Now that we’ve cleared the deck of some potentially harmful myths, it’s time to give you some tangible, well-explained tools to begin building trust back into your marriage.
These items are nonnegotiables, meaning that if they aren’t present or if they’re deficient, it will be incredibly difficult for your relationship to be restored. If you want to give yourself and your spouse the best chance at redemption, you need to be intentional about each of these items.
Before we explore these tools, I need to describe two caveats concerning these nonnegotiables. First, none of the items in this section are worthy of a pat on your back. Here’s what I mean. Often men shift gears from being dishonest to being honest and immediately expect a high-five from their wife.
A wife is usually only somewhat enthused—if at all—because the reality is that her husband is finally doing what he should have been doing all along. So what’s the big deal? Does that make sense?
I compare it to my son Truman when he was four years old. We were teaching him to complete a task the first time we asked him, without complaint or pushback. These were simple things like getting dressed, brushing his teeth, climbing in bed, and picking up his shoes. For example, after asking him to get ready for the day by taking off his pajamas and putting on his clothes, he’d ask, “Do I get a treat once I get my clothes on?” My answer, maybe too sarcastically, was, “Of course not!” He was asking for a treat for something he should have been doing anyway. It’s not as though I asked him to do something out of the ordinary or in addition to what he was already supposed to do. And yet he expected a reward for it. Of course, he had an excuse—he was only four years old.
Yet many men in the trust-building process operate the same way. For example, a husband will express to me his frustration that his wife is angry and bitter toward him. He’ll say something like, “I’m not [fill in the blank: looking at porn, cheating, visiting strip clubs, and so forth] anymore, so she should be happy with me!” Or, “I’m not [fill in the blank], so it would be nice to get a little respect and appreciation from her.” Or, “It’s been a year since I [fill in the blank], and I expect her to [fill in the blank].”
I hope you see the sense of entitlement and childishness in these statements. “Give me a treat because I’m not doing something wrong. I deserve a reward because I’ve stopped some bad behavior.”
There is a sense of cause and effect, action and reward. But you need to know that it is damaging to behave this way if you are trying to build trust. With your betrayal of the relationship, you forfeited any right to demand a reward for your newfound integrity and good behavior.
The second caveat is that you cannot expect your spouse to believe these things are sincere, genuine, or permanent. When you, by God’s grace, shift your heart, mind, and actions toward winning your wife’s heart back, she is going to be incredibly skeptical. Her veil of criticism and self-protection will cloud what appears to be your authentic change so that it is very difficult for her to consider you worthy of belief.
I compare this response of a wife to what the apostle Paul faced during and after his conversion as he interacted with people and attempted to integrate with other Christians. Ananias, the guy who was sent to meet Paul after his conversion, was terrified of this Pharisee who was a chief persecutor of Christians! And the Christians with whom Paul would become close and do ministry with were also initially afraid of him. And why not? Paul was an enemy of the early church. He was passionate about snuffing out the smoldering embers of Christianity:
“Lord,” Ananias answered, “I have heard many reports about this man and all the harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.”
(Acts 9:13)
Paul himself wrote,
I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. (Acts 26:9)
For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.
(Galatians 1:13)
But Paul had an intensely personal encounter with the living God that changed him radically, forever. In that experience, God changed his heart and mind, helping him see the misapplication of his fervor.
It is a strange story, though, in that he was a blind Pharisee named Saul for a few days before becoming the apostle known as Paul:
Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength.
Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Christ.
(Acts 9:17–22)
Later, Paul returned to Jerusalem to connect with the apostles. Here’s how it went:
When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. (Acts 9:26, emphasis added)
So the guy God appointed to help with the conversion experience (Ananias) along with the disciples who were supposed to be kindred spirits were all afraid of him. It took a consistent change in his actions over time, and testimony from those who would vouch for him, to change the minds of his skeptics.
My point is this: because Paul had a track record of inflicting pain and persecution, the people in his life were cynical and critical of his change. And they had every right to be. They were hesitant to buy it. The process of gaining credibility and trust took the good apostle over three years! (See Galatians 1:18.)
Paul was living a new life in Arabia, and you would think word would have gotten back to the apostles that he was different. Surely they’d heard rumors that his heart and life were changed, that he was one of them. But upon meeting him, the disciples still held him at arm’s length, reluctant to believe he had changed. After three years.
Such is the case with many wives. They just can’t take their husband’s change at face value. There has to be consistent change, over time, and even someone else to vouch for their husband’s authenticity—which, by the way, is a great reason for men to have accountability partners. This becomes more important if you have a long track record of infidelity. The pain you’ve caused is deep, and the persecution you’ve committed is personal. The people in your life whom you most want to convince that you’re different will likely be the most difficult to convince.
In the face of skepticism and doubt, it is still possible to build trust. With effort, energy, and divine guidance, these tools will help you build trust back into your relationship.
With that in mind, let’s jump in.
Where are you with God right now? Who is he to you? How vibrant is your spiritual life? Have you used spirituality as a smokescreen to hide behind? Have you used it to manipulate your spouse? Was there a time when you felt more on fire, more passionate toward God?
In all likelihood, your spouse is asking these questions of you. She may even be asking these questions of herself. Whether outwardly or silently to herself, she is wondering about you and God. If your wife does not trust you but trusts God, and she sees you aligning yourself with him, her perception of your trustworthiness will begin to shift. If she does not trust you and also does not trust God, then the ante has gone up for you, and I’ll explain this shortly.
For me, I needed something that characterized the first couple of years of my journey after my disclosure. I came up with “Nothing on the planet will stop me from becoming the man God is calling me to be.” Whenever I repeated that phrase, it reminded me that the most important thing in my life was not my wife, Shelley, and not rebuilding trust, but passionately pursuing the character that God was trying to develop in me. A by-product of that pursuit was the restoration of trust and our relationship. Shelley knew that for me to be chasing the heart of God meant that I wouldn’t be acting out sexually. The two cannot coexist.
If your energy is directed at serving, loving, engaging the sanctification process, worshiping, and deepening your relationship with God, there is no space to act out sexually. I’m not saying you’ll fill up your time with church stuff. But I am saying that you’ll fill up your heart with church stuff. When your wife sees your energy being channeled toward God, it places more Legos on the trust sculpture. She knows that if you’re spending your energy there, you’re not spending it elsewhere. She knows the man God is calling you to be won’t stomp on her heart. She can be confident the character he wants to develop in you will serve her with humility and love rather than serve yourself with arrogance and entitlement.
Another very important thing happens when she sees you chasing the heart of God: it gives her a new lens through which to decipher your motives. It answers the question of why you are going to change. Are you trying to change yourself for her or allowing him to change you for him?
Can you see the difference? One will be temporary, the other permanent. Our wives certainly want us to change for them. But they don’t want us to change for them alone. They want us to change for us and for God too. You need to realize that there is an incredible amount of pressure on a wife when she is your primary motivation for change. Wives know that this is a setup to be hurt again. They can be certain the day will come when they will let you down or disappoint you in some way. When that happens, the question is, will you choose to be faithful or will you choose to return to your old ways? Then they will feel like the cause of your sexual sin, and that’s the last place a wife wants to be.
Try to see her perspective here. She doesn’t want to give you any more justification to act out than you’ve already come up with on your own. To hear you say “You disappointed me, so I had a right to act out” is devastating.
She has to begin to believe that you are living for something greater than yourself, bigger than her, and more compelling than your marriage. Not your career, not your physical fitness, not sports, not your hobbies, not your ministry, not your finances, not your kids.
But God.
So think about those questions at the beginning of this section. Where are you with God? Who is he to you? Is he the distant creator God or the personal, loving father God? Are you connected or distant?
Maybe you have been hiding from him because you feel cut off and ashamed, and you’re unwilling to be in his presence. Or maybe, like me, through the course of your struggles, you’ve prayed a bajillion times for him to show up, but he has been silent. You might be questioning if he is even real. That’s okay. Start a new search.
A couple of books I recommend to reenergize your faith are God*Stories by Andrew Wilson and With by Skye Jethani. These can be good places to start if the Bible doesn’t seem to fit together or make much sense to you.
If you have hidden behind your spirituality or used it manipulatively, rebuilding trust is going to be more difficult, because you won’t get as much trust-building mileage out of your spiritual fervency. You can understand why: your wife will think it’s an instant replay of the painful past. The hiding usually takes the form of minimization. “I’m struggling with sin” was a cover for “I’m a serial adulterer and have been repeatedly stomping on your heart.”
Another dodge that seems to come up often is a husband who says of his wife, “You’re not the Holy Spirit, so it’s not your place to judge my sin.” Dude, give me a break! That’s just a chintzy way of saying, “Stop demanding that I step up and be the kind of man and husband you deserve.”
Another evasion is especially hurtful to a wife: “The Bible says we are not to withhold from one another, and that your body is not your own. So I think you should have more sex with me.” As we said before, this is a cover for “I’m going to use the Bible to justify my selfish misuse of my sexuality and insist you be my prostitute.” If these statements or similar ones ring a bell, you’ll have to be intentional about sharing how your spiritual journey is leading you away from manipulation and hiding. You’ll need to express how God is molding you into someone who applies the Word to himself rather than to other people for your own benefit.
Commit to deepening your spiritual walk. Commit to regularly reading the Bible and books that will help you understand God better. Commit to listening to podcasts from your favorite pastors. Commit to sharing what you are learning about yourself and God with your spouse.
I don’t know of anything that has more power to rebuild trust than a wife seeing her husband passionately chase the heart of God.
What does it mean to lead your wife spiritually? Most men I talk to can give me a biblically based answer, but they have a terribly difficult time expounding on how it looks in real life. It’s not rocket science, but sometimes it sure feels like it. Rather than give you specific directions on how to lead your wife spiritually, I think it is more prudent to help you know how to have conversations about this topic.
Wives I counsel express many variations of how they want to be led spiritually. At one end of the continuum, some wives say they don’t want anything spiritually from their lying/cheating/[insert derogatory term here] husband. They don’t want to hear a word about God, Jesus, or anything related to Scripture. At the other end, wives tell me they are dying to be led. They long to hear their husband pray for them and their kids. They yearn to hear about a spiritual revelation or insight he has gained from his time in the Word. They desperately want him to initiate and lead them in a couples’ devotional time several nights a week. Perhaps the needle is somewhere in between at your house.
My advice—assuming your personal spiritual fervency is in place—is to have regular conversations with your wife about what she needs or wants from you spiritually. Ask her if she’d be put off or offended if you share something from your devotional time. Inquire as to whether or not she wants to process the Sunday message from church as you drive to lunch. See if she’s interested in doing a devotional together.
I recently talked about this with my friend Jim Phillis, another staff member at the Every Man’s Battle Workshop. He says that a primary aspect of spiritual leadership in his home means being quick to admit wrongs and ask for forgiveness. Admitting wrongs is spiritual leadership? I never thought of it that way. Nor would I, had we not had this conversation.
Such may be the case with you and your wife. Your initiation of these conversations will be trust building in itself. The positive by-product is that you’ll know what she expects and desires, which you can blend with your own ideas and creativity to get a sense of how to move forward.
I mentioned earlier that the ante goes up when your wife is struggling with trusting God. She may be in a tough place spiritually or even a nonbeliever. Consider for a minute what a testimony it would be for her to see you allow God to change you. How powerful for your wife to have a front-row seat to watch God at work in your life! The consistency and intentionality with which you pursue God may be the very thing that helps restore or even begins to develop your wife’s faith.
INSIGHT FROM STEPHEN ARTERBURN
Feed Your Faith
Throughout every phase of trust rebuilding, don’t neglect to nurture your faith. Grow your faith in daily time alone with God. In addition to your recovery work, be involved in a Bible study or small group that nourishes and strengthens your faith. Scripture clearly points out how important endurance is in healing from our struggles.
The endurance process increases our character, something that may have been stagnant for many years. When you are a person of character, you have hope. Your faith in the midst of trials leads you to hope. Without faith or evidence that faith is placed in something worthy of our faith, we will lose hope. Hope sustains us and prevents us from self-annihilation. Without hope we self-destruct.
So grow stronger in your faith so that when you hit another unexpected bump in the road, you have hope that on the other side of it is something—someone—that makes it all worth it.