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, love is a magical force that propels the couple to "happily ever after." Our souls resonate with this theme, and we long for our chance to experience that kind of true love and never-ending passion. This universal desire reveals our desperate need to be loved and to feel wanted.

Those fledgling feelings are never sustained over a lifetime of marriage. Married people know this. Movies don't typically portray this type of la-la love when infatuation has disappeared, rebellious teenagers are causing angst, or any number of real-life situations 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 might be greener on the other side of the fence. One thought leads to another, and they end up wondering if they should stay or if they should go.

No where near the land of "happily ever after" is a couple suffering from a spouse's deep addiction to pornography or illicit, one-night stands. It's not warm and fuzzy, and it certainly isn't attractive.

Like many of you, I've come to learn and understand, with great clarity, that love is truly a choice. If I make the right choices, overwhelming feelings of love and romance will ensue, even in the aftermath of surviving an affair. This is a mature truth that couples will hopefully arrive at before one or both of them becomes a human wrecking ball. I know from experience that it's possible to create incredible amounts of destruction before we realize how deceived and dangerous we are.

The True Definition of Love

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 you would recognize and choose the real bill. But, if you were raised to believe the counterfeit was real and the real was counterfeit, then which one would you take? That's the problem with our understanding of marriage, love, and long-term relationships: some of us can become very disoriented, believing the counterfeit is real – or possibly not real, but somehow better. I invite you to consider the possibility that many of us don't fully understand what true love is.

True Love Involves Hurt

Siddhartha Gautama, a spiritual teacher, philosopher, and the founder of Buddhism, said that life is equal to or characterized by suffering. I'd like to suggest that there is another truth that love is equal to or characterized by suffering. My wife, Stephanie, and I believe that one of the greatest acts of love represented in human history is Jesus walking the Via Dolorosa (the path Jesus walked to his crucifixion called "the way of suffering").¹

Jesus exemplified this reality. He taught love rather than justice, and he 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, it's vital we understand betrayal appropriately. In order for a husband to be reconciled to his wife who betrayed him, he has to walk through the hurt inflicted by her betrayal and ultimately forgive her failure to love. He has to allow the experience to be life-changing.

There is no way she (the wayward wife in this instance) can ultimately bear the total awareness of her pain for her moral failure and the effect it has on her spouse. She can be remorseful for what she's done, and she can make efforts to ensure it doesn't repeat, but her husband is the one carrying the pain of betrayal.

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 his wife in return. This is the beginning of a new, separate offense which will only exacerbate the entire nightmare. If that occurs, she'll have to walk through the hurt inflicted by his failure to love (or decision to hurt) and ultimately forgive his failure to maintain his vows of love, hence a new cycle of hurt and pain.

Surviving an affair becomes that much harder for everyone.

A Love That Heals

Love is a willingness to lay your life down for the sake of another. That love isn't about trying to get the offending party to pay, though it would be understandable to want that. Rather, it's about a willingness to cover a debt that quite frankly, they could never 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 simply no amount of penance the wayward 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.

The wayward spouse 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 the impact of their choices on both of 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 does not commit to honoring 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 we fail to comprehend the impact of our actions on 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.

It's no surprise that understanding the cost of our actions is crucial in our pursuit of a long-lasting marriage. 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 makes that choice.

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. I've seen too many marriages saved!

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

Not all wayward spouses are willing to own their failure, and not all betrayed spouses are able to overcome the devastation they experience. Yet, I can personally testify to the fact that the number of couples who find healing and restoration is absolutely staggering.

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.