The Moment Our Marriage Changed!

We are approaching 22 years of marriage on October 5th, 2024. In these nearly 22 years, there was a moment that I truly believe saved our marriage. We’ve had a few moments like this, and we are grateful to God for the healing of our relationship.

As many of you know, I struggled with addictions for 19 years until God healed me almost 17 years ago on December 26th, 2007.

The first five years of our marriage were extremely difficult for my amazing wife due to my addictions. I believe one of the things that kept Sandy with me during those tough times, not knowing if I would ever change, was that we both truly believed God brought us together for a reason.

Fast forward to 2010. I had been sober for a few years. We were back in church and growing. I was healing immensely, and God was working on my heart like never before. We were even watching several marriage sermons and videos each week to strengthen our marriage.

Despite all of this, I felt like something was still missing within our marriage. We had always shared an amazing passion from the day we first met online. Even through the addictions, our passion remained strong on my sober days. But since I had gotten sober, I felt like that spark wasn’t as solid as it had always been. We were just going through the motions.

I began to look inward even more to try and figure this out. I believe this is the point where people either grow together or grow apart because many see the spark fading and think that’s normal. But that has never been normal in our marriage, so I had to figure out why.

As we continued to learn more about marriage, I started to realize that although I was healing, I had never given Sandy a chance to heal from the damage I had caused in her heart. Being the shy one, she wasn’t just going to say, “Yes, I am still hurting,” especially after she had prayed all those years for God to help me stop using drugs and alcohol. I think she felt she should just be thankful for the healing God had done in me, but He wasn’t done yet, and she didn’t realize it.

So one day in 2010, I sat Sandy down and asked her a couple of marriage-changing questions. First, I asked her to tell me everything I put her through during those early years of our marriage due to my addictions. I also asked her to share what she was feeling during those times.

She immediately asked me, “Are you sure you want to know?”

My first thought was, “I think so,” but I also knew she needed this to start her healing process. God was already working on me, and I needed her to know that I understood. I knew what I did, and I was sorry for it. But to truly apologize, I had to understand what happened and how she truly felt.

As she started telling me everything, I was blown away. To be honest, I was surprised she stuck around long enough for us to reach this point. Before anyone jumps to conclusions, I never physically cheated on her and never laid my hands on her, but I did cross many lines in those early years.

When she finished, I told her I was so sorry for all of it and thanked her for being so honest. Hearing everything she said was like a punch to my ego. She was in tears as she recounted everything.

I will never forget that moment, and I know it changed our marriage! That was the moment we both began healing together, bringing us to almost 22 years of marriage now.

I’m writing this because I know many couples find themselves in similar situations. I have seen many go through some of the things we have but end up with different results. Many times, it’s ego and pride that prevent a marriage from growing deeper.

For example, one spouse might almost destroy the marriage. Then, he or she completely changes, and although the other spouse seems happy, resentment begins to build. They feel like they put up with that pain for 2, 5, or 10 years, and now that their partner has changed, they wonder why they should fully forgive. They think forgiveness cancels out what happened, but that’s not true.

Sandy could have felt that way, but I believe that by swallowing my ego and pride when I did, it gave Sandy a chance to vent everything I had done. It provided an outlet for everything she had been holding inside.

If I hadn’t tried to understand what I put her through, we probably would have ended up like many couples, with our love fading as she kept all that bottled up.

Because of both of us, God was able to heal our hearts through that heavy conversation, and it wasn’t long after that our spark reignited.

I hope if you’ve read this far, you’ve gotten something out of it because when both people swallow their egos and truly listen to each other, God can heal anything!

Ask God to come into your marriage. Ask Him if your heart is pure, and if not, to heal it. Ask Him if you need to do what was discussed in this article. Ask Him to build a solid foundation between the two of you. And ask Him for forgiveness for your part in your marriage!

Now, go do the right thing and change the direction of your marriage! Always remember, just because you think the two of you are healed doesn’t mean you are. Talk about these kinds of things with your spouse!

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Chris Benton

I am co-founder of Inspired Marriage. I went through 19 years of addictions until God healed me Dec 26th, 2007. The first 5 years of our marriage was hell because of my addictions. With Sandy's patience, I was able to allow God to work in me and we have been growing spiritually together ever since! Oct 5th, 2023 was 21 years of marriage and it's been an inspired one!