Love is a funny thing.

To the couple in crisis due to infidelity or addiction, it can also be a very confusing thing.

In our culture, love is most frequently portrayed as an overwhelming feeling of attraction and desire. In the land of make believe, it is a magical force propelling us into "happily ever after." Our souls resonate with this theme, and we long for our chance to experience true love and never-ending passion. This universal desire reveals our desperate need to be loved and to feel wanted.

Movies don't typically portray this type of la-la love when infatuation has disappeared, rebellious teenagers are causing angst, and real life hits like a freight train. In fact, the exact opposite is far more likely to be depicted.

It's far too common for married individuals to wonder if the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. They wonder if they should stay or if they should go.

Even less likely to appear in the land of happily ever after, is a couple suffering from a spouse's deep addiction to pornography and illicit, one-night stands. It's not warm and fuzzy, and it certainly doesn't attract the masses.

Like many of you, I've come to learn and understand with great clarity that love is truly a choice, and if I make right choices, overwhelming feelings of love and romance will then ensue, even in the aftermath of surviving an affair. It's just a mature truth that we hopefully arrive at before becoming too much of a human wrecking ball. I know from experience, however, that many times we become that wrecking ball and create incredible amounts of destruction before we realize how deceived and dangerous we are.

Our confusion is certainly understandable though. If I had a one-hundred-dollar bill in one hand and a counterfeit in the other and offered them to you, which would you take? I really hope it would be the real bill. But, if you were raised believing the counterfeit was real and the real was counterfeit, which would you take? That's the problem with our understanding of marriage, love, and long-term relationships: some of us can be amazingly disoriented, believing the counterfeit is real and the real is counterfeit. I invite you to consider the possibility that many of us don't truly understand what true love is.

True Love Involves Hurt

Buddha said that "life equals suffering," but I'd like to suggest that perhaps there is also another truth which is that "love equals suffering." Stephanie and I believe that one of the greatest acts of love represented in human history is Jesus walking the Via Dolorosa (the way of suffering).

Jesus exemplified this reality. He taught love rather than justice and even chose to pay the price for the crimes committed against him. He actually cared enough about and for others that he was willing to die so they could have a chance for life.

Jesus taught that people change more by contrast than by conflict.

When betrayed, he responded with love, not justice or vengeance. His sacrificial love had such a powerful impact on those around him that they became willing to die for the sake of that same cause.

Taking a lesson from faith and Christianity this week, it's vital we understand betrayal appropriately. In order for a husband to be reconciled to his wife who has betrayed him, he has to walk through the life-changing hurt inflicted by her betrayal and ultimately forgive her failure to love. That is, if they are to ever have a meaningful relationship again.

There is no way she can ultimately bear the total awareness of her pain for her own moral failure and its effects upon her spouse. She can be remorseful for what she's done, and she can make efforts to ensure it doesn't repeat, but he is the one courageously carrying the pain.

It is possible for the husband, out of a sense of vengeance or control, to fail to love and attempt to hurt her in return. This is the beginning of a new, separate offense which will only exasperate the entire nightmare. If that occurs, she'll have to walk through the hurt inflicted by his failure to love and ultimately forgive his failure to maintain his vows of love, hence a new cycle of hurt and pain arises.

Surviving an affair then, becomes that much harder for everyone.

A Love That Heals

That love isn't about trying to get the offending party to pay, though it would be understandable to want that.

It's about a willingness to cover a debt, quite frankly, that they could never, in fact, pay back. (That's not to say the injuring party shouldn't do everything within their power to help the injured mate heal. There's just no amount of penance the injuring spouse can pay for their failure to love.) They can, however, display brokenness, contrition, and humility in their approach to recovery and cautiously move forward.

They can also take charge of their own recovery and mental health, which speaks volumes of empathy to the betrayed spouse. Without such action, a wayward spouse will be hard-pressed to make a case that they are truly sorry for their choices and impact upon their lives.

Please don't think I'm saying that love recklessly reconciles with someone who is unsafe, hard-hearted, or unwilling to own what they've done.

Love, true love, always acts in the best interest of another.

A Love That Has Boundaries

If the one committing the offense is hardhearted, unwilling to accept responsibility, and chooses not to commit and honor the relationship, then it wouldn't be in the betrayed spouse’s best interest to reconcile and allow the destruction to continue. It's tragic when, after injuring others, we fail to comprehend the impact of our actions on them and countless others. Unless we understand and care about the costs our actions inflict on others, we'll never perceive the gift we receive from those who choose to love us rather than leave us.

Understanding the cost of our actions is also crucial in learning how to recover from an affair. When I injure my wife through carelessness or selfishness, the person bearing the pain for my actions is my wife. Her choice to love and forgive comes at great personal expense to her. She chooses to give me the gift of love rather than the rejection. I witness her love each time she chooses to put up with the pain my actions inflicted, in order to be with me.

There is no greater example of this truth than in couples where there is reconciliation following a betrayal. No one will ever convince me that there are no modern-day miracles.

Not all marriages survive infidelity. That's just a fact.

Not all unfaithful spouses are willing to own their failure and not all betrayed spouses are able to overcome the devastation they experience due to their mate's choices. Yet, I can personally testify to the fact that the number of couples who find healing and restoration is absolutely staggering, despite the fact that you don't always hear about them!

Today, I'd like to offer you a chance to heal and move forward from the devastation of infidelity. Our EMS Online course is a safe place for those walking their own road to recovery despite unthinkable pain, hurt, and betrayal. I hope you'll give the course and its expert-driven curriculum, a chance to provide you with new hope, new life, and new courage.