Infidelity & the Church: How We Healed
In our previous blog post, we left off with Cord coming home to me after his deliverance experience to confess the full extent of his infidelity. I was extremely guarded when the conversation started that night. I was fully prepared for him to come home and try to fill me with more BS and to try to minimize his actions — that was all I had ever seen from him. But what happened that night was very different from what I expected. Cord came home and told me everything… and I mean everything. He told me about every affair. He told me his “strategy”, if you will. He answered every single question I asked. It was ugly… It was horrifying… It was painful. He could have gone to his grave without ever telling me 90% of what he did that night. What I had found on the night I caught him cheating was only a small glimpse of the extent of his cheating. There was something so different about that night. He wasn’t trying to make himself look good or minimize the damage; he was taking ownership of his actions and the mess it caused. To be honest, I was in literal shock. I had never experienced him like this. He was genuinely remorseful.
At the end of the conversation, he put the ball in my court. He said he would leave if I wanted him to. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted that night. Eventually, we landed on the agreement that he could stay in our guest bedroom moving forward and that I would let him know when I was ready to talk again. However, I was full of skepticism. The questions seared through my brain: What was accomplished with this deliverance? Was my husband suddenly changed in a moment, and was I supposed to just accept this and move on like nothing happened? Was he somehow supposed to be released from all personal responsibility because of this demonic spirit? I simply felt the Lord gave me permission to not trust my husband but to trust Him (the Lord) instead. He gave me permission to be an observer, and He promised to take care of my heart along the way.
I believed Him.
That weekend when I went to church, I was completely broken… a total emotional mess. I cried the entire morning. I have no clue what the message was about, but as soon as they opened up ministry time at the end of the service, I made a bee-line for our Senior Pastor, Julie. I told her everything. She prayed for me and ministered to me, she prophesied over me (some of which we are living out in writing this blog!), and she gave me the number to a local Christian counseling services. The next day, she even contacted them and asked them to get us in as soon as possible. I knew that we had needed counseling for many years. But I was too ashamed to admit that I was unhappy in our marriage and too afraid of being judged by other Christians for needing more help than “just Jesus”. Julie de-stigmatized going to counseling that day. She told me that a lot of healthy couples go to counseling regularly. And so when I went home that day, I told Cord I wanted us to go to counseling. But I told him that he would have to make the appointment if he wanted to work on our marriage. He made the appointment the next day.
Counseling
As we went to counseling, we both began to understand the inner workings of Cord’s pornography addiction, how it escalated into infidelity and the deep wounds of his past that lead him to find comfort from these things. It turns out that some of the wounds of Cord’s past actually inhibited him from learning how to properly process and express emotions. His emotions would cause him to have some deep internal pain, but then he didn’t have the skills to deal with the pain in a healthy way. So he would turn to pornography as a coping mechanism. It was an unhealthy release for pent up emotions that he didn’t know what to do with otherwise. As Cord began to be able to identify emotions and as he learned healthy ways to express them, he no longer felt a need to cope with them through pornography and sexual promiscuity.
Our journey with counseling helped us discover that we had so much to talk about. For months on end, we spent every evening talking for hours. We dove deep and talked about some of the most painfully hard things. It was through these conversations that I saw Cord do the real work of healing. I saw him dig deep to really work through the pain of the past as well as the pain that he caused me. We began praying together and reading and meditating on scripture together. Neither of us knew what to do with the painful things we unearthed. But we would bring those things to God in prayer and also to our counselor. Through this Holy Spirit partnership, we learned to navigate. It was so helpful to have someone who was completely unbiased, who didn’t know either of us outside of his office, and who was fighting for both of us. He also gave book recommendations for us, both individually and as a couple. We have read more books through this journey than either of us read in the previous 7 years of our marriage. We still haven’t run out of things to talk about! We have gained so many valuable tools through this counseling experience.
Accountability
During this season, we also established SERIOUS accountability; this was paramount to rebuilding trust. We set up internet accountability through Covenant Eyes on all of our devices. Cord established accountability through trusted mentors and friends. We really developed a lifestyle of it. We were very transparent with our small group, sharing the details of what we were going through with them, and they were incredibly supportive and intentional in pursuing friendship with Cord. He never once felt shunned or rejected because of his past mistakes. Instead, they chose to love him and accept him even though he had betrayed them too (by not being the person they thought he was). His friendships with our small group guys grew more in this season than in any other season of our lives, and it has been beautiful to see the camaraderie they all have together!
Ministry
Early on when all of this blew up in our lives, I felt like I needed to step back from all the ministry I was involved in. Cord wasn’t involved in ministry, but I was. I needed space to emotionally process everything, and I just didn’t feel like I had anything to give. And to be honest… I felt disqualified. My life was a total mess. Who would want to pattern their life after mine? Every ministry leader or pastor I contacted to explain why I had to step back was incredibly encouraging and understanding. One of the ministries I was involved in was our worship team. I had just started leading worship in our weekend services when this all happened. One of the most healing things I personally experienced in our journey was the incredible love and encouragement from our worship pastor and team of worship leaders. When it felt like it was the right time to jump back in, they encouraged me that this painful situation I was living in didn’t disqualify me, and through their encouragement, I began to see how much the enemy was really trying to stop me from going after all that God made me to be. I found incredible breakthrough and peace in finding a way to worship God during the worst storm of my life and leading others to worship Him during that was incredibly redemptive for me. I appreciate so much that they could see past the temporary mess and could see the ways that God wanted to partner with me in the middle of it!
Another way that we unexpectedly found healing was through other hurting couples. Because we were so open with people about our struggles, other hurting couples somehow found their way to us. As we would sit and listen to their stories, and I would hear Cord give them encouragement on how to move forward, I was completely amazed. It’s like God was giving me a gift, where I could see right before my eyes all the ways Cord was maturing. Cord had love and compassion toward them but also never shyed away from being honest about areas where they needed growth. It was in those moments where I really realized that I had fallen in love with him again. And it was in those moments that I knew I had a future with him again. And I never imagined that we would tell our story, let alone, publicly where we have no control over who sees it or hears it. And yet, Cord has had just as much passion to share it as I have. And as we have written it together, God has birthed new dreams in us for our future together. And it’s more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. I am so thankful for our OTJ team, Ashton and Putty, for believing in our story enough to make room for it here to share with all of you.
The Takeaways
Our journey hasn’t been perfect. We have hit bumps in the road, gotten stuck a few times, and are still healing and growing. All along the way, we have had the most incredible network of support around us. Our church community believes in the redemptive power of Jesus for our lives TODAY, not just when we cross over into eternity. They genuinely believe that God wants the earth to look like heaven, in which people’s lives can be made whole NOW. It is in the DNA of our church, from our senior leaders on down to each member. Every single person we have told our story to, regardless of where we were at in our journey continually pointed us to the hope we have in Jesus for full healing. One of the most powerful things we experienced is that not a single person ever gave us their opinion. I am sure there were times that people thought I was a fool for staying with Cord. I am sure there were times people were skeptical of his changes. But no one ever verbalized those opinions to us. They simply believed that their job was to love us, and they left the hard stuff up to the Holy Spirit. I am so thankful for that. Be that for people. Point them to Jesus. Point them to resources that can help them. But keep your opinions to yourself. Your opinion will just bring division if they don’t take your advice. Leave advice-giving up to the professionals. Your only job is to love people. Learn to love well, and you will be able to support anyone you come across who is on a healing journey (which is everyone!).
Thank you so much for taking the time to read our story. Our hope is that, after you have read this series, you would feel more encouraged to be able to walk alongside someone who is navigating infidelity. I wish it was less common, but the reality is that you will, at some point in your ministry, encounter someone (or many) on this road. You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to have the perfect words or advice. If you take anything away from this, let it be these things:
Believe in the redemptive work of Jesus on Earth today. Point people towards Him and the hope you have that He can heal them! Jesus’s ministry is the ministry of reconciliation.
Love people regardless of the outcome. Believe in people, even when their life is a mess.
Live your life in a way that is open to interruptions. Don’t be afraid to step into the mess.
Get trained and proficient in emotional and spiritual healing, as well as deliverance ministry. If you need a resource for this, you can reach out to us for more information about running the School of Kingdom Ministry at your local church.
De-stigmatize counseling. The Holy Spirit can and does partner with professional Christian counselors. Make a list and print cards to give out at your ministry lines of good counselors in your area. It’s ok that you don’t have all the answers. Point them to someone who has more experience than you!
It is hard to summarize our entire healing journey in one post. It is also hard to give credit to everyone who played a part in our journey. Please know that this series has really only been a glimpse into our story. There is so much more that we just couldn’t cover. If you have any questions, please leave us comments on the blog here or find us on Facebook in our community group On the Journey! We would be happy to continue to the conversation!
Cassie Shaffer
The Vineyard Church // Urbana, IL