Restoration After an Affair

She has become a friend of mine. I have mentored her off and on for the past year. Her husband had an affair and she had a difficult time forgiving him. They have children and so for the sake of the children, I encouraged her to stay with her husband as I do with all those who have suffered in this way. Ten months ago, she moved in with her parents and told me her parents wanted her to get a job and leave her children during the day. I told her to go move back in with her husband and fight for her marriage, so she did.

She is in the chat room and has gained a lot of encouragement from the wise women in there as well. She sometimes goes through deep times of despair thinking back on what happened; unable to forget the images in her head and the pain it has caused. She's even felt hopeless at times. Many women would speak words of life into her; encouraging her to keep on going and loving her husband the way God commands we love our husbands. 

Recently, she posted something in the chat room that put many of us in happy tears and rejoicing. She wrote these words because of what her husband had texted her in the words above.

I have to share something with you ladies. Roughly ten months ago my husband said he wanted a divorce. He said he was done with our marriage and was no longer in love with me. We separated and he had no intention of ever reconciling.

But praise God, today because of you ladies praying for us, the godly help and guidance from everyone in this group and the Lord continually molding and shaping me, convicting my heart, and never leaving my side, this is the type of texts I am now getting from my husband!!!

This right here is an answer to prayer! This is proof that the Lord listens to His people! I just have to share this text I got from my husband today and say thank you, thank you, thank you for being such great, godly, and encouraging women of God. Please keep praying for us; as you can see, it's working! 

Now, she often shares with us how wise and wonderful her husband is to her! Another woman in the chat room responded to her words this way.

When I receive these kinds of texts, I always think of the passage in Created to Be His Help Meet; “When a woman is willing to forgive and win back her husband’s affection, she is winning more than just his affection. Once a man comes to his senses and sees how close he came to losing all that he holds dear, he will be profoundly thankful to the good woman who loved him through his foolishness. She will win his respect as well as his love, because he will know that she is the kind of woman who will stand by her man. Few women ever know what it means to be cherished by their husbands, but if you love him through this kind of trouble, you will be cherished. Being cherished is much, much, much more than being loved. It will be worth all of your effort!”

This passage spoke volumes to me since four years ago, I almost lost my husband to another woman.  After reading that particular passage, I vividly remember sitting at the dining room table one day with my Bible open, absolutely heartbroken and desperate. I told God that His “plan” was crazy to me and made zero sense. {It’s everything opposite of what the world tells you to do in that situation.} But I decided to step out in faith, lay down my pride, my “rights” and do exactly what His Word told me to do to win my husband back. It was the fight of my life! Since then, God has daily performed a miracle in my marriage. It didn’t happen overnight {and there have been setbacks at times}. I’ve worked towards being intentionally sweet to him every day, with every action, whether he deserved it or not. I’m not going to lie; it was hard. 

The enemy kept trying to remind me of how justified my negative feelings towards him were, but I continued to ignore him. The end result has been my husband’s complete loyalty and adoration with the bonus of regular compliments and texts of how much he appreciates and loves me. There is never a time that I don’t fall to my knees in worship and thankfulness over it. God really is real and He proved it to me during that nightmare; just like He’s doing for you. Keep doing the hard things! I’m so happy you’re reaping the reward of your hard work! It gives you encouragement to keep going, doesn’t it? God is so amazing.

Never give up hope, women. Become the woman that God has asked you to become and fight for your marriage with the tools that He asks you to fight it with ~

 "The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands. 

1 Peter 3:4, 5