Category: The Living Room

A place for honest conversations about marriage, grief, healing, hope, and the stories God is still redeeming.

The Gift of Christian Community in Betrayal Trauma

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In church on Sunday, the sermon topic was biblical community. One question has stayed with me: Can I follow Jesus the way He intended me to without letting other followers into my life?

I tried to live without that community for many years. I believed in God, and I knew I had accepted Jesus’ gift of salvation, but I wasn’t living in community. I thought I was protecting myself from being hurt by other believers the way I had been before.

I’ve also been thinking about community in relation to my own healing from betrayal. When someone you trusted betrays you, it can make the world feel unsafe. Not only did my husband betray our marriage covenant, but my former longtime best friend betrayed me too. She was the “other person.” Since discovery, I have wondered what is true, who is safe, and whether I can let anyone close again. It can feel easier to pull back and try to carry the pain by myself. But that isn’t the way God wants me to follow Jesus.

Acts 2:42 says the early believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Their fellowship wasn’t just sitting together for a few hours and then going home. They shared life. They noticed when someone had a need and stepped in to help (Acts 2:44–45). They were learning to follow Jesus together.

I found that kind of community when I joined Unseen Beauty, a support group for betrayed wives. Before then, I had not found anyone who understood the pain of betrayal and could sit with me in it. I didn’t have to explain every layer of the experience before I felt understood. Their presence helped me feel less alone. Their faith helped remind me that my story and my healing were still in God’s hands.

I need people who help me grow, too. Proverbs 27:17 says that one person sharpens another. For me, that can look like encouragement, honest questions, prayer, or someone reminding me of what is true when fear or shame is speaking loudly. It also means being willing to receive help. I don’t have to pretend I’m fine. I need people who will keep pointing me toward Jesus, even when things are hard. I have found that kind of encouragement in Unseen Beauty.

Sometimes we need people to help us carry what feels too heavy. Galatians 6:2 tells us to bear one another’s burdens. Betrayal can leave me carrying grief, confusion, fear, and exhaustion. Sometimes a friend’s help is simply listening without trying to fix everything. Sometimes it’s a text, a meal, a prayer, or remembering to ask how I’m doing after a difficult conversation or appointment. Letting someone care for me doesn’t mean I’m weak or that I lack faith. God often cares for us through the people He puts in our lives.

I also know that not every group or Christian friendship is automatically safe. We still need wisdom. Trust takes time. Someone who cares about me should not pressure me to minimize the harm, rush forgiveness, trust before trust has been rebuilt, or make a decision before I’m ready. Grace and truth both matter. I need people who can make room for honesty, respect my boundaries, and point me toward Christ.

Another thing I thought about from Sunday’s sermon is that the care we receive can help us care for someone else. Acts 2 describes the believers gathering and sharing life together, and says the Lord added to their number (Acts 2:46–47). Jesus said people would know His disciples by their love for one another (John 13:35). The care I’ve received through Unseen Beauty has helped me see how I might be there for another woman – to listen, encourage her, and help her find wise support as she walks through betrayal and considers healthy boundaries. Romans 12:5 says that though we are many, we are one body in Christ, and we belong to one another.

I’m grateful I don’t have to follow Jesus alone. I can ask myself, Who knows me well enough to help me keep following Him? And who might God be inviting me to know more deeply, so I can walk with her too?

Community hasn’t erased the betrayal or made healing happen overnight. But God has used faithful women in my life to remind me of what is true, help carry what feels too heavy, and walk beside me as I take the next step. I am very grateful for that!

When I Didn’t Hold Firm

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Yesterday morning, I didn’t hold firm to one of my boundaries. I felt myself becoming very triggered, and instead of walking away, I stayed in the conversation. I knew I was becoming overwhelmed, but I kept talking and trying to work through something when I was already too flooded to work through it well. I let myself spiral into an emotional place I haven’t been in almost a year, and honestly, it is a place I never want to see again.

When I finally started to come back to normal, I felt ashamed. I had failed to keep a promise I made to myself. I don’t like saying that I failed, but that is what happened. I had hoped that after everything I have learned and all the work I have done, I would respond differently. I wanted to recognize what was happening, pause, hold my boundary, and walk away before I fell that far. But I didn’t, and I was disappointed in myself.

I think part of what hurt so much afterward was knowing that I had let myself down. These boundaries are important to me. I didn’t make them casually. I put them in place because I know what happens to me when a difficult conversation goes too far and I become overwhelmed. I know how quickly fear and hurt can take over, and I know how difficult it can be to climb back out of that emotional pit once I am there. I had made a promise to myself that I would step away before I reached that place again, and this time I didn’t keep that promise.

So I went back and read my boundary statement. I needed to remind myself why I had written it in the first place. I am a child of God. I am beloved and valuable. I am free and responsible to choose what I will participate in. My boundaries help me live in that truth.

Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” I don’t think that means I should build walls around myself or avoid anything difficult, but I do think there is wisdom in recognizing that I have a responsibility to guard what I continue participating in. For me, sometimes guarding my heart means recognizing when a conversation is no longer productive and stepping away.

Holding my boundaries is part of being good to myself. They are not about punishing my husband or controlling his behavior. They are about recognizing what is mine to choose. I can decide when a conversation is no longer healthy for me. I can decide when I need to stop talking and walk away. I can choose not to keep participating in something that is pulling me farther and farther away from being grounded in truth.

I wish I had done that. I wish I had recognized sooner how overwhelmed I was becoming and stepped away. I wish I had kept the promise I made to myself. I don’t want to brush past that or tell myself it didn’t matter, because it did. There is something here for me to learn. I need to recognize the warning signs sooner. I need to listen when I know I am becoming flooded. And when I know I need to step away, I need to actually step away.

But I also don’t want to take this failure and turn it into shame. I can be disappointed in the choice I made without condemning myself for making it. Romans 8:1 says, “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” That doesn’t mean I pretend I did everything right. It doesn’t mean there aren’t things I need to own or do differently. It means my failure does not change who I am in Christ.

Hebrews 4:16 tells me that I can approach God’s throne of grace with confidence so that I can receive mercy and find grace when I need it. And I needed it yesterday morning.

I am so thankful that God is near to me even when I mess up. I don’t have to come to God only when I have responded perfectly. I can come to Him when I am disappointed in myself, when I wish I had done better, and when I know I need His help to make a different choice next time. His grace doesn’t excuse what happened. His grace gives me somewhere to go with it.

I am reminded about something I say to my two-and-a-half-year-old grandson when he is learning something new. Sometimes he gets frustrated when he can’t do something the first time. I look at him and say in an encouraging voice, “Try again.”

I don’t say it because it doesn’t matter that he didn’t get it right. I say it because I know he is learning. I know that not getting something the first time doesn’t mean he can’t learn how to do it. He may need another attempt. Maybe several more attempts. So I encourage him to try again.

I think I need to give myself some of that same grace.

I failed to hold my boundary. I don’t like that, and I want to learn from it. But I get to try again.

And I’m sure there will be a next time. There will probably be another difficult conversation, another trigger, another moment when fear or hurt starts rising inside of me. I cannot promise myself that I will never feel that way again. What I can do is keep learning to recognize it sooner and make a different choice when it happens.

Maybe next time I will recognize what is happening a little sooner. Maybe next time I will stop the conversation before I am completely overwhelmed. Maybe next time I will keep the promise I made to myself.

Lamentations 3:22–23 says that because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, His compassions never fail, and His mercies are new every morning. Those verses have always been especially meaningful to me because Great Is Thy Faithfulness is my favorite hymn. I have loved that hymn for years, but today the truth behind it feels a little more personal.

God’s faithfulness is not dependent on mine.

I failed to keep a promise I made to myself, but God did not fail me. His mercy was still there when I finally climbed out of that emotional pit. His grace was still there when I was disappointed in myself. His faithfulness did not change because I had a bad morning.

Maybe that is part of what “try again” means for me. It isn’t me promising that I will get everything right next time. It is knowing that because God is faithful, I can get back up and keep growing.

I want to be good to myself by keeping the boundaries I have set and I never want to see that emotional pit again. I know how dark it feels down there, and I don’t want to willingly keep walking toward a place that I know is harmful to me.

One bad morning doesn’t erase the progress I have made, but I also don’t want to waste what happened by refusing to learn from it. I failed to hold my boundary. I let myself down, and I don’t like that. But God was still near. His grace was still available. His faithfulness never changed.

Tomorrow His mercies will be new again. And when the next opportunity comes, I can remember what I so often tell my grandson.

Try again.

Control, Boundaries, and the Freedom to Let God Be God

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I’ve been working through the last few verses of 1 John, and John’s final warning has stayed with me: “Dear children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). The timing caught my attention because the leader of my support group recently shared a prayer that included this line: “Forgive us for making their recovery an idol that dictates our daily peace, our joy, and our sanity.” I’m not bowing down to a statue, but there have been times when I looked to my husband’s recovery for a sense of security and peace that I can only find in God.

That made me think about how much I wanted to manage my husband’s recovery. I was afraid that if I stopped watching, reminding, questioning, and trying to keep things moving, he might stop doing the work. I wanted him to go to meetings, work his steps, talk to his sponsor, and understand what needed to change. I wanted him to see what I could see.

I understand why I felt that way. After betrayal, I wanted to know what was happening. I wanted to feel safe. I wanted to believe that if I stayed alert and kept asking the right questions, I could prevent more hurt. I needed to ask and talk about honesty and safety. But I was also carrying the fear that if I didn’t keep his recovery going, it might not go at all.

That was a heavy burden to carry. I couldn’t make him recover by trying harder. I couldn’t make him repent, or create lasting change by reminding him what to do. His recovery is his responsibility.

I’m learning that boundaries and control are not the same thing. I can ask for honesty and transparency. I can speak up when something doesn’t feel safe. I can step away from a conversation that becomes hurtful. I can decide what I’m willing to participate in. Those choices belong to me. But I can’t make my husband choose recovery. I can’t make his choices for him.

That still brings up fear. What happens if I stop managing it and he doesn’t keep choosing recovery? What if our future doesn’t look the way I hope it will? I don’t have answers to those questions. I still care deeply about my marriage. I still hope for a healthier future. Letting go of control doesn’t make those hopes disappear. It means I’m learning that I can’t guarantee that future by carrying responsibility that belongs to my husband.

On Sunday, we sang a song at church that brought this back to mind. One line says, “I won’t bow to idols.” The verse also talks about standing firm in worship, even in the fire, and not letting feelings shape what is true. It made me think about how easily my husband’s recovery became an idol for me. It also brought up my fear that my relationship with him may never be what I want it to be. I want God to heal the damage in my marriage, and I want my husband to keep choosing recovery. But I don’t want fear about the future to shape my faith or decide where I turn for peace. I want to keep turning to God, even when I don’t know what happens next.

John also writes about the confidence we can have when we bring our requests to God according to His will (1 John 5:14–15). I can ask God for wisdom, truth, courage, and help to take the next step. I can pray for my husband and for our marriage. I’m still learning what it means to trust God with the future when I don’t know exactly what it will look like. I know I can bring Him my hopes, but I can’t treat prayer like a way to make sure the ending turns out the way I want.

As I’ve started releasing the responsibility of managing my husband’s recovery, I’ve experienced peace. The circumstances aren’t all resolved. I still need honesty. I still need to pay attention to what is true and keep the boundaries that matter. But I’m not trying to hold everything together by myself anymore. I have left my husband’s choices with him and asked God to lead me in mine.

I want other wives on this unwanted journey to experience some of that same freedom. I know how easy it is to feel responsible for keeping everything on track. I can’t tell another woman what God is asking her to do in her own circumstances. I can only share what God is teaching me: I am responsible for my choices. My husband is responsible for his. And I can trust God with what I can’t control.

Surrender doesn’t mean the outcome no longer matters to me. It means the outcome is no longer mine to control. I still hope. I still pray. I still take the next step in front of me. And I’m learning to let God be God.

More Than Words

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In the early 90s, it seemed like every guy who could get his hands on a guitar learned how to play More Than Words by Extreme to impress a girl. My husband was one of those guys. We were early in our dating relationship when he picked up his guitar and played and sang it to me. I was young and in love, and of course I thought it was romantic. I mean, what girl wouldn’t want the guy she was falling in love with to pick up a guitar and sing a love song to her?

I’ve thought about that song several times lately, and the irony of it isn’t lost on me now. Because I have been waiting for for a long time for more than words.

Words do matter to me. I want to hear “I love you.” I want an apology when someone hurts me. I want someone to tell me they understand. I want to hear that things are going to be different. And for a long time, I think words gave me hope. Maybe sometimes they gave me enough hope that I didn’t look very closely at what came after them. I heard a lot of “I’m sorry.” I heard a lot of “I won’t do it again” I heard promises that things were going to change. I wanted to believe those words and sometimes I did. But eventually words that aren’t followed by change start to lose their meaning.

I didn’t understand that when I was a young woman listening to him play his guitar. I probably thought love was something you proved with big romantic gestures. Flowers. Love songs. Saying the right things. Maybe that is part of love. Those things can be meaningful. But thirty-plus years of marriage have taught me that love is usually proven in much less romantic ways.

It is keeping your word when nobody is reminding you. It is paying attention when someone tells you they are hurting. It is changing behavior when you realize what you are doing is causing harm. It is keeping commitments. It is telling the truth when the truth is uncomfortable. It is respecting a boundary even when you don’t like it. It is doing the work you said you were going to do without someone having to ask whether you did it. It is consistency.

Maybe that’s what I mean when I say I need more than words. I don’t need more promises. I don’t need to hear that this time is going to be different. I don’t need another apology followed by another explanation of why the same thing happened again. I don’t need to be convinced that he means it this time. I don’t expect perfection. I expect learning and learning should eventually show changed behavior.

I know this is a season where there are going to be mistakes. Learning a different way of living and responding after years of doing things one way isn’t going to happen overnight. Grace leaves room for mistakes. But grace doesn’t mean pretending that repeated patterns are growth. If something happens and he recognizes that it hurt me, I need him to learn from it. If he understands something today that he didn’t understand yesterday, eventually that understanding should change the way he responds tomorrow. If he apologizes for a behavior, eventually I should see less of that behavior. Not because I reminded him. Not because I explained it one more time. Not because I managed his recovery well enough to get him there. Because he learned.

And learning should eventually produce fruit. John the Baptist said, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8). I keep coming back to that. Repentance isn’t just saying words about what happened. It isn’t feeling terrible about it. It isn’t promising not to do it again. Those things may be part of repentance, but eventually repentance becomes visible. There should be fruit.

Maybe right now some of that fruit is still small. Maybe it looks like catching an old behavior sooner. Taking responsibility without being asked. Respecting a boundary the first time. Following through on something he said he would do. Choosing honesty when hiding would be easier. Recognizing my pain without immediately defending himself against it. I don’t need promises that fruit is coming. I need time to watch what grows.

Because after more than thirty years of words, they don’t make me feel safe anymore. Words can’t rebuild trust by themselves. Words can’t convince me that something has changed. Only the fruit that follows them can do that.

It is strange to think about that young woman sitting there listening to the man she loved play More Than Words on his guitar. She couldn’t possibly have known what the next thirty years would hold. She didn’t know how much those words would eventually mean to her, although not the way the writer of the song intended.

I don’t need someone to sing me a love song anymore. I need a love that becomes visible in ordinary, consistent faithfulness. Maybe that is what I have been asking for all along.

–Aimee
September 1, 2026

I Thought I Would Be More Excited

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I thought I would be more excited. They are finally building our house. After five years of talking about this, planning for it, waiting, changing plans, waiting some more, dealing with financing and permits and all the other things that had to happen to get us here, there is finally equipment sitting outside. The builders have staked out the house. They are clearing the ground. The permit is approved. It is actually happening. Everybody is excited… except I’m not.

This journey started five years ago, in August 2021, when our son put his house up for sale and moved back home. We had this idea that we would find enough land where we could all build and live near each other. In January 2022, we found the property. We bought it on February 22, 2022. My husband and our son actually signed the closing papers at 2:22 p.m. on 2/22/22. It was one of those funny little details that made the whole thing feel even more special. At that point, I thought I knew what we were building.

I didn’t know anything about my husband’s addiction or the betrayal in our marriage. I wouldn’t begin to learn about any of that until September 8, 2023. When we bought this property, I was planning a future based on the marriage I believed I had. I had no idea how much my understanding of my marriage, my husband, myself, and our future was going to change. But the plan for the property kept moving forward.

Our son and daughter-in-law finally moved into their house in July 2025. We put our house up for sale and moved in with them that October so we could move forward with building ours. Even that move happened during a very uncertain time in our marriage. I originally moved into a separate bedroom. I said I was going to stay there for 30 days because I needed the space. I made it two weeks before I moved back into the bedroom with him.

I think about that differently now. I knew I needed space, but I didn’t trust myself enough to keep taking the space I needed. I wanted things to be better. I wanted to move forward. I wanted our marriage to heal. And I think sometimes wanting those things so badly has made me move forward before I was actually ready. Now, almost a year later, I am asking for space again. This time I am trying to trust myself enough not to rush out of it just because my husband wants to move forward or because I wish I was ready. I am learning that wanting something to be better doesn’t mean it is better. Wanting to be ready doesn’t mean I am ready. And wanting there to be fruit doesn’t make the fruit appear.

And right in the middle of all of that, after this really long wait, they are finally building our house. I have waited five years for this. I have spent countless hours thinking about this house, drawing plans, changing plans, making decisions, figuring out how we were going to pay for it, selling our old house, moving in with our kids, dealing with permits and contractors and all the little things that had to happen before somebody could finally put a piece of equipment in the dirt and start building. Now they are doing it, and I look outside and don’t feel excited.

I’m glad they’re building it. I want the house. I’m thankful that we finally got the permit and that things are moving forward. But there is this huge question mark hanging over all of it. What is my life going to look like in that house? Am I even going to live there? Is it ever really going to be my home? Those are horrible questions to have running through my head while everyone else is celebrating breaking ground, but they are honest questions because I don’t know what is going to happen with my marriage.

I want this new house to represent something new for us. I want it to be a place where we start a different chapter of our marriage. I want the relationship we have inside those walls to be different from the relationship we had before. But a new house can’t create a new marriage. New walls don’t create safety. A new bedroom doesn’t create intimacy. A new kitchen doesn’t create connection. A new address doesn’t change old patterns. There has to actually be something new.

And right now, that is where I am struggling. I don’t expect perfection, but I do expect learning. I expect repentance to eventually produce fruit. Matthew 3:8 says, “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” I can’t make that fruit appear just because the house is being built. I can’t convince myself that everything is going to be okay because I desperately want it to be okay. And I can’t build the kind of marriage I want by myself.

The builders can build the house. They have blueprints. They have measurements. They know where the walls go and where the doors and windows belong. They can look at the plans and know what they are building toward. I wish I had a blueprint like that for the rest of my life. I wish somebody could show me what happens next. I wish I knew whether RD is going to do the work necessary to build something different with me. I wish I knew whether the changes will last. I wish I knew whether we will eventually move into that house together and whether it will feel safe and peaceful and really become our home.

I don’t know. Maybe that is why I can’t feel the excitement everyone expects me to feel. For five years, the question was whether we would ever get this house built. Now that the house is finally being built, the question has become whether the life I imagined living there is going to exist. I thought breaking ground would feel like arriving somewhere. Instead, I still feel like I am standing in the unknown.

But maybe I don’t have to know yet. Proverbs 3:5-6 tells me to trust in the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding. I have gone back to those words many times in my life when I couldn’t see what God was doing. Trusting God has never meant that I suddenly understood everything or that I liked what was happening. Sometimes it has simply meant admitting that I don’t know what happens next and trusting that He does.

So I’ll watch the builders build the house based on the blueprints I made and trust God with the parts of my life for which I don’t have a blueprint. I don’t know whether this marriage will become what I hope it can become. I don’t know what my life will look like when those walls are finished. I don’t even know whether that house will become the home I imagined when we bought this land on February 22, 2022.

I wish I knew. I wish I could look at all that equipment outside and just be excited that after five years, this is finally happening. Maybe someday I will find that excitement, but for today, I am giving myself permission to just be still.

-Aimee
August 29, 2026

How Bright Is the Room?

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Yesterday, I attended a webinar called Sobriety, Safety, and Healing After Betrayal with Dr. Jake Porter. There was so much good information shared, but one idea really stayed with me.

Dr. Porter compared sobriety to a light switch. It’s either on or off. But safety is more like a dimmer switch. The light switch can be on, but if the dimmer is all the way down at zero, there still isn’t any light. This explains how my husband can be sober but I can still be searching for emotional safety.

That made me think about how I communicate what I’m feeling. It is okay to say, “I don’t feel safe,” but it may be more helpful to say, “I feel less safe than I did yesterday,” or, “I feel safer than I did last week.”

When I think about safety on a scale from zero to ten, I can see how the number can move up and down during the healing process, and probably throughout the rest of life. Something my husband does may move me toward feeling safer, while something else may move me back down again. Feeling safer doesn’t mean trust has been completely restored, and feeling less safe doesn’t mean every bit of progress has been lost.

I’ve also been thinking about how a marriage is a lot like a house. A house has different rooms, and in this house every room has its own light switch and dimmer. In the same way, there are different rooms within a marriage. I may feel a seven in one room and only a two in another. I may feel fairly safe with my husband in one area while still feeling very unsafe with him in another. I want to be very clear that I am not speaking about physical safety. That should always be at a 10.

Looking at safety this way is also helping me understand where I need boundaries. If the safety in one room is at a seven, I may not need as many boundaries there. But if another room is at a two, then I need to look carefully at what boundaries I need in that area.

When my husband and I were talking about this, he pointed out that the boundary scale almost works in the opposite direction from the safety scale. If my safety is at a two, I may need a level eight boundary. If my safety is at a nine, I may need only a level one boundary. The less safe I feel in a particular room, the stronger my boundaries may need to be there.

Those boundaries are not meant to punish my husband or control him. They help protect me in the places where safety and trust have not yet been rebuilt. As safety grows through rigorous honesty, transparency, vulnerability, humility, and changed behavior, some of those boundaries may be able to change too.

Communicating where I am in each room can give my husband a more honest picture of how his choices are affecting my sense of safety. I’m not responsible for managing how he feels about the number, and I don’t have to tell him how to fix it. I am giving him an honest picture of where the light is growing brighter and where the room is still dark.

There was a lot of good information in the webinar, but the part about the dimmer switch really stuck with me. It helped me see that safety is not something I either have or don’t have. It can move up and down a little at a time. Maybe it is because I’m an electrician’s wife, but thinking about safety this way gives me a clearer way to understand and express what I am feeling, both to myself and to my husband.

-Aimee
September 17, 2026

Stop Chasing the Gerbil

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I recently read a story about a woman whose son got a gerbil. One day the gerbil got out of its cage, and every time someone in the family saw it running through the house, complete chaos broke out. Everyone would drop whatever they were doing and try to catch the gerbil. They would chase it around the house and under furniture, trying to get it back into its cage, but they could never catch it.

Eventually, the woman just gave up trying. She didn’t stop caring about the gerbil or hope something bad happened to it. She just stopped dropping everything and joining in the chaos every time the gerbil appeared. Then one day, the gerbil came out, walked right up to her, stopped in front of her, and let her pick it up and put it back in the cage, where it apparently lived happily for the rest of its little gerbil life.

I think I have spent a lot of my life chasing the gerbil. When there is a problem, I want to figure it out. When someone I love doesn’t know what to do, I want to help them figure out what to do. When something doesn’t make sense, I want to understand it. When someone doesn’t understand me, I explain. When something has been forgotten, I remind. When someone is upset, I want to help make it better. Those aren’t necessarily bad things. In a lot of areas of my life, those qualities have served me really well.

But I am starting to realize that somewhere along the way, especially in my marriage and throughout this healing process, helping turned into carrying. Supporting turned into managing. Loving sometimes turned into taking responsibility for things that were never actually mine to be responsible for.

Every time a gerbil ran across the room, I chased it. Why did he do that? What does he need to understand? How can I explain this differently so he finally gets it? What should he do differently next time? What is he missing in his recovery? Did he remember the appointment? Does he understand why this hurt me? What does he need to do to repair this? What does he need to do now?

I have spent so much time trying to figure things out for him. Sometimes he even asks me to. “What should I do?” has become a question I am realizing I don’t have to answer. He can figure it out. That’s easy to write it, but it doesn’t feel simple at all.

Galatians 6:2 tells us to “bear one another’s burdens,” but just a few verses later Galatians 6:5 says, “each will have to bear his own load.” I am starting to learn the difference. There are burdens we are supposed to help one another carry. That’s part of loving people. But that doesn’t mean I am supposed to pick up someone else’s load and carry it for them.

My husband’s recovery is his load. His choices are his load. Remembering his commitments is his load. Looking at his own calendar is his load. Finding information that is available to him is his load. Figuring out what to do when he doesn’t know what to do is his load. His relationship with God is his load. His fear, disappointment, frustration, loneliness and uncertainty are things I can care about deeply without believing it is my responsibility to make them go away.

I think that is where not chasing the gerbil gets hard for me. It isn’t just about deciding I am not going to fix things for him anymore. I have to be willing to live with what happens when I don’t.

If I don’t remind him, what if he forgets? If I don’t explain it again, what if he never understands? If I don’t tell him what he should do, what if he does the wrong thing? If I stop trying to move recovery forward, what if he doesn’t move forward? If I stop trying to make our marriage healthier, what if he doesn’t do his part?

And maybe the question underneath all of those questions is the one that scares me the most. What if I stop chasing the gerbil and nothing happens? What if I stop doing the things I have been doing and he doesn’t pick up his load? What if he doesn’t grow? What if he doesn’t seek God? What if he doesn’t do the work? What if our marriage doesn’t become what I desperately want it to become?

That’s scary because chasing the gerbil gives me the feeling that at least I am doing something. Even when it is exhausting me, I can convince myself that maybe if I explain it one more time, find the right resource, ask the right question, point out the right pattern or tell him what I need, something will finally click.

But maybe part of my healing is accepting that I cannot make it click. I can’t do his recovery for him. I can’t make him understand something he isn’t willing or ready to understand. I can’t make him remember. I can’t make him stop and think before he reacts. I can’t make him seek God. I can’t make him learn from his mistakes. And I can’t make him become a safe husband by explaining to him how to become one. I can only pay attention to what he chooses to do with the information and opportunities he already has.

That doesn’t mean I am giving up on him. It doesn’t mean I am giving up on my marriage. It doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens. I think for a long time I would have confused stepping back with not loving someone enough. Now I am starting to see that there is a difference between loving someone and taking responsibility for them.

I can care that he is confused without solving his confusion. I can care that he is anxious without immediately reassuring him. I can know that he is hurting without making it my responsibility to stop the hurt. I can want him to grow without teaching him how to grow. I can want our marriage to heal without taking responsibility for making it heal.

And maybe the hardest part is that I have to let his choices give me information. If I stop reminding him, I get to see whether he learns to remember. If I stop telling him what he should do, I get to see what he chooses to do. If I stop explaining the same thing over and over, I get to see whether he seeks understanding somewhere besides me. If I stop moving the relationship forward, I get to see whether he does the work that makes moving forward possible. That feels incredibly vulnerable because I may not like what I learn.

But there is another part of this that I am just beginning to understand. When I am constantly stepping in, explaining, reminding, fixing, researching, teaching and trying to keep everything moving forward, I may not only be doing work that belongs to my husband. I may also be getting in the middle of work that belongs to God.

Maybe my husband needs to feel confused sometimes. Maybe he needs to sit with not knowing what to do. Maybe he needs to experience the consequences of forgetting something instead of having me remind him. Maybe he needs to wrestle with God instead of coming to me for the answer. Maybe some of the discomfort I have been trying so hard to relieve is the very discomfort God can use to teach him something.

I don’t know what God is doing in my husband. I don’t know what choices he will make. And I don’t know what will happen in our marriage if I stop trying to keep everything moving in the direction I desperately want it to go. That is where this becomes about more than not chasing a gerbil. It becomes about trusting God with the outcome.

Proverbs 3:5 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” I have always thought about that verse during the times when I couldn’t figure something out. But maybe there is another kind of trust God is asking from me now. Maybe it isn’t just, God, I can’t figure this out, so I am going to trust You. Maybe sometimes it is, God, I probably could keep trying to figure this out, but I am beginning to understand that this isn’t mine to figure out.

My responsibility before God is for my own choices, my own words, my own obedience, my own healing and my own heart. I can tell the truth without making someone understand it. I can have a boundary without making someone like it. I can walk away from an unhealthy interaction without convincing the other person that it was unhealthy. I can let another adult wrestle with a problem without jumping in and solving it. And I can leave room for God to work in places where I have been frantically trying to do the work myself. I think that may be the hardest part. I have to stop chasing the gerbil without knowing what happens next.

Maybe my husband picks up his load. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he grows in ways I have prayed for. Maybe there are things I learn that are painful. I don’t know yet. But I am beginning to understand that loving my husband does not require me to control the outcome. Trusting God does not mean believing He will make everything turn out the way I want it to. It means trusting Him enough to obey Him with what belongs to me and surrender what doesn’t. Maybe it isn’t giving up at all. Maybe it’s finally realizing that I don’t have to chase every gerbil that gets loose.

Some things were never mine to catch.

A Lesson From the Boba Lady

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Sometimes we say really stupid things.

The other day my husband said something that stopped me in my tracks and made me think, Did you really just say that to me? My husband loves boba drinks. There is a local vendor that he will buy from every chance he gets. We were at a local ice cream place and he noticed that they now serve boba drinks. Without missing a beat he said, “No, I can’t cheat on my boba lady.”

I just stood there. I didn’t say anything out loud, but in my head I was thinking, Did you really just say that to me? Had he not been unfaithful to our marriage covenant, I probably would have laughed. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He wasn’t being malicious. He was making a joke about buying a drink from someone else. But still. You cheated on me and broke our marriage covenant, but you won’t cheat on your favorite boba vendor?

It only hurt a little. It wasn’t one of those things that sent me spiraling or caused some huge rupture between us. I didn’t even say anything to him about it. But the comment has kept coming back to me. And the more I have thought about it, the less I have thought about what he said and the more I have started thinking about the things I say.

How many times have I said something stupid without stopping to think about how it might sound to the person hearing it? How many times have I been trying to be funny or just having a normal conversation and said something that landed completely differently than I intended?

James 1:19 says, “Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.” I have always thought about being slow to speak in the context of anger or conflict. Don’t react. Don’t say something in anger that I will regret later. Listen first. Calm down. Think before I respond. But maybe being slow to speak is bigger than that. Maybe it applies when I’m joking. Maybe it applies when I’m telling a story. Maybe it applies when I’m having a completely normal conversation and the words are just coming out of my mouth. Maybe being slow to speak means remembering that my words are going to land somewhere.

I’ve never considered myself funny. I’m definitely not the person in the room with the quick response that makes everyone laugh. Usually I think about what I could have said about twenty minutes later. My son, on the other hand, has always been quick like that. I remember one time he was putting on his coat and several screws somehow popped into the air and fell onto the floor. His immediate response was, “And for my next trick…” He didn’t get that from me!

I have never been quick with words like that. In fact, when someone says something confrontational to me, I usually don’t respond immediately either. I have always called it freezing. Something is said, and I just stand there. Then hours or sometimes even days later, after I have had time to process what was said and how I feel about it, I decide whether I want to say something or just let it go. I have always thought that was a negative thing about myself.

But now I’m wondering if I have been too quick to label all of it as freezing. I’m not saying freezing is a fruit of the Spirit. It isn’t. And I’m sure there are times when I really do freeze. But maybe there are also times when what I have called freezing is actually restraint. Maybe I don’t always need an immediate response. Maybe sometimes I am simply slow to speak.

Galatians 5:22–23 tells us that the fruit of the Spirit includes patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. The more I think about those words, the more I realize how much they should affect the way I speak. Patience doesn’t demand that I respond right now. Kindness considers how my words are going to affect the person hearing them. Gentleness changes how I say something, even when something does need to be said. Self-control reminds me that just because I can say something doesn’t mean I need to.

Proverbs 17:27 says, “The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint.” Maybe I have spent too much time wishing I could think faster instead of asking whether I actually need to.

There are definitely times when I need to speak. Being slow to speak doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations or never addressing something that needs to be addressed. Sometimes after I have had time to process, I realize I do need to go back and say something. Other times, after a few hours or a few days, I realize it really doesn’t matter and I can let it go. Maybe wisdom is learning the difference.

And maybe part of becoming more rooted and anchored in Jesus is learning to recognize what He is doing in me, even in the parts of myself I have always considered weaknesses. I am learning more about who He is, but I am also learning more about who I am as I follow Him. Sometimes those lessons come through Bible study or prayer. Sometimes they come through really painful things.

And apparently sometimes they come from standing in an ice cream shop listening to my husband talk about not cheating on his boba lady. God can use some pretty ordinary things to get my attention.

This time, He reminded me to be slow to speak. And maybe to give myself a little more grace when I am.

–Aimee
August 17, 2026

Faithfulness Isn’t Always Feeling Better

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Sometimes faithfulness looks like hurting and choosing not to make the hurt worse.

Yesterday sucked. There really isn’t a better way to say it. It was one of those days that took me right back to what life used to feel like before recovery started. The selfishness, the harshness, the excuses. Some of those old behaviors showed up again, and I hate how quickly they can bring back old pain. I think that’s one of the hardest parts of healing from betrayal. Something can happen today, but the pain isn’t only about today. It reminds me of all the other times, all the other hurt, all the years when this was normal and I didn’t understand why things felt the way they did. I hate that after everything we have been through and all the work that has been done, we can have a day that feels so much like the old days.

We had strong thunderstorms yesterday, so I couldn’t spend time outside like I wanted to. Normally I can go out to the flower field and find something that needs done. I can pull weeds, cut flowers, plant something, move something. There is always something to do out there. But yesterday I couldn’t do that, so I ended up driving an hour one way to an Amish store alone and then sitting inside watching TV. At one point he came in and asked me what was wrong and if something had happened. I was pretty mad about that. How could he not know what was wrong? He said he knew about us, but he thought maybe something else had happened. No. Nothing else happened. This was enough.

I was sad. I was angry. And I wanted the pain to stop. I thought about drinking. I’ve used alcohol before to numb what I didn’t want to feel, and for a little while it works. But the problem is still there when the alcohol wears off, and usually I’ve just added something else to feel bad about. So yesterday I didn’t drink. I prayed. A lot. Eventually I went to bed pretty early. I didn’t sleep very well. I kept waking up throughout the night, and this morning I don’t feel rested. I’m still sad. The problem isn’t fixed. The pain didn’t disappear because I prayed instead of drinking.

But maybe that’s the point I’m beginning to understand. Faithfulness doesn’t always make me feel better immediately. Sometimes faithfulness is being hurt and choosing not to make the hurt worse. Psalm 62:8 says, “Trust in him at all times, you people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” Yesterday I had a choice about where I was going to pour out everything I was feeling. I could try to numb it, or I could take it to God. So I took it to God. Not nicely. Not with some perfectly worded prayer. I was hurt. I was angry. I was disappointed. And I told Him.

I couldn’t control the choices my husband was making. I couldn’t control whether he slipped back into old behaviors. But I could choose whether I went back to mine. His sliding backward does not mean I have to slide backward with him. I think that is something I really need to remember.

I don’t know what happens from here. I don’t know if yesterday was one really bad day or if there is something more that needs to be dealt with. That isn’t mine to figure out this morning. This morning I am tired. I’m still sad. I’m still hurt. But I didn’t make the hurt worse.

Maybe faithfulness today simply means I take this pain back to God again. Maybe it means I tell Him, “This still hurts. I still hate this. I don’t want to be here again. Help me trust You with today.”

Because sometimes choosing God doesn’t immediately change how I feel. Sometimes faithfulness is waking up the next morning still hurting and choosing Him again.

-Aimee
August 12, 2026

I Stopped Searching for the Exit

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I’ve been working through chapter 3 of Women of the Word, and one sentence really stuck with me. Jen Wilkin describes several ways we commonly approach the Bible, and as I read through them, I realized I had spent years asking the wrong question.

Almost every time I opened my Bible or Bible App, I was asking, “How can this help me?”

To be fair, there are seasons when that is exactly where I am. When life is falling apart, I do need God’s comfort. David, Elijah and even Jesus all sought comfort from God. Jesus said his soul was overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Then Jesus prayed and asked God to take “this cup” from him and then followed with “not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:38-39).

There is nothing wrong with bringing our pain to God. But somewhere along the way, I began to realize that Scripture wasn’t inviting me to make myself (or anyone else) the center of every verse. It was inviting me to know the One who is at the center of every verse.

All I used to want was for God to calm the storm. I wanted answers. I wanted healing. I wanted certainty about the future of my marriage. But in the middle of all of those wants, something started to change. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I stopped searching for the exit. I started looking for God. Instead of asking, “God, how do I escape this?” I started asking, “God, who are You in the middle of this?”

The best thing is that the more I’m getting to know God, the less desperate I am becoming for escape. I’m not consumed with asking Him why anymore. I’m no longer consumed with escaping the pain. I’m not sitting and sulking in my pain. I have shifted my focus from me to God. When I read Paul’s letters now, I notice something I used to miss. Some of the most joy-filled words in Scripture were written from a prison cell. His circumstances didn’t determine his peace because his peace wasn’t rooted in his circumstances. It was rooted in Christ.

I’m still learning. There are still times when I open my Bible looking for answers about me. But more and more, I’m learning to ask “Who is God?”

Along this road I have discovered something I didn’t expect. The more I get to know God, the more everything else begins to make sense.

Not because I have all the answers, but because I am really getting to know the One who does.

-Aimee