Affair Proof Your Marriage - Part 2

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Hey guys, welcome to episode four of the Naked Marriage podcast. And this episode is probably the most serious one that we've done. This is actually part two of a two part series on affairs. Last week, episode three was part one of how to affair proof your marriage. But this episode we're going to talk specifically to those couples who are in the aftermath of an affair. And if you're listening right now and one spouse in your marriage has committed adultery, we just want to acknowledge the pain and the confusion and the wreckage and the heartbreak that you're feeling. And we're going to do something we don't often do. We're going to start this podcast off just by saying we really believe that this next 30 minutes we're going to spend together could be part of your healing process. But we just want to acknowledge your pain. We want to invite God, who is the healer and the forgiver and the one that can put broken things back together to come and start that process of healing in your lives. So I'm going to invite my beautiful bride Ashley to pray for us and then we're going to get started.

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for each and every husband and wife who are listening right now. We know that this is not by accident. We know that you want us to hear something special today that will specifically help our marriage. I just pray for those who are dealing with the aftermath of an affair. I pray that you mend broken hearts. Lord, help us to forgive one another. Help us to trust again. Help us to know that you are the restorer of marriages, that you mend broken things, that you can make us a beautiful masterpiece. And it may not be the same it was before, but you can make it even better. Lord and I just pray that you open up our ears and our minds and our hearts and to what we need to learn today and help us to apply it to our marriages. It's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

It's a serious topic today and if you're tuning in specifically for this topic, then it's most likely because you or your spouse have had an affair or perhaps someone very close to you has had an affair and you're looking for ways to help that person move forward. Or even more likely, you're looking for ways to move forward in your own marriage. It's the most painful thing that can happen to a marriage. The good news is you can get through it. Every day we see success stories. Every day we see testimonies of folks who have walked through this storm and have come out on the other side. But first, we just want to acknowledge that it feels devastating. It's a really rough place to be.

It's gut wrenching. I mean, it just makes you. Honestly, it makes me sick just to think about it, because I know how heartbreaking that can be. We've worked with so many couples over the years where we know this is a long process. You know, I think the first thing I always tell couples whenever they're dealing with the aftermath of an affair is that, you know, this is gonna take a lot longer to heal than you probably are realizing. So just know that going in and that you have to take it day by day and sometimes hour by hour, especially the person whose spouse had the affair, because, you know, whenever, you know, a spouse comes to you and says, I've had an affair, there's all these questions that fill your mind, you know, and you start thinking back, like, well, when he was here, was he doing this? Or when she was there, was she with this person? And was it just this one person? Was it all these other people? How long did it happen? What sexual acts did you do? I mean, it gets that specific.

Sure, yeah. Your mind will go to all of those places. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And gosh, there's so many nuances to this. It's almost hard to know kind of where to start, like, who to address, you know, addressing the person that had the affair. Addressing the person whose spouse had the affair. My mind honestly is racing in this one, more than in any other podcast we've done, because I'm thinking of specific people we know. Absolutely. I'm thinking of our friends that just called two days ago. Four kids, military family, felt like they had a strong marriage. They've been dating since high school, and he has just confessed an affair. And they're just in the very fresh, raw, painful aftermath of that. I'm thinking about a good friend of mine who we've, you know, who essentially was carrying on a multi year affair right as I was working alongside of him and kind of living a double life and just the pain that that caused. You know, I'm thinking about, you know, a friend from a small group that we had. Who came to me and had an affair and actually impregnated the other woman, who herself was also married. And it was just, my goodness, a train wreck. And we'll kind of give insights from all of these. There have been instances where, you know, those are all examples of men having an affair. We've had just as many where women have had the affair and have come to us and said, and I don't know how this happened. I don't know how I fell into this. So, gosh, where. Where do we start? Sweetie, why don't you start out by talking to that person who had the affair? All right. Just hoping that they're listening. What do they do? What do they do first? I mean, what did they do? And maybe this is something that happened in the past and they're still recovering from it. But just assuming that this is kind of a first step, where do they start?

Well, first and foremost, if this isn't obvious, because maybe it's not, I just want to say, end the affair. End it. Create distance. You cannot even work with that person. Like, you have to be willing.

You might have to change jobs.

You may have to change jobs drastically. And let me tell you, we've worked with enough couples to see where some have tried to remain in the workplace and tried to make it work. And even if they're not sleeping with that person anymore, it still is just having a huge damaging effect on the marriage. And so I would encourage you in the affair, if it's your neighbor, move. If it's your workmate, get another job. You guys need to create space with that person because you just cannot be around that person anymore. That person cannot be part of your life in any way. And I know it's complicated. We'll talk later about our friends where there was a child involved. And that's a very unique situation. But, you know, in most cases, you've been sleeping together, you've been having an affair. You need to end it immediately. Next thing you need to do is go straight to your spouse and confess it. You need to tell them as much as they wanna know. And I know this is where it gets really tricky. You know, there's a lot of people who've had affairs and they're very remorseful. They come to the, you know, thank God. It's like they realize the error of their ways. They can't believe they did what they did. And they're so remorseful. And they want God to heal their marriage. They want God to heal their hearts. And they are just Devastated with their actions. And that's a good place to be. Cause that's what, you know, when we realize the errors of our ways, that's when God can heal us. And that's when, you know, we don't wanna stay in a shameful place. God doesn't want us to just wallow, but he wants us to get help and to get healthy. And so a huge step to that is confession. I mean, you've gotta confess it to God. You've gotta confess it to your spouse. And your spouse is gonna have questions. You know, they're gonna ask you when they're gonna ask you where, they're gonna ask you who with, And. And they're gonna have a lot of doubts when it comes to you. Because this is a huge breach of trust. Like, we have got to realize that an affair is the ultimate betrayal. Okay? And so when our spouse hears that we've had an affair, their hearts are going to be broken. And then they're going to doubt every other little thing you've done because they've been betrayed. And so I think when you go to confess to your spouse, you've got to go in knowing that. And if you go in knowing that you can have that tender heart towards them, towards your spouse, and allow them to ask you those questions. There's gonna be some spouses that only have very few questions. Cause they don't wanna know the details. Cause they're already so heartbroken knowing that the affair happened in the first place. They don't wanna know details. But there's gonna be some spouses that are going to ask you, tell me every time you had sex with that person. Tell me every little thing about how you felt when you were with that person. I mean, you know, they can get really specific. And. And I would just say you've got to be willing to be completely honest.

Yeah. As much information.

As much information.

Because they have a right to that information.

They do. They do. As ugly as it can get. You know, sharing that.

And you think I want to protect them by not telling them?

No, no.

That's the pain. It's already. The pain is already there. You've caused it by your actions. And now all you can do is be completely transparent and open and say. It's like just, let's be completely. Get it all on the table. Get all of it out on the table. Oh, man. And it's just hard. It's hard. People ask, how long does it take? When am I gonna get through this? Or when am I gonna get over this. And I think you have to look at it this way. You'll never. This is the bad news. You'll never get over it. The good news is you will get through it. And what I mean by that is there will always be some scars that are carried because of this. Now, through God's grace and through time and through working together, that healing can take place. And those scars can become a powerful part of your testimony. But there will always be some scars. Now you'll get through it, and you'll come out the other side and could potentially even be stronger together than you were before. It takes time. And this is where we're tempted to just run the other way. This is where we're tempted, both the person who was cheated on and the person who did the cheating. That there is an. There's a temptation to want to pull the escape lever because we're looking ahead at the road, and we're like, this looks like such a painful road. I don't know. I don't know if I can do it. I'm like standing at the base of Mount Everest, and I'm looking up into the clouds, and someone's telling me I got to climb that mountain to save my marriage. And right now I feel so weak and so broken. I can barely take the first steps. But it's one step at a time. God's going to help you. God's going to carry you, and you've got to just keep. When my friend came to me who'd had an affair and who had impregnated this other woman, his first instinct. I could see it on his face. As mad and angry and heartbroken as his wife was at the time, I could tell his first instinct was the best thing I could do for my family, the best thing I could do for my wife, the best thing I could do for myself is to leave my wife, go be with this other woman who's carrying my baby. And we could just start a new life together. We could just hit the reset button, and we don't have to. We don't have to clean up the mess of trying to repair any marriage. We're just starting fresh. And I said, listen, I get the temptation of saying, let's just start over and everybody will be better off. But that's a lie. That's a lie of Satan. I really believe the enemy is a master deceiver, and he wants you to believe lies that sound true and it's not the truth. You've got to stick it out in your marriage. He ultimately him and his wife worked together. It was a long process of healing and rebuilding trust, but they seem to be in a really good place. That other woman did the same in her marriage, from what I've been told. And they're raising that child. It's messy, it's complicated. Both marriages, through just a lot of work and a lot of grace and a lot of prayer, we're able to. Able to survive. But if you're feeling like, you know what? I'm just gonna. I'm gonna quit. I'm gonna give up. Don't. Don't.

Yeah. And, you know, I would say, too. I think sometimes we think I've done too much damage. You know, I am. I've just. I'm a damaged person now. I've done so much wrong that my spouse shouldn't even stay with me. Like, I don't even want to give my spouse the chance to stay with me. I don't want to give my spouse the chance to forgive me. That is also a lie from the enemy. You know, I just want to be really clear here that any of us are capable of an affair. There's not any of us that are beyond that temptation. We all have to be on guard. So I just want to be really clear here that we are not judging you if you had an affair. You know, we are all human beings. We can all make mistakes. We can all go down that path when we don't have boundaries in place and when we're in a vulnerable state. And so if you're listening and you had the affair, you know, go ahead and confess it to the Lord. Confess it to your spouse. But I want you to know, too, that you are not damaged goods, that God brings beauty to ashes, that God will forgive a repentant heart. And he can rebuild your life. He can rebuild your marriage. And so don't believe the lie from the enemy that you're just done and that you've ruined everything, that your kids will never forgive you or that your spouse will never forget you, that everything. Everything is just damaged. That is a lie, you know, and we really have to watch our thoughts, you know, when an affair has been committed, because I do think they can just go crazy and we can really just have doom and gloom. And so if you have committed an affair, I just encourage you to realize that when you go to God with a repentant heart, that he forgives you right then. I mean, Jesus died for us to forgive us of all sins. And this is a sin like any other sin. And when we go to God, and we say, please forgive me. You know, he will forgive us. And we don't need to be living and wallowing in shame every day and beating ourselves up, because that'll continue to ruin our life and to ruin our marriage. And so please know that God does forgive now with that, there are still natural consequences to our actions. You know, we live in a world where there, you know, God put the world in order, where there's just natural consequences to our decisions. And sin has some hard consequences. And so your spouse is going to have a hard time accepting this at first. Your spouse may not be willing to forgive you, but, you know, we're gonna talk about, you know, the spouse that was cheated on in just a minute. But I just hope that you go to your spouse open and honest, as raw as possible, you know, putting it all on the table and showing your repentance, showing how much you regret what you did and that you know how wrong it was, that you do not make excuses. That's very important here, too. Like when you go to your spouse and confess to an affair, you can't say, but you were gone all the time, or, that's why I went and had sex with this person, or but, you know, I just wasn't feeling close to you, and so I did this. We cannot make excuses. We really cannot. That's not gonna do us any good. And so we need to be really repentant and honest and open. And that, honestly, is going to be the first step to healing the marriage.

Yeah, it has to be. The level of your honesty will determine the level of your intimacy moving forward. You can't keep secrets. I mean, you can't. Oh, no, you can't. Even if your spouse doesn't know about the affair, maybe this is something that you did and it ended a long time ago. And you're thinking, well, this is just my burden to bear, and I'm gonna carry this secret to the grave. Honestly, I have a good friend who is in this boat, and we kind of have lost some touch. And it's kind of, I think, been over this is that I challenge him when we talk that, listen, you've confessed this to me, but I'm not your wife. You've got to confess this to her. And he said, oh, no, it would crush her. And this is just my punishment of having to carry this alone. And I'm thinking, man, you were being selfish.

It's just a lie.

You're being just selfish and reckless. And your wife has to know that there's something off and something wrong. And it is cruel to deny her the truth. Even if the truth ultimately ends the marriage, it was still the right thing to do. If she ultimately decides to walk away, that's a choice that she made with all the information. But to deny her that information is really to commit a separate act of infidelity, a separate act of breaking her trust. And so, yeah, and the marriage will.

Never be what God intended it to be when there's secrets between the two of you. Yeah, that's so true. Whether it's an affair or something else. It could be something else. I know we're talking about affairs specifically today, but, you know, that is, like we said, it's a huge betrayal. And you need to bring it out in the open. And then you need to do whatever it takes to rebuild that trust. And we're gonna talk more about that too. But you've gotta be gut level honest about it. Elevento de abrigos de Burlington Yaesta qui compra una brigo de ahora. You obtain cinco dollares de descuento en tu compra de venticinco mas del seis al venticuatro de diciembre a de mas Burlington Donara cincuenta mila brigos nuevos para yudara los necesitados de todo el pais por medio de nuestra collaboracion con delivering good tie vamos mas des in quenta anos abrigandote nos vemos en o estrovento de abrigos Burlington marcas rebajas. Wow. Burlington punto com diagonal codes paramas deyes.

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You know, we had a couple in our church years ago where we had done a series about having the naked marriage, you know, at our church and vulnerability, having no secrets. And this couple, the wife had committed adultery, I think like three years prior and it had long been over. But she felt so convicted that she needed to share this with her husband. She had never told him. He had no idea. And she, you know, talked to us about it and was like, I am so scared. I don't know what his reaction's gonna be, but I just feel like that's the right thing to do because this is a huge secret between us. And it had been eating her alive, because that's what secrets do. I mean, it had been just. She had been beating herself up. She had felt ashamed. She had even gained weight over just eating her feelings. I mean, it was. The enemy was having just a heyday, withholding this sin over her head. But God doesn't want us to do that. He wants us to bring it out in the open. And when it's a sin that is committed against our spouse, and he especially wants us to bring it out in the open to our spouse. And so she did just that. She did the hard thing. She went to her husband. She said, listen, I have been keeping a secret from you for three years. I had an affair. And I just. I need to tell you this. I am so sorry. I kept it from you because I thought I was protecting you. But I realized that was wrong. And, you know, it hurt him. And it was hard for a while, and it took a lot of time, and it took a lot of prayer and patience and effort, but their marriage is better than it ever has been. You know, I see them together, smiling, and it's like a different marriage. And it's because there had always been that affair between them, even though the husband didn't know about it. And now, as hurtful as it was at the beginning, to know about this and to deal with it, it's what made their marriage so much better. So they could work on those things that were missing, and they could deal with the affair, and God could heal their marriage. And so I just encourage you, even if the affair happened, you know, 20 years ago, you need to come out with it.

Absolutely. You. Yeah. That secret will. It'll be a permanent wedge keeping you and your spouse disconnected. So that's good stuff. Now we need to give some insight. For the spouse that was cheated on, like, most of this we've talked about has kind of been trying to challenge, trying to equip that spouse that did the cheating with what they need to do next. But for that heartbroken spouse that did not cheat, you know, they were the ones that were victimized in all of this. Man, we just want to first acknowledge your pain and say, we are so sorry. We're so sorry this happened. This was not your fault. No spouse is perfect. But don't ever feel like that you caused your spouse to do this, the decision to be unfaithful, that is a sin that that one person committed, completely independent of you. And I'm so sorry that this has happened to you. But we want to give you just some hope and some practical tips and some practical tools and also some challenges because you do have a right to leave. I mean, if you just want to talk about the rights, you have a right to walk away from the marriage at this point. But we believe that that is rarely the best. The best thing. And we want to help you find the best solution here. And we believe that healing indeed is possible if you'll choose to not give up. And it starts with forgiveness. And I know that that seems like a really huge first step because you're thinking, I think I can't forgive him because forgiving him lets him off the hook. Forgiving them says, this didn't hurt, but this is the most intimate betrayal I've ever experienced. But here's what you need to understand about forgiveness. It's different than trust. Forgiveness and trust are two different things. Forgiveness is the first step that allows rebuilding trust to take place. Forgiveness means letting go of the right to punish someone who's hurt you, because instead you want to focus on healing. Forgiveness also sets your own heart free of the temptation to fall into bitterness. It was Augustine, many centuries ago, who said, holding a grudge is like drinking poison and then hoping the other person dies. And if you're going to hold onto this grudge, a root of bitterness is going to grow in your heart. It's going to hurt you. When God tells us to forgive, it's more for your sake than for the one you're forgiving. And by forgiving, it's going to allow an atmosphere of safety and grace for you both, where your spouse, through time, through consistency, through honesty, can start to rebuild that trust that's been shattered.

That's right. You know, forgiveness has got to be our first choice. And I think, you know, we need to remember, you know, how many times has God forgiven us, I mean, over and over and over again, that we are all capable of sin, that we all make mistakes and as hurt. As hurt as we are, and rightfully so. I mean, rightfully so. You guys have every. If you've been cheated on, you have every reason to be angry, to be hurt, to be disappointed, frustrated, just a whole host of emotions. As much as we are hurting when we choose forgiveness, that's really when healing can begin. And that's when God can really work in our hearts and the hearts of our spouse. And something too, when we choose a heart of forgiveness, it's gonna help us to avoid retaliation. Because I think as human beings, our natural instinct is when somebody hurts us, we're like, well, I'm gonna hurt you back. You hurt me, I hurt you, and I'm gonna hurt you just as much as you hurt me. And so we can do this in subtle ways. We can do this by not talking, by giving them the cold shoulder. We can do this by talking nasty about them to other people, letting everybody know our dirty laundry and saying what they did to us online and in person. We can do this by just being hateful and just, you know, giving them a hard time about everything. But I just wanna be clear here. As much as your heart is hurt and you wanna retaliate, that retaliation is just hurting you and hurting your spouse over and over again. And it's just perpetuating the damage of the affair. So I just encourage you to forgive them. And it's gonna sometimes take every day waking up and saying, lord, help me forgive. Every day, help me.

It's not just a one time choice.

Because it is, it's, you know, your feelings are going to be all over the map. And, you know, we cannot let our feelings dictate our actions, especially in this case, because our actions would be, you know, really hateful and damaging. And so we've got to choose a heart of forgiveness. And only God can help us do that. Because it's not natural to want to forgive when somebody has betrayed us like this. So wake up every morning and say, God, help me forgive. If you're in a moment where you're like, I wanna say something really awful or I really don't wanna talk to him right now, or I don't wanna talk to her right now, you know, pray to yourself, say, lord, help me forgive him. Help me forgive her. Help me to see them how you see them and help me to allow them to rebuild my trust in them. And when you do that, it softens your heart towards them. And you know, a big way that we can allow them to rebuild trust is by encouraging them to, you know, to cut off all contact. Because like we talked about in the beginning of this podcast, I don't think encouraging necessary. Well, maybe encouragement's too nice of a word.

We're being a little too nice here. Like, you have the right and I think the responsibility to insist on certain things. It's not just like, well, if you feel like it, don't.

No, it's not if you feel like.

It, it's insist, like you cannot have contact with this person if we're going to have rebuild trust.

Exactly. That's in person, that's online, that's via text. You know, and sometimes it may be that you shut down, that the spouse who committed the affair needs to not have the same number they had. They don't need to have the same Facebook account that they had. If there was a secret cell phone involved, that needs to come out. And I know some of you listening are like, what? But we've seen that ruin of, you know, marriages before where there's secret devices and accounts and there needs to be a secret free guarantee here. And that's by insisting that there's no contact in any way whatsoever. And, you know, for the spouse who committed the affair, when you do that, when you bring it all forth and say no passwords, no secret phones, no secret devices or accounts, you know, this is me. I'm all in. When you do that, that helps your spouse to have trust in you again. But it's not just a one time thing. This is an everyday situation.

It's a new policy. Policy of transparency. Like we're gonna have zero secrets in this marriage at all times. And then I think the next step is counseling. You need to get with a trusted mediator, a professional Christian counselor who can help guide you through this process. You might want to meet with one individually to help you process the feelings and the hurt that you're experiencing individually. But you definitely need to meet with a counselor together. And I know that this is an uncomfortable process to think, man, we're airing our dirty laundry in front of somebody. I think this is a vital step. The couples who refuse to go to counseling will never experience the level of healing that they would have experienced had they gone to counseling. Part of that counseling can be there are. There are retreats designed specifically for couples in crisis. There are marriage intensives, marriagetoday.com you can find out more about some that are offered. But the counseling piece has to be part of it. And then it's not just about kind of the damage control. It's also about creating the positive habits of how can we move forward not just to survive. Winning here isn't just surviving and barely avoiding divorce, but winning here is having a passionate, committed, naked marriage where you're best friends, where you're intimately connected in all areas. And that's not gonna happen just by healing the scar. That's gonna happen by creating new habits together that bring you closer together than ever before.

You know, sweetie, I love how you Said new habits. Because I think one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is we just. We're gonna make things back. We're gonna piece things back together the way they were. But one thing we have to remember here, and this is just the biggest truth. If there's nothing you take away from this today, I just want you to listen to this one truth. And it's that things will never be the same. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. It's never going to be like it was. And honestly, what you can learn through counseling is how it was, wasn't the best. Okay.

Because it led to this.

Because it led to this. Right. And I'm not saying it like Dave said before, it doesn't mean that the spouse who was cheated on caused the cheating. Certainly not. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that we can learn better habits through counseling that make our marriage even better than it was before. And we can't really do that unless we process this. You know, we've known couples who. They've gone through the confession part and they've gone through the forgiveness part, and they sort of have some trust, but they never really pursued counseling. And their marriage is just kind of like. They have this mentality like, well, that was a terrible thing that happened, but we're just gonna forgive and move on. And they never really processed through those emotions and created new habits and. And they're stagnant in their marriage. And you just kind of see this survival kind of mentality between the two of them. And it breaks my heart when I see that, because I know that God can do an amazing work in that marriage, even with the affair, you know, being kind of something they went through. And so I just encourage you, you know, maybe you are at that point, maybe, you know, you did the confession, you forgave your spouse and you. And you, you know, you pretty much trust them, but you never really process this. Maybe that's your next step you need to take today.

I think that's so good. Now there is. Quickly, I'll recap this, and I encourage you to go read this in your Bible. There's a powerful story in the Bible to kind of give us hope in these moments of recovering from the aftermath of infidelity. And it's an Old Testament story you may have never heard of. It's a book called Hosea. In the Bible, Hosea was a prophet of God, which meant he had, like, a special connection to God. He was a messenger of God, and Hosea was Married to a woman who had been a prostitute, which requires a whole lot of grace, like right there at the beginning. Now this is something. God led Jose into this relationship. He was like, it's my will for you to marry her. And then Gomer, that's the unfortunate name. I don't think any of us have daughters named Gomer. Gomer was the wife of Hosea and she went back into this habit of infidelity. She went back to her old life of cheating and then eventually prostitution, of just selling her body, completely defiling her marriage, insulting her husband, you know, becoming impregnated through men that were not her husband. I mean, just complete shattering of trust. In Hosea, if there was ever a right, a man who had a right to leave his wife, it was him. And God told him, I want you to go, I want you to go into those slums where your wife is selling herself and is just, you know, completely lost in sin, and I want you to bring her back. It's a beautiful story, much more beautiful than I have time to tell. But ultimately Hosea went and rescued his wife out of that lifestyle and rebuilt. They together rebuilt the marriage. And God said, and this is a picture of the grace I've had for you because God said, I am the husband, you are the bride, us who love him. And he said, and you've all been unfaithful to me. You've all put other things ahead of me, which is an act of infidelity. And he said, and yet I pursue you with my love, I pursue you with my grace. I still want this relationship, this marriage, and I'm going to do everything in my power to extend the grace. And God is completely perfect, he's the only perfect one. And he says, I want you to follow in that example. And if we'll bring that level of radical grace into our marriages, it can change us, it can change us both. I mean, it can set us free of the bitterness that can take root and it can really help us. And it starts with a commitment that I'm not going to give up. I refuse to give up. I refuse to give up on this marriage. I refuse to give up on you. And that commitment will carry you through. Know that we're, we're praying for you. Those of you who are in this, this, this terrible situation. We appreciate you taking the time to listen. This is only one small step in a journey to healing. You know, a 30 minute conversation's a good, a good start. But we hope that what comes out of this is that you take those action steps. We talked about counseling that you continue to read and listen to and watch the resources that we put out, but that you get that counseling that you need.

That's so right. You know, we'd love to continue this conversation. We'd love for you to join us on Facebook. If you're not already on the marriage page on Facebook, you can find it at facebook.com strongermarriages and you'll see our picture there so you'll know that it's our page. And we'd love to hear from you more about this. We'd also like to connect with you on Instagram. And it's Ave and Ashley Willis. And we just thank you so much for joining us today and for just, you know, being willing to listen. And if you are, you know, if you're dealing with the aftermath of an affair right now, just know that we're praying for you. We're here for you and that God can do a miracle in your marriage and bring you closer than ever before.

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