One year ago my husband disclosed his sex addiction to me and our lives changed.  In the beginning, I would have told you our lives changed in a bad way but now I see it differently.  In reality, my husband coming clean about his own addiction has catapulted me into the healing I so desperately had been hoping and praying for.

Before “D-day,” we were living like “roommates.” 

We have only been married for 8 years but a lot has happened in that period of time.  I slowly shut down, knowing there was “something” else going on but not knowing what that “something” was.  The more I shut down, the less I was able to feel.  The more I shut myself off from being able to feel sadness on a deep level, I also was unknowingly shutting off my ability to feel great joy.  I felt happy at times but it was always muffled.

If you have ever seen the movie “Inside Out” you know there are many different lessons that can be taken from it.  It highlights many of our core emotions and gives them personalities.  In the movie, something that really struck me was the importance of every emotion, including sadness.  I found myself in the beginning getting so frustrated with the character Sadness because she would not stop touching the main character, Riley’s, memories and ruining them.  The character Joy tried to put Sadness in a box so she wouldn’t touch anything but Sadness couldn’t help it and would sneak out to touch a memory.

Who wants to feel sadness?  It hurts and it leaves you feeling vulnerable.  However, in the movie, Joy had a realization when she looked at one of her favorite memories of Riley and her parents.  She rewound the memory and found that Sadness had actually brought Riley and her parents together.  Sadness is what brought Riley back to her home after she ran away.  It is what gave her the opportunity to share her hurts and fears with her family.  It brought her family together again and because of that, she was also able to feel connection and joy again.

By the time my husband disclosed everything I was so miserable and I had no idea how to become “normal” again.  I prayed for 7 years for God to heal my marriage, but I had to wait. 

Waiting is hard but sometimes necessary. 

I have seen this in my own life when I prayed for God to heal me of my own afflictions and he made me wait.  God knows everything.  He knows when we are truly ready to surrender, and he knows when healing will only act as a “band-aid.”  In my own experience, God chose to wait because he knew that if he healed me I would have just found another addiction to fill that “hole” in my heart.  God didn’t bring any of my husband’s healing about until he knew my husband was ready to come clean about his own addiction and change. 

So, this past year has been a year of learning and healing.  I have been able to separate myself from my husband’s addiction.  I know it’s not about me.  My husband has been “sober” from acting out for a year now but he still has his struggles and is humble because of it.  I have watched God transform him and he has become a different husband and father, in a good way.  He is beginning to believe that God can use him and he is beginning to see purpose in his life again.  The shame he once felt is still there but on a lesser scale.  I pray he doesn’t relapse but if he does I am better prepared to deal with it. 

At EMS Weekend, they made sure we all knew it takes between 18 months and 2 years, maybe longer to fully heal and I believe it.  We have 12 months behind us, 12 months of processing and grieving.  My goal for the next 12 months is to continue to grieve, surrender my control to God and to connect again.  I need it and my marriage needs it.  Praise God for his supernatural rest and healing.  Now that I have begun the process of letting go of “control” I feel more free, a little scared but also hopeful for my future and the future of my family.  I trust God to complete the good work He has started in me, my husband, and my marriage.