Good, always. In Hope for Healing, ~Nicole Hope for Healing Registration Soon! Space Is Limited! Designed specifically for wayward spouses, Hope for Healing is a supportive, nonjudgmental environment for you to heal and develop empathy. Over the years, this 17-week, small group course has helped thousands of people find hope, set healthy boundaries and move toward extraordinary lives. "I just finished Hope for Healing and am proud of the changes that I already feel in myself and my marriage. I found Affair Recovery when I was at the darkest point in my life, and this course has helped me to get myself on a true path to recovery." - S., Alabama | November 2020 Hope for Healing participant. Spaces fill up quickly for this course. To learn when registration opens back up, click the button below. Subscribe to Registration Notifications!

Hello, I wish we weren't meeting this way. I am sorry and I want to (spiritually) meet you right where you are. I want to encourage you today. I want to tell you who I was before my affair and I want to tell you who I am now. The person I am today, the one writing you this letter, was revealed to me during the darkest time of my life, through lots of prayer, daily trials and deep healing through healthy relationships. I am writing this at the request of one of the amazing women in my AR group, who shaped many of my prayers and thoughts and routines during our course. Those elements helped heal my heart one day at a time. I couldn't see it then, and you may be feeling the same, but you will. Before my affair, I was a believer in God, but I did not know God nor did I understand the impact He could (and would) have in my life. I also didn't know what I didn't know. I could only focus on the flaws of others. I couldn't see my own flaws, and certainly couldn't acknowledge them if someone else brought them to my attention. I was loving, but only if my "conditions" were met. I treated people well who treated me well. I justified how I treated others based on their behavior toward me. Over time, I could justify just about anything coming from my mouth or in my decisions. If someone hurt me, I would harden my heart and hurt them back. I judged others and was prideful. I was vain, oh so vain. When I wasn't getting the attention I so needed from others, I was miserable, and I made people around me miserable. I looked for things to fill the emptiness in me and blamed others when I didn't get my selfish (and regular) needs met. Did I know any of this at the time? No. I also didn't know at the time, when I was where you might be now, that there was a bigger plan. A rescue plan. God rescued me (from my old self) and has provided great healing and love in my heart through this journey. He has enabled me to reach out to others who might be right where I was a while ago. I won't tell you just yet the length of time "a while ago" was, because when I used to read others' testimonies, my heart would sink when I read how long their journey was from D-Day to healing. I wasn't in a place where I could even see past another day, so reading and hearing of others' "hope" stories and their how many years it took, made me sick and even more hopeless. The reality is, that life in the aftermath of an affair IS unknown day-to-day. It's chaotic and fragile and sickening and you don't know what the next day will bring. You can't even prepare, because each day brings new triggers and craziness, and new turns on the rollercoaster ride. I have been there, my friend. I feel your heart right now, I do. Keep reading. With much regret this is now part of my story. I needed saving from myself. I don't want to go into lengthy detail about my affair because you know that this letter will be 10 pages longer and I want to focus on what happened after my affair. From what you read above; I was bound to get caught up in a terrible choice. I was bound to justify it so I couldn't in any way be found at fault, and so I could avoid looking at myself in the mirror, at all costs. I betrayed my husband of (then) 9 years and hurt him very badly. My choices changed everything about our family (I have two boys who were 2 and 5), and life as we knew it would be different forever. Even worse than my betrayal, I blamed my husband for my actions and was living in a fantasy (a place outside of reality) for about 4 months after D-Day. I did and said EVERYTHING on the list of things "not to do" after an affair. That's when God found me and where He started to heal all the broken places in me and in my heart. Only God knew what this process would look like, but I had to put my trust in Him every day and trust He would sustain me during this season. It does get better, and HE CAN redeem this. Please read on. A while after my affair, I had so much shame and guilt over what I had done (and had justified doing). I knew I had lost a part of myself, but it was a part of someone I didn't even know anymore. To this day, I don't know how, but I started watching online sermons (by Matt Chandler in Flower Mound, TX) about forgiveness. I knew I needed some hopeful messages in my misery. I felt shameful and sorry for what I had done, yet I still couldn't fully grasp the gravity of my actions. It would hurt to go there and I would retreat inside. I felt emptiness and wanted all of the mess to go away. Life was awful for us. My husband raged and threatened; no one slept or ate well. I was barely functional at work. I can't believe I wasn't fired actually. Nothing worked. My affair affected every aspect of my/our life. I got off of Facebook and all social media, and was banned by my husband to ever set foot inside a gym or fitness facility ever again. And with a change in my husband's career, we sold our house and moved cities. I had no comforts and no counterfeit joy to dose me with the much-needed affirmation or escape I craved and had gotten so used to. I had no one, except the husband who hated me and two kids whose life he had convinced me I had ruined. In my darkest time, only God was there. Shortly after our move, I found a church in our new city, started attending regularly, and joined a women's small group. Filled with shame, I kept my rottenness to myself. I just tried to enjoy the connection to loving women, which God knew I needed at this time. God revealed areas of brokenness in me and big wounds (gaping, oozing wounds) in those conversations and prayers. Around this time, I found the AR Hope for Healing course and that gave me a little bit of hope. I was desperately in need of hope. Up to this point, my husband did not seek any help and things were worse than ever between us. I saw a Christian counselor (still do) who, despite my sin and shame, gave me hope and reminders of God's love. So much was revealed of the things I kept hidden in dark corners. I was so angry. Let me say it again. I was SO ANGRY. I could write another letter just on the destruction caused by my anger. It ruled everything. Every decision I made, everything in my heart, the words I used. I had so much pain from my past and so much resentment for the neglect and wounds in my marriage. I later would realize that I had to heal from those things, whether they would be acknowledged by the wounding parties or not. So, when I started AR, it was about one-year post D-Day. I was still angry, resentful, and carried so much discontentment and brokenness. I needed hope and I needed healing. I was living in a toxic home, with no love, no forgiveness; only anger, shaming, blaming, threats and chaos. I was always on the chopping block and living under a microscope. I could do nothing right in the eyes of my betrayed husband. I had no right to express feelings and no leg to stand on when I would ask for space, or lower volume conversations or peace in our home. My husband would find me in the house at any hour of the day (I work from home) or night and yell and rage and whittle me down until he felt relief. If there was any evidence of healing and growth, he would dismantle it, discredit it and disable any platform I was using for hope. He forbade my parents from our home. He said horrible things about God and reminded me often that the punishment for my sin is death. He would say things like "Those women in church would never hug your neck if they knew what you did." It was HARD TO HEAL, though I wanted to, so badly. The above scenario is real life for an unfaithful wife after an affair. At least real life when the betrayed spouse is a hurting, angry husband. Nothing prepared me for the reality that THIS is what I would have to overcome. But IT IS. This is what the broken pieces look like after an affair. But I can also tell you what healing looks like. And you can have a testimony one day, too. When I started the AR course, I did the homework and participated in the calls, but I could not relate to the message in the videos about being empathetic to the betrayed spouse. Spoken from a man's perspective, and hearing Rick's empathy in his wife's pain and owning the burden he caused her was just not relatable to me. Again, nothing equipped me for what my reality was. Luckily, others in my group had similar circumstances to mine and we could talk it through. Others had better situations where they could describe their empathy and compassion for their hurting husband. Those conversations allowed for healing to begin. I saw that I was holding on to my pride and still needing my husband to admit his wrongs and do the work to forgive me. Yes, he treated me badly and refused to get any outside help for his trauma and pain (that I caused); but I started realizing that healing was only going to come when I would surrender my husband and my marriage and let God work on my heart. What that looked like for me... I stopped ping-ponging in response to my husband's actions. I stopped needing to defend myself when I felt like my husband was rewriting history. God knew my heart and knew what really happened, that's what mattered. When the subject matter and blame kept repeating, I was able to keep my mouth shut and not respond nor let his words get to me. The anger faded. The pain of things in our marriage was there, but the need to hurt back or defend myself was gone. I know my husband needed to be heard. He was telling the same story over and over again. I had apologized for two years and done A LOT of changing, but I could never hear him or meet him in his pain. Over time, I started listening without shame. I had given that shame to God because I didn't want to carry it anymore. I was healing because of that. I started putting healthy boundaries in place. We started to have better conversations, where two people could be heard. Even after our course ended, I kept in touch daily with my AR group. We prayed for each other and still shared in a safe space. I read Susie Larson's Daily Blessings every day for a year. I started my mornings stating what I was grateful for, before getting out of bed. I started praying for my husband and his healing (apart from me). I joined one, then two, ministries at my church to serve others and keep the focus off of myself. I no longer focused on the hole I dug for myself and I chose to move forward and heal with God's help. One of my ministries is set up to walk with people through their time of grief (in any crisis). I can listen and love them where they are. The old version of me was fading and the new one was forming. I started asking God to reveal ways for me to love my husband again. After my betrayal and his behavior in response to my betrayal, we had nothing left. We were together only because neither of us wanted to sacrifice and split time with our boys. I was healing and wanted to move forward; he wasn't there. God started providing ways for me to see my husband's pain. I could see not only the pain that I caused, but pain from the past that he was carrying. God gave me compassion for him in ways I didn't think were possible. Something neither of us ever gave to each other in our marriage, was sympathy and compassion for one another. And yet, here it was, in the midst of the mess. Every time I would see something in my husband that I wanted him to change, I would pray for God to help me accept him the way he was and to change my heart. The old version of me could never pray this, so I know that is real change only God can bring. God sustained me in the dark season after my affair. He also revealed many areas where I needed to change. He healed parts of my heart that were broken before my marriage, and allowed me to acknowledge what I had brought into the marriage and ask for forgiveness for those things. After 3 years, I asked my husband to move out of our home. I needed a solid boundary where healing could occur and where I could have peace to heal and have any hope left for reconciliation. It was not going to happen with us stuck in the same cycle. I was healing; he was not. That was 5 months ago. We are 3.5 years post D-Day. God equipped me during that time to stand strong and seek ONLY Him. I have learned to lean on Him when things are difficult, and when I realize things about myself that still need work, I ask for His help. The process is still going on, but I look back now and see how far God has carried me. My husband and I have had more healing and productive conversations in the last 5 months than we have had in 5 years. We have conversations about the future. We have joyful conversations about our early years and the kids when they were babies, without reeling from the pain of my affair. I can freely pray for him and I am living peacefully in healing and wholeness and can testify to God's love for me each day. I still do not know the outcome or the future of my marriage. I am okay with that. God has healed my heart and led me to trust Him for each day that comes. I pray this same peace over you, my friend. Please trust the process. Please ask God to sustain you while you are painfully reaping the consequences of bad choices. Please ask Him to heal you and your spouse and acknowledge that the healing process looks different for both partners. Trust Him to carry you through this darkness. I promise there is light and healing and wholeness. One day at a time. In Hope for Healing, Nicole Psalm 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. EMS Online Registration Opens Tomorrow, February 9 at Noon CT! Our Emergency Marital Seminar Online, better known as EMSO, isn't a one-size-fits-all program for couples. Over decades of experience exclusively in the field of infidelity, our methodology has been honed to better serve couples as they address the betrayal, reconnect as partners and restore their lives. "Affair Recovery's EMS Online course literally saved our marriage from divorce. We had tried other professionals, which only led us to more pain in our marriage. It was a relief to find someone who understood our pain. It was comforting to know that others were feeling and thinking the same thoughts as us. We were not alone on this journey. Our marriage has been enriched by the valuable lessons we have learned through EMS Online." - K., Alabama. Spots fill up quickly, so don't wait to register! Learn more and register for EMSO using the button below. Register For EMS Online!