My Conversion Story and How Our Marriage was Healed

Have you ever gone through bumps in your marriage?  Do you know how normal you are, even if the bumps are much more like Mount Everest?

You don’t hear about the ones who make it…

Normally we only hear about marriages that didn’t make it, but rarely do you know when someone went through a funk and got through it.  We told very few people when we went through our struggles because we didn’t want to be under the microscope when we were with family or friends.  I had just a couple of close friends and one family member who knew as it was happening, and I don’t think Kent told a soul.  Now we’re totally open about it with anyone who will listen because we want to help others who need to know that funks are normal and you won’t always hurt so much.  There is light not so far down the road.  God can do the impossible, don’t doubt it for a second.  I’ve seen it over and over again and it happened with us!

Here’s what happened way back in 1994…

When our oldest son was 2 years old, Kent and I were so madly in love with him that we focused all our energy on him instead of each other. At the same time, Kent’s job was extremely stressful and when he’d come home tired, weary, and ornery, instead of giving him some empathy and not taking it personal, which is not easy to do, I would return every jab with venom.  (“No one was going to treat ME that way!”)

Soon this spiraled down into both of us not feeling much love for each other anymore.

To be honest, at times I couldn’t stand to be around him and his negativity really wore on me.  We were in different places though. I felt that it would pass.  I thought we could somehow get through it and just knew that I’d never want to separate our family and turn our son’s life upside-down. We were both so close to him, I couldn’t imagine either one of us only getting to be with him part-time, or taking turns on holidays, I desperately did not want divorce to be part of our family legacy!

Kent, however, wasn’t so sure.

At the time he bought into what society told us, “Kids are resilient, they’ll come out just fine…”  He was thinking about leaving but never actually voiced it… I just knew.  I could feel it, it was palpable.  I was scared for us and for our son and falling apart inside.  The depth of my pain felt like someone close to me had died, because a deteriorating relationship that you thought was so solid really is like a death.  And realizing that the one who promised to never leave you, ’til death do you part’, was actually thinking seriously about it!

About this same time, as our lives were spinning out of control and I was quietly crying myself to sleep into my pillow most nights, I happened to talk to my Aunt Karen who was visiting…

I still know exactly where I was sitting, at our dining room table.  I was still afraid to tell anyone, but just hinted to her that things weren’t great between Kent and I.  She had been through a very painful divorce years earlier that had brought her to her knees, crying out to God, so she caught on.  She cried with me and prayed with me (which felt weird at the time, but I was desperate) and told me that Jesus wanted our marriage healed even more than I did.  I didn’t know it then, but in the coming weeks everything would be changing in my heart and in my life as I slowly gave it all to Him.

The solution:  Selflessness

She pointed me to some good books like this one, and Focus on the Family stories about marriages saved, and I hung on every word.  These resources taught me how to be a better wife, to be more selfless, to be the person Kent needed even when I didn’t feel like it, and how to close my mouth more and pray instead of lashing out.

All of this was truly a sacrifice, because someone who is snapping your head off or acting cold toward you isn’t exactly easy to treat with kindness and empathy, but for our son I kept with it.  When I failed, I got back up, asked God for help, and tried again.

The turning point

My heart was slowly and strongly turning toward Jesus, the only one who could help me through this no matter what happened, and the only one who would never leave me, even if my husband did.  I was falling in love with Him and leaning on Him like never before.  Things certainly didn’t get better overnight, and I wasn’t convinced they would improve–the doubts and fear about where our lives would end up could be all-consuming at times, but there was some hope…

I’ll never forget the two of us sitting on our living room couch one day, with our two-year-old playing nearby and tears running down my cheeks.  I calmly said, “If you really want to leave, just go and be done with it.”  It was the hardest sentence I’d ever uttered, but it was definitely our biggest turning point.  Kent’s face changed in that moment and he said, “But I’m afraid I’ll go and then find out that my problem wasn’t ‘us’ – you’ve been great lately.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me, something is missing.”  I quietly replied, “I know what’s missing, Kent.”  He knew what I meant.  For the past year or so even though we’d began going to church, we didn’t yet have a deep connection with God, but he’d seen me reading my Bible more and how I’d been more kind and different toward him.

Once I let him go and gave it all to the Lord, that’s when things began to change.

One book I found through Focus on the Family was “Love Must Be Tough” by Dr. James Dobson.  It’s SO IMPORTANT that you understand what I learned in this book:  when someone feels trapped, human nature wants to get away.  Not always, but often, when the door is opened wide and they are free to go, they begin to wonder if that’s really what they want.  They may even begin to fear losing what they have, if you play it right.  It may sound immature to ‘play games’ a little, but if you are wise, you’ll realize that even the best of us are still humans who don’t want what comes too easily to us, or who will go after what we perceive that we “can’t” have.  In a solid, healthy marriage none of this is necessary and open communication is best, but if you want to make it through a bad spot, you’ve got to know this.  First make the sacrifices to be the spouse you need to be, by serving them, denying yourself and imitating Jesus, and then think about what I’ve explained here.  Do not hang on too tightly to them or they’ll want to get away.  Instead hang on to the Lord.

After that day something changed in Kent.  

I stayed low-key while drawing closer to Jesus.  I was quiet and kind, and praying like crazy.  It wasn’t long and Kent was reading his Bible, too!  (We loved this Bible because it helped us really understand what we were reading.)  Soon he got to know another Catholic Christian guy named Dave, who showed him what it looked like to be a real man in love with the Lord.  You don’t have to be a “weirdo” to be a committed Christian–as Chris Stefanick says, “Yes, some Christians are weird, but they were weird before they were Christians.”  LOL.

One day he came home and told me he quit his job and had no prospects for another.

It sounds nuts, but I was thrilled and knew God was changing his heart.  His job was way too stressful (which is why he had been so negative and ornery with us) and he worked too many hours, so I knew this was a great move for our family. Within a week he had a better paying, less stressful job, and with regular hours–go Jesus!

I was so so grateful to the Lord for how He was moving.

Soon things slowly began to heal between us.  We were both reading our Bibles, so God was working on each of our hearts and in our lives.  We got more involved in our church, and found friends that we are still very close to today. We all went deeper into our faith together and had discussions about things that didn’t make sense to us, so we’d search out the Truth and spur each other on. It’s difficult to explain how right and good and deep the connections are in your marriage when you grow together in faith as a couple and with other Christian friends.  It truly is “the abundant life” that Jesus promises when we follow Him.  We are blessed with close families on both sides and a lot of very good friends, but we really are each other’s best friend again as we keep growing closer to the Lord and learning more about Him together.

How different life would be had we given up…

We have 4 kids now, and all of that seems like a lifetime ago. I often think of how different things would be had we done what society said was okay and gave up when it got difficult.

It was the worst thing I’ve ever gone through, yet now I’m actually thankful it happened, because it’s what brought me to really fall in love with Jesus and see that He’s always there for us.  Our lives are so much bigger and more beautiful with Him in it.  He does not promise life will be easy, but I learned how taking up your cross and denying yourself like He did can bring “good fruit”.  Even more amazing is that over the years other couples have come into our lives that we’ve had the chance to help through their own rough spots and hopefully led them closer to Him too–He really can and does use everything we go through to bring good from it.

We feel so thankful that God brought us back and He can do the same for your marriage or help you with whatever you’re going through too!

More you might like:

• Read more here about when I thought saving our marriage was “impossible”.

Here are more links and resources that might help you:

• Read Kent’s much shorter version of this story.  (Scroll down at that link toward the bottom.)
• Is there passion in your marriage?
• How to survive infidelity
• Is your marriage in a bad spot? Don’t believe these lies.
• Helpful Marriage/Sex Books– That link has a list of books by Michelle Weiner-Davis.  I’ve only read her book, “Divorce Busting”, and while it isn’t Christian-based, it still made great sense and helped me a lot when Kent & I were having marriage trouble.  Also, scroll down at that link to see other books she’s written called, “The Sex-Starved Marriage” and “The Sex-Starved Wife”, both books that I think will help commenters at my post about Passion in Marriage.
• The first thing to do if your marriage is feeling rotten: rent this Fireproof movie.  All the answers are there.  There’s a new one out that’s really good for hurting marriages too, you’ll learn about the RIGHT weapon to use to fight for your marriage:  War Room.
• Good News About Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teaching by Christopher West – another book that explains very well what the Catholic Church really teaches on often misunderstood topics.
• Hidden Keys of a Loving Lasting Marriage — this book has one section for husbands and one for wives, do not read the part for your spouse or you just get depressed for all the ways they’re not “perfect”, only read your part, so you can find new ways to be “perfect” for your spouse!
• For many marriages the problem isn’t stress-related or an emotional problem, instead their issues are in the bedroom.  Remember that the estrogens from our diet (drink healthy milk without hormones and find a local source of healthy meat without hormones), along with estrogens in our environment (such as in the unsafe types of water bottles) can all lead to low libido!  (Click here for safe meat if you don’t have a good local source.)
• Stressed out?  Health and nutrition not high on the priority list right now?
• Read about my “food conversion” story (I used to sneak even more chocolate than I do now.)