A marriage can certainly be saved, but you can never return to the relationship of the past. This is a difficult reality that every woman must learn to accept whether or not her marriage survives.

In a marriage, the pathway to infidelity is really a gateway to more secrets and more lies. Whether you’re the cheater or the injured party, both spouses enter a world where it feels necessary to lie and prevaricate at every turn. I became a liar because I didn’t want people to know the truth about my marriage.

There is nothing empowering about seeing yourself as a victim. This is not the story of your life. It is not honest and it is not true. This narrative will eat you for breakfast and spit out your bones as it leads you down the path of sin and misery.

We are the walking wounded, desperately trying to stop the bleeding of a gaping wound with a flimsy tissue. The intensity and realness of your crisis may simply cause too much strain on some friendships.

What we often don’t realize when we’re flailing in the ocean is that God is constantly sending us lifelines, but when we are in a state of panic, we may not be able to see them. The water and danger are real and there are currents and threats to our livelihood at every turn. It is easy to become overwhelmed and hopeless, but there is also God’s loving hand reaching out and trying to pull us from a sea of chaos and torment.

Divorce can feel like a terrible mark on our otherwise clean records, a failure, a rejection. On these low confidence days I look in the mirror and I think, Holy Cow, you’re fat! No wonder you’re single.