You do not want to hear what we are about to say. Before we say it, please understand our pleasure and our burden is loving couples in crisis. We sit with individuals much like you and our hearts ache when we see you suffer. The hurt you feel is real and we are so sorry you are currently going through relational pain or you will most likely experience it soon. Our encouragement to you is learn what you can do to prepare for, grow from, and mature through your pain. Sometimes the most difficult thing to recognize is that you may not have control over your circumstances but you do have control over who you are in them.
Focusing on who you are in the middle of hurtful circumstances is one of the most challenging and rewarding benefits of being a Christ follower. It means you have to let go of what people (especially your spouse) have done to you and focus on what you have done to them or what your attitude has been toward them. If no one is perfect, then everyone can always figure out their part in any conflict. We are never completely innocent in conflict. There is always something we could have done better. This book is about helping you learn how to focus on your own reactions to conflict so you can create an environment for your marriage to thrive.
John and Kris (all names in this book have been changed for privacy, so any names that seem familiar is only coincidence) came to our Marriage Restoration Intensive (MRI) because of John’s affair. If you have not heard about our MRI program, just go to www.gosmalley.com to learn more about how we help couples in conflict. In brief, the MRI program is either a one-day or two-day intensive where couples from all over the country come to Houston, Texas to get help. The intensive format is extremely successful in helping couples in crisis turn their marriage around and stay together and increase their overall marital satisfaction.
We get lots of couples dealing with the devastating effects of an affair. John and Kris were no different. Kris found out about the affair when the woman involved with her husband called her to confess what was happening. What a phone call that must have been! Could you imagine having the woman who was sleeping with your husband call you out-of-the-blue to confess because she was feeling guilty!
Kris was devastated, as any woman should be after getting a call from the mistress of her husband. They initially tried to help themselves through several different books, but their issues were too big to deal with alone. They eventually called us and got scheduled for a MRI with me (Michael). I will never forget this intensive because of the incredible lack of personal responsibility not assumed throughout the intensive.
The MRI was pretty normal through the first half of the day together. Kris was hurting and was lashing out significantly at John for having the affair. This is not abnormal, so I let her get what she needed off her chest. But she was really letting him have it and he was sitting there taking it all on for more than half the day. John was actually quite kind and accepting of his mistake and I could see how bad he felt.
After lunch I was ready to get Kris moving forward and wanted to help her begin the process of forgiveness, but Kris was uninterested in this part of the process. She could not let go of the fact that John had cheated on her. I never want to allow anyone to get out of control during an intensive when sharing hurt feelings. I just do not believe it is productive to handle ourselves in a way that is dishonoring, no matter how hurt we are by a situation. I had to repeatedly interrupt Kris and help her find a different, less aggressive way to word how she felt. It got so bad after lunch that I finally began to get frustrated with her and was becoming impatient with her lack of forgiveness. Even though my wife has never cheated on me, I can understand how miserable an affair must feel. But Kris was really giving it to her husband – one slashing statement after another.
I finally had to take drastic steps to help Kris regain control and to start thinking about her side of the affair. That’s right, there are always two sides to an affair. Rarely does a married person have an affair when the marriage is extremely healthy! This is important to understand. Affairs do not generally happen to happily married couples. An affair simply points out that something was broken in the marriage. This does not mean an affair is a good way to respond to a broken marriage, because it is not. An affair is an incredibly stupid way to respond to a hurting marriage. It only makes everything worse! But that doesn’t mean the person who had the affair was the only person doing anything wrong in the marriage.
I stopped Kris during one of her blasting statements toward John and asked her simply, “What was your part in this affair?” As you can imagine, this was not a question that Kris wanted to say. For a brief moment, I became the focus of her anger and hurt. But when she stopped, I simply asked her again, “What was your part?” She looked at me and said, “I had no part, this is all his fault!” Her statement was not a complete surprise to me, but I had to get her to somehow figure out what she had done wrong in the marriage. So I asked the question in a different way, “Have you ever done anything hurtful in your marriage toward John?” She answered quickly, “I don’t know.”
Now that answer surprised me a little. I could not believe that she was unaware of any past mistakes of her own in the marriage. I looked at John and asked, “Has she ever hurt you in the past?” He looked over at his wife and said, “Can I tell him about the affair you had?”
What! I truly did not believe what I was hearing. “Is it true that she had an affair?” At this point Kris finally looked at me and said, “Yes, but that was almost two-years ago!” Like somehow the fact that she’d cheated on her husband almost two-years ago was not as big of a deal as her husband cheating on her recently! “So let me get this straight. I’ve been listening to you crush your husband for well over four hours because he had an affair. And this entire time you’ve not felt like it was important to tell me that you have also had an affair?” She answered, “I didn’t think it was relevant.”
Friends, your dysfunction is very relevant to the relationship. When we cannot see our own faults, then our most precious relationships suffer dramaticly. The reality is when we fail to take ownership of our own problems, we will blame our spouse of theirs. I spent over four hours listening to Kris trash her husband for cheating on her, and yet, she had also cheated on him. I finally understood why it was so hard for her to forgive him, because his affair was only highlighting her own affair. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she was just as guilty and messed up as him.
We want to let you in on a little secret about all of us. We are all messed up! One of our favorite things to do at the beginning of a seminar is to ask the audience to take a look around at all the people sitting around them. Then we say, “Do you see all these people? They are sick people.” One of the excuses individuals give for avoiding an enrichment seminar is that they do not want other people to know their marriage may be in trouble. Let us ease your mind on this issue, every marriage is in trouble at some point because every marriage is filled with broken, sinful individuals.
In 1 Kings 8:46 we read, “When they sin against you—and they certainly will; there’s no one without sin!” Circle in your book “no one without sin”. The bad news is that we are all infected with this thing called sin. It is our brokenness, our heartache, our mistakes, selfishness, and disconnection from God. The good news is that we are all infected by sin! We are all in this thing together so we can have compassion on each other. We all need grace and forgiveness. There is no one person better than the other and so we all need to take ownership of our own junk. We can be gracious and merciful toward our spouse because we need and desire that same graciousness and mercy. Do not let the knowledge of your sin tear you down, but instead allow it to help you be more humble and loving toward your spouse and others.
When we ignore our sinfulness the divisiveness of pride, impatience, and prejudice are soon to follow. All three of these consequences disconnect us from our spouse. Pride separates us because we are too consumed by what we deserve to see what our spouse needs. Impatience draws us apart because of our irritable and snappy attitudes revealing our focus on our spouse’s issues and irritants. Being judgmental disconnects us because, frankly, who wants to hang out someone who has predetermined exactly what you mean, your intentions, and who you are. No one enjoys being judged, especially our spouse.
