Everyone loves a comeback.

The problem with comebacks is that they are hard as heck to pull off. Anything worth having is worth working for, and I’ve learned the things that matter most usually are hardest and require the most grace to pull off.

Just yesterday an old staff member of mine reached out to tell me how moved he was to see pictures of my kids and our family stable, strong, and healed. It encouraged him about life, marriage, recovery and even God’s grace. It’s not come easy but small moments like that make it all worth it.

Adversity exposes what’s inside of us. If you want to save your marriage after infidelity or addiction, we will come face to face with some serious darkness inside of each of us, both betrayed and unfaithful.

Some betrayed spouses may flinch at this notion, but if you’ll indulge me for a bit, I’ll come back to that.

Adversity in many ways makes us who we are.  The adversity we have to overcome marks us, shapes us, and helps forge our identity in life. Yes, even the adversity that we create for our own life out of stupid, selfish choices. In many ways we are at war with ourselves, but we take it out on our spouse and our surroundings, when we should be warring with ourselves to find hope and meaning in our story. 

As either you or you and your spouse push forward towards recovery and potential restoration, the adversity you will face both internally and externally will usually be off the chart. The darkness I had to confront inside of me was overwhelming to say the least. Yet, Samantha in her own right had to confront the darkness inside of her. The desire for vengeance, the hatred she felt towards me and the affair partner (who was one of her closest friends) and the way she was treated not just by me but my so many so called ‘close friends’ when it all came out. Her own desire for me to suffer and for my life to be wrecked by my choices had to be addressed. Her own pain was blinding her in many ways and only the right process was able to help her find forgiveness for me. I deserved anything she threw at me, physically or verbally, yet she was able to resist the desire to make me pay for very long at all.

We all have our darkness. We all have our shame. In many ways, we can see adversity as abandonment, when in reality the adversity we are having to confront is not some form of divine abandonment or cosmic futility: it is part of the process of seeing our lives changed and enriched and seeing our marriages transformed. Whether your marriage makes a comeback or not, I’m quite sure YOU need to make your own comeback first. The deepest meaning of your life in many ways will come through the adversity you have the courage to confront and forge right through.

Don’t give up today. You’re finding more of you through all of this.