Testimony of Freedom

As my husbands's life began to get busier at work, I took on a job ourtside of the home. My job was very fullfilling to me and I loved every day. I put a lot of hours into my job, often at the expense of home and family. It was at this point that our communication broke down. We were going our own seperate ways of doing our own thing, living together in one household, yet living very much like room- mates.

Both my husband and I had a close group of friends of six couples. We spent a lot of our free time with each other. Our friendship extended to not only attending each others children's school activities, but also social gatherings as well. Our life revolved around this group of friends. This is where I began to get off course. One of the couples became closer to us then we had realized. We took short trips with this couple and over time this man became very important to me. He had a way of making me feel good about myself. He complimented me, made me laugh and just made me feel worthwhile as a person. I was not getting this kind of attention at my home and soon I was hooked on wanting that kind of attention all the time. My husband moved ahead with his career and became busier all the time. It became easy for me to spend more time with my friend and our visits where more frequent. My friend and I spent lots of time in group settings and it was easy for me to justifiy that I was doing nothing wrong. We actually thought that nobody would notice us. Not realizing to ourselves that we began to embark on a deadly conclusion.

The affair began without much thought or planning. I had been married close to 20 years by now and believe me, nothing like this had ever entered my mind. Both my husband and I were actively involved in our church, but had little guidance and definitly no true relationship with the Lord. I just kept drifting further and further until before I knew it, I was in the middle of an adulterous relationship. I knew what I was doing was adultery, but to myself I did not even admit that I was having an affair. I just could not admit that it was this or that I would do that. The affair continued for a period of 3 years until I became so fearful it would be exposed. We stopped seeing each other.

It literally was not until a year later the affair began to surface again. I felt I had put it out of sight, out of mind. I truly believed it had ended, no one would ever know or find out, most of all my husband. A set of circumstanced led a counselor into our lives when he was a guest speaker at our church. My husband had been in attendance and really felt that the message was especially for him. Before I knew what was happening an appointment was set to come to the office for counseling. It was hard for me to go and so easy to find an excuse to avoid facing my problem. The affair had caused me so much stress and had put such a burden on our marriage. Our finances were in ruin, the deception, dishonety and other personal problems were running rampant. The signs were there but the solutions just never seemed to come. Finally during our last day of counseling with the help of the counselor I became clean and I admitted the adulterous relationship and totally resolved my sin before God and my husband. I had lied for years to my husband saying that I had been infatuated with his friend but that there had been no physical relatioship. I was trying to spare my husband from the pain of knowing that I had an affair with one of his best friends. I had no way of knowing that I could be free until I had confessed the adultery and had it out in the open.

This was the best and worst day of my life. Believe me...I do not want to give the impression that this situation just solved itself and all is well...far from it. There are some very hard times and some of the hardest are when I realize how much I have hurt my husband, my marriage, myself and how I have caused my husband to lose trust in me. My husband was devastated with this news. His unbelieveable forgiveness of me and love for me have at times made it nearly imporssible for me to face him. It is just beyond my comprehension that he can feel the way he does about me. Praise God! My husband totally forgave me and I was able to forgive myself.

The biblical principles that were shared with me during my counseling helped me to see how I have failed, why I failed and how God and His Word can right the wrongs. Now the principles of Gods Word are helping us to talk to each other, listen to each other, forgive one another and ourselves, and first and foremost, use God's Word to get us through the healing process.