Giving Your Marriage a Second Chance (Part 1 of 2)

Have you lost hope in your marriage help restore a mirrored intensive experience from focus on the family can help you restore help find out more help restore.com or call 1-866-875-2915 by Jim Daly in on today's focus on the family to hear the story of one couples difficult marriage and why after 3 1/2 years. The wife, Juana left this note for her husband. Dear Terry, I decided to move out and staying with a girlfriend.

I cannot be married any longer.

With all the uncertainty that I feel I'm sorry that our marriage not work out you don't need to try to contact me. I'll be in touch in a couple weeks to get the rest of my things. I do hope the best for you.

One that note sounds desperate and hopeless. And that's one of my goals and working to hear more from her in just a moment. The good news is that Juan and her husband Terry did reconcile their relationship with the Lord's help, but it was a painful journey and I want you to hear this journey because it will give you hope, especially if you're suffering in your marriage Jim I know that there couples their husbands and wives listening to her right there. There they they resonated with that note, you maybe reach that point. We've had enough others just too much pain and anger and there is no forgiveness, and those are serious problems and we would urge you to stop and listen to the program today and not only that were here to help you have a team of caring Christian counselors who are there for you and if you're in a tough spot in your marriage after hearing the program today. If you need help some direction.

That is why focus on the family is here and that is why so many supporters send their donations to focus on the is to be the help that you need in this moment and our number here to reach one of our counseling team members is 800 the letter a in the word family 800-232-6459.

We also have a counselor referral tool and more details@focusonthefamily.com/radio and Jim another resource that we should mention is our hope restored outreach at John, glad you did that because that's something that we been doing after the last couple years.

Hope restored in Branson Missouri. Gary Smalley, the late Gary Smalley started the program, Greg Smalley, who now works at focus that continued that program and now it is part of focus on the family and this is an intensive counseling environment where couples are on the brink of divorce. Some of them of already signed the divorce papers they can go to this intensive environment over 45 day period and they have the post two-year counseling touch. They have an 84.6% success rate.

So if you're in that desperate situation. Do call us because it is worth your time to save your relationship now with all that said, finally Juana I want to welcome you to focus on the pinky. You are one brave soul because these are the kinds of things and discussions that many couples, particularly Christian couples are going to hide because it's uncomfortable to talk about this stuff. Even though you have now reconciled, but those were some dark years for you.

Let's start in that place where you married, you were both successful, you are working for companies on the fast track and set that background force. Why did you think you are going to make it in the first place.

Why just say yes when Terry asked you to marry him I was in love. We had met during college he was my college sweetheart and we married right after college and we really had everything a young couple would want. We had just built a home.

We had great jobs with Fortune 500 companies.

We had lots of friends that settled in Raleigh when we both went to school and when we were freshly married. It was like playing house and we really enjoyed those early days want to let me ask you this. Did you and Terry have premarital counseling which at focus, we believe, and there's a lot of research that shows that if you have 10 hours minimum. It really reduces the chance of divorce, but how did you and Terry go about premarital counseling. We had some just a couple hours.

I would say with my home pastor I wish Stanley had so much more was that I wasn't sufficient. That's the point. And I think that's one of the great things that we have ready to wed, which I think is one of the best tools at focus now for churches to use actually will supply that to the churches so they can have young couples go through at least 10 hours of premarital counseling which will reduce the incidence of divorce and those couples and it's brilliant. So you were married you had kind of optimism you are both very successful, attractive couple. It was all seemingly moving in the right direction. What pain was underlying that because I'm sure people would look at you and Terry from the outside and think I'll what a great couple. They got it all together and it was in those early days. It was like playing house. We had little cable we Money that we'd been given as a wedding present and really was until two years into the marriage that I became disillusioned and how what were those typically on Saturday morning because I really did have any hobbies, Terry, did he go not from a young child playing golf and working on MGs and he would not clean his car and why she thinks she put his golf clubs and be ready for great Saturday afternoon, the sun would be shining in here his young wife was inside the house crying.

So he's thinking everything's great. Yes, this is just the way I planted. I've got a wonderful wife and we have great careers. And yes I get to play golf on the weekend. Did you ever say to him, honey, lonely told him I didn't want us to end up divorce that something was missing in our marriage, and he really thought that I have problem and he now sees that we had a problem because if you have probably marriage. It's both of your problem, but he was happy and so he just said you know you need to figure out what's wrong but I just kept telling him something is missing. Something's missing in our marriage and I was to come to a conclusion. A wrong conclusion that had married the wrong person so that the circumstances of your marriage dictated to you that he was just the wrong guy.

Yes, he was the only boyfriend I had ever had.

We dated all through college and married a year afterward and I began to thankfully it must be that married the wrong person because he's not like me.

Now Tim that many women are totally different they were exactly the same.

So me. He doesn't understand me.

I must've married one person in reality you married a man a different person you want to. Let me ask you, in your book, choosing him all over again.

You talk about seeds of discontent and that you're laying the groundwork.

Right now you're telling us that early in your marriage.

Two years which ironically you know that about two years in any marriage. That's when the fascination. The euphoria of the relationship begins to wear off. Researchers say it's about at the two-year mark and so disillusionment is kind of the common thing because he doesn't love me the way I thought he would love me. It's not that Cinderella romance I thought it would be and you kinda settle into doing life together paying the bills working kids come along etc. but what were the seeds of discontent you've shared that one where you're now thinking is not the right guy that's maybe a pine tree of discontent you think is now the wrong guy, but in the book you talk about that little preparation for marriage which we spoke about different perspectives was another one. What what were those different perspectives that you and Terry was at the hobby in the golf in the eye. Don't be home on the weekend and you're feeling isolated. I wasn't the best housekeeper and at that time I didn't even know it.

I know Terry just asked me to wrap the lettuce better and and other things that she was actually much better than me and I thought he didn't care about our relationship.

She just cared how I wrapped the food and put it in the refrigerator and I didn't fold the towels and put them in the closet neatly. I just kinda threw them in there, which is horrible to admit that I just wasn't a good housekeeper and I thought he doesn't care about this relationship.

I need to find someone.

It's more like me married the wrong person and I just became so disillusioned I think if he if he if he because it would be years later, Jim Frey would learn the two things that any couple from getting a divorce, seeking unity in the marriage and seeking the good of the other person know those things myself. As he thought about me right me and I was at the center of everything I was thinking what was that final straw.

You talk about that in the book where there was that moment where I guess you then decided to leave was there. What was that incident that Terry offended you or how to play out. I got away on a business trip for some training for the company I work for and while I was away that week I was exposed to so many people in so many personalities and the teachers all had so much charisma in my mind, I began to compare Terry to these other men and I thought they were so funny and I thought they were so different and I thought comparing them to Terry that he just didn't measure up. And that in that context that give you justification for not considering. Maybe I need to leave him because is not right for me and always was in my mind for the first time I began to muse about not being married and on the plane ride home, I began to think about not being married. No more crying, we had for about a year and 1/2 had those Saturday morning crying sessions I was done crying and I finally made a decision that I was leaving and I wasn't doing it as a play is a chess move to see what he would do to really get his attention now know I was done I was totally totally finished with the marriage. In fact you you talked about it in the book, choosing them all over again like jumping into a beautiful sailboat. So what were you jumping into while Niagara Falls was had no idea, no idea. You see, I thought I knew.

I thought I knew what I was doing and I thought I knew what was best and I did not have the Lord in my life guiding me and I wanted to leave.

I ration that hey, my rationale was we don't have children. Thank goodness we don't have children because I was so young that was in my early 20s, so I thought got to find the right one. He is not the right one.

This sooner the better.

And thank goodness we don't have children you know want to in the context of that kind of disillusionment two years in your marriage. You often think about your family of origin.

What was your family origin like your mom and dad did they experience divorce. They both came from divorce and that they both had multiple marriages and sadly my father was an alcoholic he was, not a mean alcoholic. There was no abuse and sexual abuse. No verbal abuse but sadly he retreated one end of the house and my mother retreated to another and it's not good for man to be alone and so they had a lot of loneliness in their marriage and I was really headed right down that path did it play into your own experience, it had to been and how did it when you thought of you and Terry and what you are experiencing and that disillusionment did you think about your own parents and their experience and how you were maybe fearful of that that you would end up like them. I knew I never wanted to be divorce, but I was glad that I was still young so my thoughts really were on what happened.

I wanted to know what happened because I didn't want it to happen again.

I wanted to get it right the second time and I went to counselors regret that they were not Christian counselors, and I always tell people find that you can point them to focused to get Christian counseling and not to go to secular counselors because I went to one.

She had a heavy Hebrew accent and she called me Vonda and she said Vonda you elite blue that's your problem is you are late you laugh about it now but really it was so sad that you she was her advice to me when you net all out was that I was just a late bloomer and was just now getting started came up a little short yes to sleep good. Where was the Lord in this picture you mentioned you went to your pastor for a couple of hours of premarital counseling, but you it sounds like you weren't a committed Christian know where was Terry in his faith at that.

We did not go to church as a married couple, but I grew up going to church. The church was just right behind our house and that my father put up a little gate so we could just walk to church. He did not go with us but I knew all the Bible stories I grew up in choir, but finally one morning I decided the answers must be in charge because with all the counseling I was no better off. I was still crying all the time. I wanted to know what happened and one day I went back to my church in Mali when you mentioned that note that the top of the program and if you didn't hear that.

Get the download because that note was powerful.

It sounded so if I can say this without offending you decisive, maybe even a little chilly toward Terry. I'm done was not work on it. I'll come by later to pick my stuff up and also all the best in your life one. I mean, it felt steely so the question I have for is how did Terry respond you leave in the know to come out of the blue for him yes and he was devastated.

He was devastated and he wanted to talk and he wanted to try to work it out and I told him no, not that we were done. How did the coming months went by weeks went by before he had contacted her what was happening for you, months and months went by and I wanted to be in search for Mr. right. I wanted to be available. I wanted to find someone that could see I was looking for romance I was looking for love and I was I knew nothing of the real lasting biblical love that the Bible speaks of the self giving love.

It's forgiving that we read about in first Corinthians 13. I knew none of that.

You know if I was a Christian when I started going to that little church and he would talk to the Christians. I would think me a line and a Christian spin Christian well when I act together when I do find some way we marry. Then I'll come to the Lord and then maybe can use. Maybe he sure can let me now because I left my husband you know want your speaking to the hearts of many people right now. Male and female were there. Not sure where there it concerns me that you could go to church as often as you did not know if you were saved, and that if Jesus had entered your heart and began to transform the breaks my heart to something of my own teenagers as we go to church every weekend. Are they getting the message. Thinking of that speak to the parents about how to can make sure that their children understand what it means to be saved in Christ.

I never remember one Scripture read in our home.

My mother from another country.

I doing. I wish he had Spanish Bible at that sent happily on it was on her bed side. I do not remember ever reading aloud the Bible I never remember hearing any kind of practical training Bible.

I remember the pastor greeting people and welcoming them to the church and saying this is the most important decision you'll ever make in your life and I remember as an eight-year-old girl, a 10-year-old girl thinking not really easy saying that because were in charge and he's pastor any the most important decision you'll ever make in life is you going to me and I just had dreams of being married. One day, and I would have this knight in shining armor. I remember a tenure so looking to the bathroom mirror in our little blue bathroom and wondering where he why's he was somewhere on the planet and all those years later I came up so empty I thought it was teammate. But then I thought it made such a huge mistake. And then when I started going to church, I met with the pastor and he said to me one.

Many read Matthew 633. To me he read but seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well, and he said want you to make the wrong decision to make this decision about your marriage the wrong decision. What you really need to decide is what are you going to do with Christ while with Christ. He said you your life to him will you do that now.

He said why can't you do that now because he is not real to me and he wasn't Jim. He wasn't real at all. He was just a Bible story to me. So many reasons why I couldn't turn to God, just a sampling of those I don't want to turn to God's work.

If I do my problems are solved.

I'll be here this conception that if you said you are Christian that was saying he will perfect and I knew God would want me because I was a separate person going to something first life together and come to know want to let me interrupt her because you're saying something that I think we suffer from within the body of Christ, and that idea of perfection that somehow were less loved by God. Less acceptable by God for not living perfectly in the Scriptures clear we can't do it perfectly. That's exactly why Jesus had to die on the cross for us. It doesn't mean it gives us a license to sin what it says is I have provided the way I am a sacrificial lamb for you do these things because you love me, not because it's mechanical. In that connection finally hit for you right yes I was looking to Terry to me all my needs theory if Terry no person can meet all your needs. Only God can do that for romance. I knew nothing of that self giving love. The Bible talks about.

So when did it happen when did you said no to the pastor.

Did you come back to him or was it somebody else or what was the timeframe between you say no. I can accept several more months went by and I continued going to that church.

Even though I knew I not a believer, I just kept going in and you're living separately from Terry totally living separately have had enough income that I could pay for my half of the mortgage and an apartment and I continued going to the local charts and actually I was alone in my apartment. I have been praying Lord Sammy you are in Jesus, who are you, you show me who you are and I was actually alone in my apartment and I first gave my life to them.

When dad was tired. I was actually just tired and I I didn't receive Christ, but I just yielded to God, I yielded to God that May 5, 1985 and she said what I'm tired of driving you take the wheel and you take the keys and show me how to live and was actually couple months later on 4 July and it was 31 years ago.

I can't believe it, that I was alone in that apartment and one pastors had given me a book called hope for the separated by Gary Chapman and it went across the table in a tug-of-war four times.

I told him I said you need to give this book to somebody it's gonna read it because I know what it's going to say and I don't want to read it. I'll just read the first paragraph and I won't read more can I ask you why was it that feeling of condemnation and guilt because I love my husband and I knew it was going to tell me that I shouldn't do that and I want to hear it Russell, I just told him to give the book to somebody who was going to read it, but he won. He told me to take it and I went to that apartment but it is far away as possible himself why we have to look at it until that Fourth of July night when I got it down because of a series of circumstances that I tell in the book I got that down and in an instant. The scales came off my eyes. I realize that I was a sinner. The Christ died for me if I was the only person in the world.

He went from me. He sent for personal, he knew me intimately, and he's not condemning me for keeping me laughing me, you know, we wear crosses around her neck.

We we have crosses in our home for decoration at that comedy motocross I wanted across the couldn't find across I got) and took it apart and turned around with a rubber band and made a class in a row things on the cross that Christ died for me. For one, was many nights crosses an instrument of torture. Christ did. He paid the price.

That night I trusted him as my dying Savior, and he saved me from the guilt of my sin, shame, marijuana that is powerful and when I looked out the why question God, why did you create marriage the way you did.

I think you're on the very core thing which is to become more like him.

And that means selfless. That is the nature of our God, being selfless, that's his character, and yet you had to wake up the next morning you had a wonderful spiritual embrace of the Lord, you gave your heart to him. Now you wake up to the world you live in, and your husband's not living with you and you're going to have to now begin to decide what you're going to do and we don't have time today to go through that but I want to start the program next time and talk about how God from that day forward, begin to change your heart first and then eventually your husband's heart and how he reconciled your marriage because that is the testimony that we have done work today to lay the time of the groundwork for what we want to share tomorrow so let's come back next time and talk about the real gift that God is given you, can we do that yes will Jim as we heard this amazing and rather difficult story today.

I'm sure there are some couples listening to her right where Wanda and her husband Terry were there in a marriage without any hope. There's no doubt about John and here focus on the family. We routinely hear from husbands and wives who feel like giving up.

The pain is become too great and you don't know how you can work through that conflict. That disappointment maybe even betrayal in your relationship. Maybe you're like Wanda was ready to walk out because you feel like you've married the wrong person. What I'd like to say to you is don't don't give up on your marriage just got a better plan for your life than divorce. And secondly, let us help you focus on the has many resources for hurting desperate couples infected the beginning of our program.

We mentioned our hope restored outreach located in Branson Missouri and in Rome, Georgia in these wonderful settings that we offer intensive counseling for couples who are on the brink of divorce, maybe even sign the papers.

But after several days of intensive counseling, prayer and encouragement that we see miracles happen. Marriage is saved and that we follow-up two years later with these couples, and 84.6%.

They're still married and they are doing well. So please don't delay, contact us for the help you need and see what God can do to rescue your marriage ask about hope restored or how to connect with one of our in-house counselors when you call 800 the letter a in the word family or stop by focus on the family.com/radio to learn more, and for the rest of us.

So let me encourage you to invest in your marriage should be intentional about connecting with your spouse on a regular basis because the busyness of life can easily pull you apart and that we need to keep our relationships healthy and strong, especially in today's culture were so many people see marriage is obsolete and can I encourage you to invest in other marriages as well. We need your financial support so we can continue to provide the counseling tools and programs like we shared today and your generous giving makes all of that possible help us rescue more couples like Wanda and Terry giving them godly hope and help for their relationship and you could do that by donating online@focusonthe.com/radio or by calling 800 the letter a in the word family and will say thank you for your generosity by sending a complementary copy of one of his book, choosing him all over again might be that you know somebody a couple who could benefit from this wonderful story of redemption and reconciliation. If so, donate, and will send the book to you.

Also, when you're in touch. Be sure to ask about a CD or download of today's conversation will include tomorrow's broadcast in there as well tomorrow as we continue. Wanda was story about abandoning her marriage, you'll hear about waiting for the reconciliation that only God could bring. Proverbs 14 won the wise woman builds her house with her own hand, the foolish one.

Tears town I torn down. I was watching I was the one the flames good news is that God did heal Wanda in Terry's marriage, and he can heal your relationship as well. These programs are produced by focus on the family and on behalf of the focus president Jim Daly and our entire team.

Thanks for listening. I'm John Fuller inviting you back next time is again help you and your family thrive.

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