Is There Hope for a Broken Marriage?

by Mike Constantine

Marriages can die for many reasons. Usually it is not one thing, but a combination that brings a marriage to the point of death. The bottom line is this: marriages die when promise keepers become promise breakers.

The Power of Promises

Someone has observed that life becomes much more restful if we keep our covenant promises. Marriage is a covenant based on mutual promises of lifelong faithfulness. Our covenant promises are like a fence we build around our marriage. The fence defines our boundaries, keeps us safe, simplifies our lives, and focuses our affection.

But what if we don’t keep our promises? Then, of course, the relationship becomes shaky. Husband and wife feel like two house painters standing on a plank, supported by wobbly ladders. They experience constant tension and unsteadiness. Even worse, broken promises often lead to the total collapse of a marriage.

Broken marriages always create broken people. Always. Spouses suffer. Children suffer. Even the extended family suffers.

Betrayed trust resembles a bad wound. It hurts, it is deep, and it takes some time to heal. Even with complete healing, some sensitivity may remain. For that reason, it’s better not to betray a trust at all. For the more intimate the relationship, the more potential for broken trust to cause deep, lasting hurt.

Broken trust leads to some very unpleasant consequences:

We may lose our openness. Unfaithfulness hurts us so we withdraw and close up. Over the years we develop layer upon layer of defensiveness, like an oyster producing a pearl. The result? Two people, hard as marbles toward one another.
We may plot retaliation. Wounded by unfaithfulness, we plot revenge. Revenge can take many forms. We stop cooperating, communicating, or caring, just to get back at our husband or wife. In some marriages both husband and wife have been disappointed so often that the marriage has become a war. Such wars have no winners.
We may look for a substitute. Susan, married ten years, had been deeply hurt by her husband’s sexual unfaithfulness. She couldn’t trust him, but she wanted someone she could trust. Susan became vulnerable to another man’s empty promises. As you might imagine, she was hurt even more deeply.
We may develop insecurity. Trust is the foundation of every healthy marriage. When that foundation crumbles, so does our confidence. Without trust, with insecurity, intimacy becomes impossible.
We may experience depression. Why do so many people sit in darkened pubs drinking the hours away, listen to sad songs about broken love? Many are the depressed victims of unfaithfulness. Unfaithfulness hurts everyone: both spouses, the children, and the third party.

You may remember spondere, the Latin word that gave us the English word spouse A spouse is a responsible promise keeper. One other word comes from that same root:despondent. It describes a person without promise or hope. We all know friends who married with great hopes for a happy, stable, secure future. Then their hopes turned to despondency when their spouses broke their promises.

Perhaps those consequences of broken trust describe your marriage. If so, can you restore trust and renew intimacy? You can, but it takes work and patience. Deeper betrayals require longer recovery time. Restoring trust is never easy, but thank God, it is possible. For those who believe in Jesus there is hope for every broken marriage . . . if both parties will do their part to heal the break.

Understanding Restoration

As you think about how to heal a broken marriage, keep these qualities in mind. Each of them is important to successful restoration.

All Restoration Begins With Honesty

We must honestly accept our responsibility for breaking our promises and betraying our partner’s trust.

Serena and Jason had a good enough marriage, or so it seemed to everyone who knew them. It was a shock, therefore, when they came to talk to us about a serious breach of trust. Serena was having an affair.

As we talked with them, Serena kept rationalizing that, although her involvement with the other man was wrong, her husband was actually the reason. He didn’t take time to make her feel special. The other man did.

Gently, but firmly, we explained that she could not use her husband’s deficiency as an excuse for her unfaithfulness. After about two hours of discussion she finally reached the honesty that is always the first step to restoration.

Remember that if you have been unfaithful you must acknowledge the pain you have caused your spouse. You need to let him or her express that pain in whatever words they need, even if the words make you feel terrible. Your spouse needs to know that you understand how much pain you have caused.

Maria was married for 30 years when her marriage hit bottom. She and her husband saw a counselor, but it was unsuccessful. She told us that her husband just wanted to move on, get their marriage back to the way it was. That sounded noble, but it was not. He was far too proud to see the pain in her eyes, and far too self-centered to really change in helpful ways.

Do not let that happen to you. If you have caused pain, be ready to hear your spouse and respond in true and honest remorse.

All Restoration Requires Forgiveness

Do not confuse forgiveness with trust. You can forgive someone even if you don’t trust him or her. But forgiving shows that you want to see trust and faithfulness restored. I will write on forgiveness in another article, but if you would like to read about it now, from a Christian perspective, please go to this article on my website: Forgiveness

All Restoration Requires a Consistent Demonstration of Faithfulness

The one who betrayed trust must accept, even welcome, more careful scrutiny for a time. Doing so displays a serious desire to restore the relationship. In essence the guilty party is saying, “I want your trust so much that I am willing to be watched. Whatever it takes, I want to regain your trust.”

All Restoration Must Be Free from the Desire to Punish

It’s one thing to insist on accountability, but another to use that to punish the person. Remember the goal: rebuilding the relationship. Punishing our partner doesn’t help us reach that goal. It might make us feel good to get back at the one who hurt us so badly, but it doesn’t rebuild the marriage.

All Restoration Should Lead To Better Understanding

Done in the right way restoration will bring you to a better understanding of your marriage, your spouse, and yourself. In other words, we learn from it. Things will never be the same after a major betrayal of trust, but they can, in significant ways, become better.

All Restoration Takes Time

Don’t rush it, and don’t let impatience rob you of a good outcome. Many couples give up way too soon. Watch for small improvements. As Winter gives way to Spring, the ground thaws gradually, not instantly. Soon new plants start to appear where the ground was hard and barren. It’s been winter for a long time, but spring is coming.

Mutual Mercy

One quality of restoration draws all of the others together and keeps them in the proper balance. Let’s call it mutual mercy. Mercy isn’t a popular word these days, but, as Dallas Willard says, it is truly essential for continued health and healing in relationships.

Mercy means that we do not treat one another as we deserve, but better than we deserve. All humans need it, and need to extend it. Think about how often we hear people, including ourselves, say “I’m only human.” As if anyone could think, even for a minute, that we were anything else! Because humans make mistakes and live imperfect lives, we need to be merciful to each other, especially so when we’re rebuilding a broken relationship. Mercy does not remove responsibility. Mercy simply treats another the way we would want to be treated. Christians call it the Golden Rule, but is actually worth much more than gold.

The Power of the Potter

In the Bible, Jeremiah the prophet went to a potter learn an object lesson about restoration. As the potter fashioned the clay something went wrong, and the half-formed clay collapsed on the wheel. Did he throw away the ruined, shapeless lump? Not at all. There was still great potential for that ruined clay, and the potter knew how to bring it about. He shaped another vessel, different, but still beautiful. (See Jeremiah 18)

God is like that potter. He can take the ruins of your marriage and make something beautiful. Place your lives and your marriage in His hands. Cooperate with Him by believing and following His Word. As you work with God a miracle will happen in your marriage.

Think, Act, Pray:

The doorbell rang. Opening the door I saw our friend, Madeline, eyes red from crying. “I’ve been to an attorney,” she said. “I’m divorcing my husband. He’s having an affair. Everyone in our community knows about it. I just can’t take it any more!”

1. Does Madeline have a right to divorce her husband?

2. Is there any other course she could take?

3. If Madeline and her husband decide to rebuild their marriage, what steps will they each need to take?

Trust

by Mike Constantine

It amazes me that experts on marriage talk so little about trust. They discuss compatibility, even administer personality profiles to help a couple see how they match up. All good, and very worthwhile. When I do pre-marriage counseling I often use the same tools.

Since every couple want a marriage built to last and satisfy, trust is more important than any other quality. We simply do not develop intimacy with someone we don’t trust.

The depth of our intimacy will equal the depth of our trust.

Diane and I met in college and married just after graduation. Both of us felt we were making a good choice, but I wanted to know why Diane chose to marry me? So one day I asked her. j

Here are Some common responses to that question:

“He swept me off my feet.

” She was just what I wanted.”

“Well, it seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

“I prayed and God said he was the one.”

“I don’t know.”

Diane had a different response. Diane told me she married me because she knew she could trust me. That was the core issue. She felt we had compatibility. She enjoyed my company. She felt good when she was with me. She liked the way I treated her parents. But it was trust that mattered most.

Her answer led me to another question. (That’s the teacher in me) “Why did you know you could trust me?” Diane told me she knew she could trust me because I honored God. “I know you’re not perfect, Mike,” she said, “but I also know that when God speaks, you listen.”

That has always been true. In over fifty years of marriage we have had many opportunities to trust each other and to earn each other’s trust.

I heard a story about beautiful woman who married a very plain looking man. Some would say he was ugly. When asked why she married a man like him she answered, “He never hurts me.”

That is safety, built on trust.

Promises, Promises

Some people make promises with no intention of fulfilling them. They pledge their loyalty to gain acceptance, or to get what they want. To them a promise is only a means to an end, and therefore deceptive. Vows? Those are just words you say in a ceremony, not binding promises.

Others make sincere promises. But over time, in a hundred different ways, they forget those promises. The result is a marriage with less closeness and more suspiscion.

Serious Promise Keepers

Words are like people: some you like, some you love, and some you just don’t understand. Spouse was that kind of word for me. I didn’t like it. It sounded too much like mouse, or even worse, louse! I disliked that word so much that for many years I would not use it in any article or seminar.

Like some people who seem disagreeable to you, a word can become your friend when you understand it. That happened when I uncovered the ancestry of the word spouse. It comes from a Latin word, spondere- a word full of meaning. in Latin, spondere means a solemn promise. So a spouse is someone who solemnly promises love and honor to his or her marriage partner.

Two other words share the same ancestor: responsive and responsible. Taken together, these words paint a great picture. A spouse promises to be responsive and responsible for his or her actions. In other words, a good spouse encourages trust by faithfulness, or keeping promises.

Having Trouble Trusting Your Spouse?

Even with a trustworthy spouse, some of us have may trouble trusting. Kevin, for example. For years he had difficulty trusting his wife with money. He would demand strict accounting for every single cent she spent. That was really hard for her, for she is very responsible and did not deserve distrust. There were many tense moments, because Kevin justified his excessive accountability, claiming he was just being frugal. In truth, fear controlled him, a fear that if he did not squeeze every cent, they would not have enough.

Change began when he stopped justifying his behavior and admitted his need for God’s help. His wife was wise. She didn’t demand change. She even adapted herself to his weakness. In time, with God’s help and his wife’s patience, that controlling fear lost its power over Kevin. He was free to trust his wife in the way she really deserved.

Trusting Can Be Hard

Why is it hard to trust? Our background and upbringing might be one reason. For example, you may have grown up in a home with parents who weren’t faithful to each other. That example can condition you to expect the same from your husband or wife, or at least to live in the fear of unfaithfulness. Fear always causes some degree of tension.

A little boy went walking with his father. They came to a place with a wall about four feet high. The father lifted his son to the top of the wall and urged him to jump. “I’ll catch you,” he promised. But when the boy jumped the father stepped aside and let him fall. As the boy lay there crying, wondering why his dad let him fall, the father said, “Son, let that be a lesson to you. Never trust anyone.”

That is a true story. That little boy grew up manipulating and controlling people, but never trusting anyone. As you can imagine, he never developed true intimacy with anyone. Like a rolling stone, he kept moving from one relationship to another. He could not trust, only fear the next inevitable betrayal.

It’s also possible that some well-meaning friend or relative told you that, eventually, everyone cheats. . . especially men! Add to that all the ruined marriages you hear about. Stir in some rotten examples from the media, and you have a recipe for fear. Your husband or wife may love you exclusively, but your fears dominate. Suspicion permeates your mind like a bad odor that won’t go away.

Whatever the cause of your fears, the usual result is a desire for excessive accountability and control. You want to know where every cent went, where the person is every moment. You become angry if he or she spends anything extra or ever comes home late. You believe that every other woman or man wants to steal your mate. You live in misery and so does your spouse.

The way out of those fears is to tell yourself the truth. Yes, other mates have cheated, but that does not mean yours will. Yes, money is tight, but your spouse is a good money manager. Yes, your past was marked by some serious betrayals, but the one you married is not like the ones who hurt you.

It isn’t easy to learn to trust. But a personal relationship with God, through Christ, will make you a faithful, trustworthy person, and will bring healing from the disappointments in your past.

God has been delivering people from their fears for generations. Tell him that you know your fears are unreasonable, but that you don’t have the power to change. Ask him to help you know the truth, for when you do, the fears will die. Tensions will decrease, and restful security will grow where fear once ruled.

How Do We Build Trust?

The answer is simple: keep your promises. When you hear a little thought in your head that says, “You have a right to be happy. Go ahead! Spend the money for the mortgage payment on new golf clubs. Go to the pub with your friends.” When you hear that thought or others like it, think about the lasting, long-term effects of your unfaithfulness. Then pick up the phone, dial your spouse, and tell him or her how thankful you are for a good marriage.

Think, Act, Pray

1. What has your spouse done in the past that helps you trust him or her?

2. What has your spouse done to make it difficult for you to trust him or her?

3. If you are not trusting someone who really is trustworthy, you are probably believing a lie. What is the lie that you are believing? What is the truth?

The Importance of Being Submitted to God

I once stayed in the home of a young, very successful businessman. He had started small, but his business grew rapidly. Unfortunately, his commitment to Christ withered just as rapidly. One day his wife spoke to me privately. “I worry about my husband,” she said. “He used to pray and read his Bible first thing each morning. Now, no more. When he wakes up, he first wants to see the stock market report. He speculates on the market day and night.” She also told me about a dream she had. She saw a large python come into her house, wrap itself around her children, and begin squeezing them. She said that snake stood for her husband’s love of money and that it was strangling her family.

4. If you had a dream that a snake was strangling your marriage, what would that snake’s name be?

The Love that Protects

by Mike Constantine

Behold, love! For that word armies have marched, fortunes have been squandered and perfectly normal men and women have made total fools of themselves, often in front of complete strangers. Preachers preach about it. Singers sing about it in every possible language. It has inspired operas and rock songs, poems and graffiti, little notes and endless novels.

Love has cured people and (some say) killed others. Yet no word confuses us more than love. In marriage the confusion continues. Do we marry for love? Is love important? It is. But only if we understand what it is. Can we develop the kind of intimacy a marriage needs without love? It isn’t likely, for love is the substance of all true intimacy.

To help us understand the link between love and intimacy, I want to give you three different expressions of love to consider. Each is vital to an intimate marriage, as you will see. In this installment we will look at Fence Love.

Intimacy, the special closeness that is only possible in marriage, needs protection, just like your house. That is what fence love gives it. Love as a fence is a love that has nothing to do with attraction, or liking, or sex, or feelings, or even getting anything in return. It is a love expressed by decision and commitment. “That’s not very romantic,” some of my readers might be thinking. Exactly. Romance is important to marriage. But we live in an age that has made romance a god. Romance adds spice to marriage, but only decisive, committed love sustains it. Fence love promises to love, no matter what happens, no matter what changes. Most mportantly, it protects marital intimacy.

Love like this is in rare supply in these days of disposable marriages and temporary commitments. In the United States we have had, for years, something called a pre-nuptial agreement. Couples who choose one of these weird arrangements pre-plan what they will do with their assets if (when?) the marriage fails. Fence love will have nothing to do with such planning. Fence love does not plan for failure. It plans for success.

As I am writing this, my wife and I are staying with a couple we know very well. The man is 87 years old, still healthy and alert. The wife is 65 years old, but has had Parkinson’s disease for more than 10 years. We have watched the way this man loves his wife. Quietly, patiently, he ministers to her needs, at all hours of the day and night. He has never, not once, looked for a way out. When he married her he promised to love her, whatever happened, good or bad. He would tell you that it is God who gives him the daily strength and patience to love his wife. And his wife? Though greatly limited by the disease that she battles, she loves her husband in many, many decisive, practical ways. Even more, she is at rest in his committed love.

Now, contrast that love with another couple we know. They are in their early forties and have several children. The wife is a lovely lady, slim, attractive, and interesting. But this husband, the fool, has another woman on the side. He knows nothing of fence love. His primary motive is his own lust, and that lust has made him a promise breaker. He is robbing his wife and stealing from his mistress.

When I was a boy I remember hearing a cowboy song called, “Don’t Fence Me In.” That could be the theme song for many modern marriages. True love, intimacy-building love, says, “We want a fence around this relationship. Let’s build it with vows and keep it strong through unselfish sacrifice. Let’s promise that nothing, and no one, will ever come between us.”

What about all the couples who have taken such vows and still have unhealthy marriages? Marriage vows do not create some kind of magical force field around a married couple. This isn’t Star Trek we’re talking about. Vows alone can never prevent marital failure because promises mean nothing without actions. A man and woman must live their vows. A favorite song writer of mine, Don Francisco, describes this dedication beautifully and powerfully:

So you say you can’t take it, the price is too high
The feelings have gone; it seems the river’s run dry.
You never imagined it could turn out so rough,
You give and give and give and still it’s never enough.

Your emotions have vanished that once held a thrill.
You wonder if love could be alive in you still.
But that ring on your finger was put there to stay,
And you’ll never forget the word you promised that day.

Jesus didn’t die for you because it was fun.
He hung there for love because it had to be done.
And in spite of the anguish His work was fulfilled,
Because love is not a feeling, It’s an act of your will.

Now I know it isn’t easy when you’re trying to stand,
And Satan’s throwing everything that’s at his command.
But Jesus is faithful, His promise is true,
And whatever He asks He gives the power to do.

Don understood that the power to keep promises comes from God. He has been making promise breakers into promise keepers for centuries.

It is the Christian conviction, based on the Bible, that God’s desire is for one man and one woman to be married for life. Fence love, committed love, protects a marriage and allows intimacy to develop in security. Fence love begins with our marriage vows. We promise to love one another.

Which marriage do you want to have? One that lasts for a lifetime or one that is destroyed by broken promises? Within the protection of promises made and kept, intimacy grows securely and authentically. Will you renew your vows today? Will you remember your promises today? Will you decide to love today? I promise you that fence love, covenant love, will make you a better person and give you a marriage that will last for a lifetime.

Think, Act, Pray

1. In your opinion how important are the marriage vows?

2. Is it possible for a marriage to be satisfying without promises? Why or why not?