When I found the second receipt for porn I knew that my husband could lie to me about it after I had extended love and grace to him for seven months, and I wanted to demonstrate to him how my heart felt. So I took an almost empty glass bottle, walked out to the patio in our backyard and smashed it on the concrete. It was an object lesson of sorts; a way to communicate how my heart felt.

But it made little impact on him. My glass-bottle-effort was right before our first of many intensives over two years ago. While he says that his groups and the intensives we have gone to have made a difference for him, he hasn’t grown any closer to me, or any closer to understanding how significantly his betrayal has impacted my life. My heart break came from the fact that he lied, but it also came because he believed I was making too big of a deal out of all of this. 

The last few years I have spent trying to find someone who could help us through the healing process, but so far that hasn’t happened. The best help I’ve found was the information about brain science and addiction, and the companion information about our need for joy to be able to heal. Finally, I found information that made sense to me.   

There are people out there trying to help men “get it.” One pastor’s effort came to me through a wonderful woman that I met on a blog for partners of sex addicts. She shared a Scripture with me that her pastor used as the focus for a message last year. This was right after she learned that her husband was engaged in an “emotional affair” while she was seven months pregnant with their fourth child. Although it hadn’t turned into a full blown affair, (only because she found out and was able to confront her husband) the pain that this young wife felt was devastating. It was then their pastor chose the following passage as the focus of a sermon:    

1 Peter 3:7 - Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered. (New King James Version)

This pastor explained that the verse isn’t saying that the woman is "weaker" in the sense of ability, but that she is like a fragile piece of china that needs to be valued and treated gently. When my friend shared this with me I pictured a china cup being shattered. That is how our hearts and nervous systems feel after betrayal. 

The image so spoke to me that I went to a Goodwill store looking for china cups. I was rewarded by finding two identical fragile, china cups. However, one was already broken. There it sat, as if it were waiting for me. Picking them up, I carried them gently to the counter and told the clerk that I wanted to buy both of them. She said, “Would you mind telling me why?” So I told her that I'm involved with a woman's ministry for women who have experienced betrayal, and I wanted a physical demonstration of how a woman's heart feels post-betrayal. 

Her eyes grew wide and she said, “That is exactly how it feels!” And then she said that is how her heart is treated most of the time. She kept looking at the cup and saying, "Wow".    

When I got home I tried to put the pieces of the broken cup back together, but they just didn't fit right. There are fragments of china, and a part of the cup that is really more like dust. Those parts will never be able to fit back in place. They are just like our broken hearts. 

From now on, when I hear a wife say that her husband can't figure out why she isn’t over the pain yet, and why can't she just leave it in the past, I will wish I could give him a broken china cup and ask him to put the pieces back together.    

What I’ve found as I’ve moved through my "gauntlet of recovery" is that the burden to heal seems to be placed on the wife, as the man is given time and support and grace. I haven’t experienced much grace in my journey.  I had one counselor tell me to put a rubber band around my wrist and snap it as hard as I could if I said more than two sentences to my husband. (This was in front of my husband during phone counseling). Even when I asked her if she would tell a burn victim to do something like that, I was treated like I was being resistant to therapy.

Not one therapist seemed to understand the profound trauma that I had experienced. And without addressing the trauma in partners, we are in essence telling the shattered china cup to repair itself. This is a reoccurring theme I hear over and over in so many women's stories.     

I hope that every woman reading this will feel the validation that they are not alone, and that the shattering that they have experienced is real and valid. I love reading passages in different versions of the Bible, and I’d like to share that Scripture from 1 Peter from The Message version:

1 Peter 3:7 - The same goes for you husbands: Be good husbands to your wives. Honor them, delight in them. As women they lack some of your advantages. But in the new life of God's grace, you're equals. Treat your wives, then, as equals so your prayers don't run aground. (The Message)

In this passage Paul is telling husbands to honor their wives and delight in them. Most partners of sex addicts don't feel very "honored" or "delighted in." Gratefully, I have been able to heal even though my marriage is not healed. I realize now that our healing comes slowly through God’s touch when the men in our lives aren’t willing or able to do their part to repair our hearts. God is the one who can put the pieces back together, but we know the cracks and scars will remain. There may be a piece or two that won't ever 'fit' back in place, but through those cracks we are able to minister to others who have experienced the shattering that betrayal brings.