I remember her asking me, “What’s next? What am I missing? How were you and Justin able to make your relationship work after years of living in a dysfunctional marriage?”

I knew my response was going to sound “churchy” but in my heart and mind I knew there was nothing churchy about what I wanted to say.  I was eager to tell her the lifesaving wisdom someone shared with me when I was drowning in hopelessness, exhaustion and despair.

I replied, “I would not be married today if I hadn’t sought wise counsel.” I could tell by the look on her face that she was a bit disappointed at such a vague response. But I went on to explain the power that very sentence had in not only restoring my marriage but also continues to shape me into the person I am today.

Seeking wise counsel played out in three distinct ways for me.

1. I was seeking wise counsel by reading the bible in a translation I could understand.

2. I was seeking wise counsel from other women and couples that had gone through similar situations and found hope and restoration.

3. I was seeking wise counsel from a professional counselor.

I know your thinking that IS a “churchy” response and I couldn’t agree more. What may sound like the typical response to the average person becomes healing balm to a desperate and wounded soul. There are times in life where you will choose all the right things you know to do and when that list comes up short you will be tempted to quit.

When I begged Justin to go to counseling early on in our marriage and he refused I just gave up. I leaned on my own understanding and not the wise counsel of others. I choose to stay hidden along with Justin and as he buried his sin I started to create sin of my own. I convinced myself that counseling would only be affective if Justin and I BOTH went to together so when he refused to go so did I.

Proverbs 19:20-21 (NLT)

²⁰ Get all the advice and instruction you can,
so you will be wise the rest of your life.

²¹ You can make many plans,
but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.

I am often asked what should you do if your spouse refuses to go to counseling. My response to them and to you today is GO ANYWAY! All throughout scripture God leads His people to seek wise counsel. Even Jesus being fully God and fully man sought wise counsel from his heavenly Father in his time of desperation and heartache. Counseling wasn’t invented by Western culture nor is it set aside for only certain people to receive it. God calls us all to “Get all the advice and instruction you can” because he knew we would need it. We weren’t meant to figure out life on our own.

I do have a word of caution… Just because someone is a counselor it doesn’t mean they’re a good one. But please don’t let that be an excuse. If it takes you five tries, keep trying. I’m not saying you should find a counselor that will tell you what you want to hear but rather someone who understands and is able to lead you to a place of health. I know there ARE some amazing counselors out there because we had one! The bible doesn’t say seeking wise counsel would be easy or fun. In fact it will most-likely cause you pain. But it will be a redemptive pain rather than destructive pain.

Seeking wise counsel helps guide our pain into redemptive pain where God makes beauty from ashes.

But the single worst mistake that I’ve made in our marriage is refusing to go to counseling. It is my biggest regret.

Years before the affair, Trisha asked me to go to counseling. She could tell that we were well beyond our experience and well beyond our ability to fix us. She asked, and I refused. I came up with every excuse there is: we don’t have time; we will get through it; I can make the changes I need to make; I’m a pastor, I don’t go to counseling, I give counsel. 

My biggest excuse: We can’t afford counseling. 

Every poor choice; every single mistake; every hidden sin-including the affair, was a consequence of my refusal to go to counseling. Would counseling have magically fixed our marriage? No. But my pride prevented our marriage from the healing that was possible.

Not going to counseling was like dying of cancer simply because I refused to go to the doctor.

RefineUs is a place where everyone can come as they are. This is a place where we acknowledge that everyone is broken and everyone needs healing. This is a place of grace and second chances. This is also a place where we speak the truth in love, knowing that it is only Truth that has the power to transform our hearts. I feel compeled to speak truth in love today.

I think every married couple should consider counseling. It is so helpful. But if your marriage is in trouble or you are contemplating divorce or separation, you can’t afford not to go to counseling.

The average divorce in the United States costs $15,000. Fifteen thousand. You could spend one hour a week in counseling for the next 3 years before you amassed that total. If you have kids, you can’t calculate the cost to them. Divorce, in every way, is much more expensive than counseling.

Should all marriages stay together? No. Can all marriages stay together? No. I know there are many marriages that end even though one spouse deeply desires to make it work.

But so many marriages end way too early and way too easily.

Your marriage is the most important human relationship you have. All other relationships flow out of the health or the dysfunction of your marriage. It is worth the fight!

When we don’t allow wisdom and truth into our life, we become a product of our own will and our own wisdom. For most of us, our own will and wisdom won’t bring about change. All of us need help.

My opinion on counseling: You can’t afford not to.

What is your opinion?

James 5:16 says it like this “Confess your sins to one another and prayer for each other that you might be healed.”

This principle played a critical role in our ability to move from being on the brink of divorce to God healing and restoring our relationship over the past 3 ½ years. More specifically, Trisha and I leaned into this principle this week on two occasions that made a huge impact in the quality of our time together on vacation.

On a vacation a few years ago, we were sitting at an outdoor café, drinking a cup of coffee, staring at the ocean. But something wasn’t right. I asked Trisha if she was okay. She said that she was fine. A few more minutes passed and again, I just felt like I needed to ask. I said, “Trisha, are you sure everything is okay?” Right then, she had two choices. She could have cut short the restoring work God wanted to do in her and in our marriage by saying again that she was fine. Or she could choose confession. We have seen over and over again that James 5:16 is true and it is right and it is powerful. She began to tear up and just said “I have an ungodly amount of anxiety in my heart right now, and I don’t want to be an anxious person.” There was a part of her heart that was fractured. Anxiety had taken root in her heart and had begun to hold her prisoner. She could have not confessed what she was feeling…and it would not have destroyed our marriage…but a degree of intimacy would have been lost. By confessing her heart condition to me and trusting me with it, communication started, walls were broken down and I was able to pray specifically for her in this area. I can’t make my wife less anxious…but God can. I was able to ask God to do something in her that I do not have the ability to do.

Although I (Trish) confessed my anxiety I didn’t fully explain where it was ALL coming from. The day before we had hit the beach and as we were lying on a comfy lounge chair Justin was “out” as we baked in the sun. I looked-up and noticed two girls just off to the side of us were completely topless and I became panicked as to what to do. Throughout the day there would be a woman walking along the beach topless. I just wanted to cry. Here we were in paradise but I felt like we were trapped in hell! So I had to make a decision…. tell Justin when he woke-up about what was going on and figure out what to do together or just be mad and think the worst of Justin.

The next day we were sitting by the pool (you had to keep your top on at the pool… my mom on a lighter note said I was caught in a “boobie trap” LOL). I looked at Justin and said, “In this moment, I need an honest answer from you, and I don’t care how brutal it is…I just need it be the truth.” He agreed to answer me honestly so I asked, “I want to know how you are doing in the area of lust as women walk around here half-naked. Are you struggling to keep your mind pure, and is there anything I can do to help you?” Huge decision for Justin: confess or hide?

He told me there have been times where he felt tremendous tension in his heart to take a second look at someone, but knew that it was wrong and that it was lustful. He told me that it isn’t a battle that you fight once and win, but it is a daily decision to recognize and fight. He said that I was already doing things that help him in this battle of lust like praying for him, sharing physical touch and affection, sexual intimacy, knowing that I find him attractive and have a desire for him. When these “action steps” are in a healthy balance then I know I am doing all I can to help him combat the temptation of lust and the rest is up to God! It is when I choose to be angry and hold a grudge because he does struggle and withhold myself in areas that are helpful to him, our relationship starts to break down.

What we realized later that evening was God was restoring a brokenness in us that had been created by years of hidden lust, unconfessed struggles and shame. This restoration hinged on our willingness to be honest and vulnerable and hear one another’s heart and pray for each other.

Here is my question to you today…is there anything you are NOT willing to talk to your spouse about? Is there anything that you are withholding? You may not be on the brink of divorce, you may not have the same issues that Trisha and I have, you may have a “good” marriage. If you can’t confess everything to your spouse and pray for them, you are missing a work of restoration and healing and a level of intimacy that only God can provide.

When we withhold things from God, it jacks up our relationship with Him. We pray less, feel guilty more, and we become more disconnected from Him. The same is true in our marriage. God has said that you and your spouse are “one flesh”. When we violate this principle, we allow the broken parts of our heart to stay broken, and over time we drift further and further away from our spouse…and from the oneness God desires for us.

One of the biggest mistakes I (Trisha) made in our marriage was in the area of physical intimacy. I went to sex education class in 7^th grade. Unfortunately, I made poor choices in high school that made sex education more than just a textbook. By the time I met and married Justin I brought enough baggage of sexual brokenness with me that I forgot what life was like without it.

We got married young. We had kids young. Most of our adult life Justin and I experienced numerous “first time” experiences together.  The poor guy had to experience what it was like to purchase feminine products for the first time after being married less than 24 hours!

Learning how to have a healthy sex life was no exception. We both came into our marriage broken but because we waited to have sex with each other until we got married, we honestly convinced ourselves that staying pure with each other would cover all sins. We were wrong.

I made the mistake of viewing physical intimacy as an afterthought rather than a foundational part of our relationship. Even worse, I eventually used it as a means to get back at Justin. It was my weapon.

When Justin came home late… again…

When Justin didn’t help around the house…

When Justin embarrassed me in front of our small group…

When Justin didn’t meet my expectations my response was to get back at him by refusing to be intimate with him.

When I think about it now, it’s a wonder that we didn’t self-destruct within the first couple years of marriage. It wasn’t until I almost lost my marriage that I finally realized how lost I was in understanding God’s purpose of sexually intimacy. I was on a mission to figure it out and what I found was a panoramic view of intimacy I had never seen before. The definition of intimacy is to be fully known. God calls us to be fully known by our spouse emotionally, spiritually and, yes, physically.

Read what 1 Corinthians 7:2-6 says:

“It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder. The marriage bed must be a place of mutuality—the husband seeking to satisfy his wife, the wife seeking to satisfy her husband. Marriage is not a place to “stand up for your rights.” Marriage is a decision to serve the other, whether in bed or out.”

I am often asked how was I able to be sexually intimate with Justin after the affair and his ten-year addiction to pornography when my view of sex was already so messed-up.  What I love about this passage is that it answers the question for me. Anyone can have sex-but intimacy comes with a price. You have to give more of yourself emotionally, lean into each other more spiritually and the end result is an intimate relationship that surpasses any person’s fantasy. Why? Because its not fantasy at all. Fantasy feels good in the beginning but in the end it leaves you empty. Pure, God centered, intimacy is long lasting.

This type of intimacy grows over time and leaves you constantly longing for each other and no one else. Not pornography… not another man or woman… Nothing. It truly becomes an act of serving each other in a way that no other relationship was meant to fill.

I love that! I can honestly say over the past seven years God has redeemed every single choice from our past and given us not only a healthy view of sex but rather a continued desire to serve each other “whether in bed or out”. Sex is no longer a tool for us to get what we want but rather a cherished gift from God in which to serve one another.

Did you have a clear understanding of sexual intimacy going into marriage?

The number one goal I had when Trisha and I got married almost 17 years ago, was to avoid conflict. Well, “have sex as often as possible” was actually number one; avoiding conflict by default was number two. In all seriousness, I didn’t see conflict as a good thing at all. When Trisha and I would get into arguments, I wouldn’t fight back, I would tell her that she was right and I was sorry.

Over the course of the first few years of our marriage, this desire to avoid conflict developed a pattern in our marriage relationship. I would think everything was okay in our marriage as long as we weren’t arguing, so I tried to keep the peace as much as possible. Trisha began to realize that the only way to truly get my attention was through an argument. So she would get angry and start a fight. I would respond by wanting it to end as quickly as possible and she would stay mad until I apologized. “I’m sorry” were the magic words in my mind. I said them a lot.

During one argument about nine years into our marriage we were pretty intense as I had learned to fight back at this point. I could tell that I was gaining no ground and I wanted to move on with my day. I simply said, “Why don’t we save a lot of time and energy here, and you just tell me what I need to apologize for, I’ll say, ‘I’m sorry’ and we can both move on.” It was a statement of deep intimacy and love…or not.

This was a mistake that was holding us back, because here is the deal: Saying you’re sorry and being sorry are two different things.

When you say you’re sorry, you do the minimum requirement to restore peace and make the conflict go away. When you say you’re sorry your behavior rarely changes for the long haul. When you simply say you’re sorry your intention is to end the argument, not resolve it.

Being sorry is completely different. Being sorry often doesn’t require an apology, because your actions demonstrate it. Being sorry brings heart change not behavior modification. Being sorry doesn’t just seek to end the argument, it tries to leverage the conflict to build intimacy.

Avoiding conflict will never improve your marriage. It is fools gold. Avoiding conflict allows you to believe everything is okay, when everything isn’t okay. It allows you to believe that saying, “I’m sorry” will fix everything, when sometimes, “I’m sorry” is the mistake that is holding you back.

Do you embrace or avoid conflict in relationships?

On Wednesday, October 12, 2005 I woke up and didn’t know where I was. I looked around the room and nothing looked familiar. I was in a bed that wasn’t my own. I was in a house that didn’t belong to me. As I sat up in the bed, I could see all of my clothes stacked up against the wall. In that moment the reality of where I was came crashing down. I was separated from Trisha and our boys because of the destructive decisions I had made that resulted in my choice to have an affair.

In that moment, everything changed. I realized all of the time that I had wasted sweating the small stuff in our marriage.

It is a mistake that many of us make in our marriage relationship. We give level 10 responses to level 2 issues. We go off about dishes not being done. We fly off the handle about our spouse being 10 minutes late. We get so upset when our spouse forgets to pick something up from the grocery store. If we are honest, we waste a lot of time being angry about things that don’t really matter. We treat the person that means the most to us really bad over things that are pretty insignificant. We sweat the small stuff and it robs us of our ability to enjoy the big stuff.

Our separation put this is perspective for me. When I was living in someone else’s house; eating around someone else’s table; spending time with a family that wasn’t my own, I didn’t care about toys that weren’t picked up or dinner that wasn’t ready or laundry that wasn’t folded. More than anything else, I just wanted my family back.

Are you sweating the small stuff in your marriage? Are you so consumed with all your spouse doesn’t do right that you can’t even see all the things they do well? Do you give level 10 responses to level 2 issues? Are you wasting time focusing on things that really don’t matter?

You don’t have to end up separated from your spouse before you understand this mistake. Maybe the mistake that’s holding you back from the marriage you desire is a matter of focus and perspective. Change that, and you can change your marriage.

Do you struggle with sweating the small stuff in your  marriage?

Our youngest son, Isaiah played Upward Basketball this past season. Upward is a Christ-centered athletic program that does a great job teaching the fundamentals of basketball while at the same time teaching the kids about God and sportsmanship.

To reinforce the value of sportsmanship, the league doesn’t keep score. So all during the game, no matter what time you look up at the scoreboard, the score is 0-0.

I decided to coach Isaiah’s team this year and this was our first year in the Upward program in Nashville. What I realized after our first game was that our team was good, like really good! We crushed the first team that we played…I mean, I assume we did, but I didn’t know the score.

At halftime of the second game, I was walking off the court to go talk to our kids at halftime and the opposing coach came up to me. He said, “Maybe you could take it easy on us in the second half. You guys are up 34-10.” I looked down and he had a notebook and had been keeping the score the whole time. After the game, we met the kids and parents in a room off of the gym to hand out snacks and recap the game. Every single kid knew the score, because their parents told them.

So while they weren’t keeping score…EVERYONE was keeping score.

The same thing happens in our marriages doesn’t it? You say you don’t keep score, but the truth is you know exactly how much you’re winning by. You know the score. You rehearse the score over and over in your mind. You know the last time they messed up. You remember the last time you won an argument. You know the chores they didn’t do. You know the last hateful thing they said. You know the week and month of the last time they promised to come home for dinner but were late. You say you aren’t keeping score, but in your heart, you know the score.

The problem with score keeping in marriage is that while it appears that one person wins and the other loses, the reality is that both people lose. The person that is keeping score is usually bitter and resentful and the person that constantly has the score thrown up in their face usually walks on eggshells and tries to avoid arguments.

Both spouses feel defeated and exhausted.

One of the biggest mistakes we made in our marriage was scorekeeping. The deceptive thing about scorekeeping is that it probably won’t cause divorce…but it will prevent you from having the marriage God has in mind and you long for.

What if there was no scoreboard? What if you truly started living as if 1 Corinthians 13:5 were true: Love keeps no record of wrongs.

Scorekeeping has no winner.

Is scorekeeping an issue in your marriage?

Each Friday at RefineUs, we repost a blog post from the archives that we feel has good content, and can create good conversation over the weekend with you and your spouse or a good friend if you are not married. 

Restoration Principle #1- Utter and complete brokenness lays the foundation for a thriving marriage.

When Trisha and I were dating and when we first got married, I truly cared about all that was important to her. When she was sad, it made me sad. When she was disappointed, I wanted to understand what had disappointed her. When she got angry with me or when I hurt her feelings, it really bothered me, and I wanted to change. But over the course of time, my basis of remorse changed. I began to be resentful of the things that made her sad. I thought she overreacted when she was so disappointed. If I knew I hurt her feelings, I justified it with the times that she had hurt my feelings and never acknowledged it.

I wish that it didn’t take our separation to allow me to see the importance of this principle. I realized that so many times through our or marriage, my motivation for resolving conflict and restoring intimacy in my marriage was self-centered. Most of the time, if I experienced remorse, it was more for the consequences of my choices than the choices themselves.

For example, I would give a time that I would be home in the evening and I would usually not be home at that time. Something “important” came up, and I was often late. At first, Trisha’s feelings were hurt by this. But as it got more and more frequent she moved from hurt, to anger to resentment. Here is the sad truth…my heart didn’t break because she was hurt. My heart didn’t hurt because I had let her down by not coming thru on what I had said. I was sorry because my actions would cause an argument. I had so many things to deal with at the church, that the last thing I needed was an argument with my wife.

I am convinced that the reason that most couples argue about the same things today that they did last week and last month and last year is because there is a lack of brokenness in their hearts. Because there is no brokenness for the actual behavior, there is never life change. Repentance is shown so the argument can end, so you won’t go to bed mad, so your wife will have sex with you again, so you can go to work without guilt. But if you truly did an inventory of your heart, you are not really sorry for what you did, just that you got busted or the reaction or the ramifications of the choice. Pain avoidance is usually our primary motivation.

There is a specific passage of scripture that illuminated this condition of my heart.

“Godly sorrow leads to repentance and brings life, and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow leads to death.” 2 Corinthians 7:10

When our heart is first and foremost aligned with the heart of God, and our heart breaks for the things that break His heart, that naturally leads us to repentance…which brings life. Worldly sorrow in my opinion is to be as sorry as we have to be to avoid consequences.

“This is how we roll.”

The picture sparked all kinds of comments. Most of them making fun of me for making my wife mow the yard. It was funny and I have no problem admitting my failure at man stuff. I get made fun of all the time for being a better cook than I am a mechanic.

But here is the deal: This is a picture of our marriage working well.

Trisha and I spent the first ten years of our marriage trying to change each other into the person we thought the other should be; rather than celebrating who we each were created to be. Our attempt to change one another only left us frustrated and defeated.

So often in marriage relationships we place expectations on our spouse that even on their best day, they can’t live up to. For me, that was cooking. I had this preconceived notion that when we got married, Trisha would love to cook and would have dinner waiting for me when I got home from work. Trish doesn’t like to cook and always felt the pressure to live up to my expectations. She never felt joy and she was never celebrated.

I’m not too fond of yard work. It isn’t that I don’t like being outside, I just really don’t enjoy mowing. I would consistently wait until our yard needed bailed like hay before I would mow. Trish was constantly frustrated with me because she likes our yard taken care of and didn’t understand why I would put it off so long. I resented every time I mowed. I hated it.

We went out one night for dinner and the question was asked, “What area of our marriage brings you the most stress?” We each started listing things that we either weren’t good at but felt the pressure to do; or things we didn’t like but felt like it was expected of us. Mowing for me; cooking for her. So we switched. She likes to mow; I enjoy cooking. Amazing!

It may seem like a little thing, but I bet there are things in your marriage that suck the life out of your spouse. There are probably tasks that you do in your marriage that you can’t stand doing. What if you stopped expecting each other to be something you’re not? What if you stopped trying to change your spouse and started celebrating who they are? It was a game changer for us.

Maybe the best question you can ask your spouse is, “What area of our marriage brings you the most stress?”

Two things happen when you start talking about this: you set your spouse free to be who they are and in the process you are set free from your need to change them.

(P.S. You don’t have the power to change them anyway; only God does.)

Just for kicks, what is one chore you do, but you can’t stand?

Each week, we broadcast the message at our Internet Campus, and then following the message there is a live Q&A. Chris Surratt, the Internet Campus Pastor and I were talking during the Q&A, and in our conversation I quoted the scripture James 5:16:

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Chris said something in that moment that was brilliant. He said, “The confession James is talking about  isn’t for forgiveness. It is God that forgives. It is for healing; healing that comes through confessing our sins to one another.”  I had never thought about it that way.

Most of us have the “forgiveness” type of confession down. We know that in order to get forgiveness from God we have to confess our sins. Maybe you grew up confessing to a priest; maybe it is something that you do in your quiet time with God; maybe it is something that you do after you’ve made a huge mistake. Most of us know that forgiveness from God comes through confession.

We don’t talk about the “healing” type of confession in the Church very often. In fact, we have built a religious system that tries to find healing through hiding our sins, not confessing them. The sins we do confess are safe sins: bitterness, jealousy, materialism, selfishness.

I was the master at this. I appeared “authentic” for confessing socially acceptable sins while I lived as a prisoner to sins I wasn’t willing to confess. For years, I forfeited the healing that God longed to bring to my heart not because I didn’t confess my sins to Him; but because I refused to confess them to anyone else.

Temptation loses its power when we confess. 

Sin loses its ability to keep us fractured when we confess. 

Addictions lose the control they have in our lives when we confess. 

God knew that we would need two things to live in freedom in this life: the burden-bearing love of one another and the power of God through prayer. Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other…so that you may be healed. 

Will living this way be easy? No. Will it be worth it? More than you could ever imagine.

Healing may be a conversation away.