I remember the first time I heard someone share their betrayal experience and how it had impacted them. I felt their words sifting through my soul. I left feeling empowered and understood because now I had a name for what I was going through. I spent eighteen years in a marriage that was slowly undoing who I was, and I had no idea. Eventually, I learned about intimate partner betrayal and how it impacts a person in many ways. I don’t believe any experience is a waste; God can use it all for His purpose. I want to share that story with you so you might feel heard.
Imagine this…
Your husband is holding a gun. You aren’t scared because you trust him. The gun is not meant for you. But then, suddenly, he turns it in your direction and pulls the trigger. In an instant, your life is changed. You fall to the floor and lay there stunned, unable to speak. Looking up at him, you realize he is yelling at you. He is angry because you are bleeding out all over the carpet. Everything is your fault now, and it’s your job to clean up the mess while also trying to stitch your wounds back up.
This is the best way to describe intimate partner betrayal.
I met him on a Christian dating site when the internet was still somewhat new and not near what it is now. He was a soldier stationed about 45 minutes away, and I was the only girl who said yes. I thought I was the lucky one. It wasn’t even a week after our first date that we started planning our lives together. I loved him. He loved me…or so I thought.
Less than two months after we were married, I discovered him using porn while I was in the next room watching TV. To this day, I still don’t know what I felt in that moment, but I can tell you that was the start of me learning not to feel emotion, at least not on any deep level. I learned over the years that when I expressed any emotion, it would be diffused by his even stronger emotions.
For the next sixteen years, I lived with a person that never fulfilled his promise to love me “til death do us part.” I have pages upon pages in journals over the years of me pleading to God on his behalf….”Father, please change my husband. Please bend his heart towards me so I no longer feel alone in my marriage.” God never answered this prayer.
I experienced countless discoveries just like the first one. My response varied from anger, sadness, embarrassment, and silence. He would always apologize and start to talk openly about his struggle. I became resentful and bitter in the day-to-day parts of our relationship. I would focus on the symptoms rather than the root of the illness. I was married to a sex addict. I was a victim of manipulation, gaslighting, blame for something outside my control, habitual lying, abandonment, and adultery. These are all abusive behaviors; when you experience these things regularly, it starts to rewire your mindsets. Over time I became a version of myself I didn’t like.
The last time I discovered his unfaithfulness, I prayed that God would protect me from any more discoveries. Now that prayer, He did answer. I was married for eight more years. At that time, I believed he had finally been “delivered” from his stronghold of sexual sin. He started a ministry focused on deliverance. I was reluctant to support it, but eventually, he gained popularity, and I figured my reluctance was a lack of forgiveness. I worked to let go of the past, and I started to show up for him in support of what I thought God wanted. I stuffed my paranoia, hyper diligence, and even mistrust so I could feel better about supporting this man that was different at home than he pretended to be on a stage. There was always that loose thread in the back of my mind. I tried to ignore it, but eventually, I could not anymore. My drive to be a better person took me down a path that helped me see things for what they were. I was not married to the person he made himself out to be. As the months passed and I developed healthy boundaries, the real version of who he was began to be exposed to me and everyone watching. He was unraveling, and the truth was starting to reveal itself. He never got deliverance from the stronghold of sex addiction; he got better at hiding it. Through increased accountability on all fronts, he could not keep up the lie anymore. I could not keep fighting for a marriage that didn’t have a husband in it. I say that because I didn’t marry a man who wanted to be a husband. At least not what a husband was supposed to be. I never had protection, provision, connection, or even faithfulness. I was never loved like a husband should love his wife.
I stepped back; I worked towards wholeness again and repairing the damage he caused in my heart. I handed my past, present, and future to God. I stopped controlling and surrendered to the Father’s will for my life. It led me to divorce, and eventually, I moved away from a place I had previously called home.
I learned later that this time in ministry did serve a purpose, but not the purpose I thought it would. It helped to develop a network of people who had me on their minds in prayer and who supported me during one of the toughest transitions that I have gone through. This gave me the strength to let go of a man who didn’t want me to hold on to him. I felt released to be who God made me. A woman with a story, and now I share that story with you. Everything has a purpose.