On 29th March 1997, I had a life changing encounter with Jesus. I was filled with The Spirit and was radically changed in an instant. My life was now so different and Jesus was now my lover and I was overjoyed and thoroughly satisfied and contented in my new relationship with Him. My search for a suitable husband stopped when I met Jesus!
Then to my surprise, towards the end of 1997, I received a prophetic word about my daughter’s father, Charlie, becoming my husband. Initially I dismissed it because it came from my sister who was also a new Christian. She obviously knew our history and I thought that she was probably thinking that I still wanted to have a relationship with him. Nothing was further from my mind at that point—but God had other plans.
Charlie had battled for years with a serious addiction which had resulted in dire consequences, yet I knew that God wanted me to trust Him and believe His plan for our future marriage. Miraculously, Charlie become a Christian in April 2001 but struggled to make wise choices and live wholeheartedly for God.
In July 2004 Charlie made a crucial decision to completely leave his old life behind and Charlie and I were married in Oxford in December 2004. It seemed like a real fairy tale with our then 19 year-old daughter (as my one and only bridesmaid) seeing her parents finally married! God was so present at our wedding and in spite of my fear of Charlie’s possible relapse and return to his old life, I knew in my heart that God had spoken and that He had joined us together.
Did we live happily ever after? Well, we were both on Cloud 9 for at least 24 hours after the wedding, and then the boxing gloves were on! Charlie had quite a colourful past with addictive problems and behaviour which seemed to resurface the day after our wedding, just prior to us going away on our honeymoon. Thankfully, we did enjoy moments of the honeymoon, but we spent so much time in a sulk with each other and just not speaking. It was horrible and at times really embarrassing because one minute we’d be all loved up and holding hands and laughing and joking, which would then change literally in a matter of seconds to stony cold silence and evil looks, which in all honesty might begin with either one of us over the tiniest thing!
Charlie and I spent the next few months behaving like two mardy teenagers each throwing our toys out of the pram when we didn’t get our own way. We were both in our forties and had lived independently for many years. Charlie had moved into my house where I’d lived for the past 4 years. He had his way of doing things and I had mine. Since it was my house, we had to do things my way. It was several months before Charlie was able to get work, and I was at bible college (which I had paid for from my redundancy cheque) so we were both living off a bank loan which I had taken out. We were living on a very tight budget, which Charlie was not used to. In the past, he certainly didn’t have to worry about buying blue striped groceries from Tesco! I was becoming more and more annoyed to come home every afternoon and find Charlie sat watching TV, sometimes still in his dressing gown and with dishes still in the sink from the previous late night feasting! I became quite an established nag, which only compounded Charlie’s need to get away for some peace.
After a very short time of being married, Charlie began to consistently behave in ways which led me to conclude (rightly) that he had fallen back into his old life, although he was making some effort to fight it! The worst thing was that I had begun to react by doing things to try to control him. Charlie would regularly say to me that he was just popping out and then would stay out overnight. He would use the car during the day and not return in time for me to use it to get to meetings in the evening. When we were at home together in the evening I’d try and stop him from going out late at night by hiding the car keys. Since the car belonged to me before we got married, I eventually refused to let him use it. As a result we had horrible rows!
I won’t tell you all the other things that I did in order to try to control Charlie’s behaviour. But one thing I started to do was to lock him out. Once I filled a few black bin liners with his clothes and left them outside the front door. Unfortunately, it was the night before the bin men were due to arrive to take away the rubbish. I ended up driving out to the dumpster and wading through disgusting rubbish to retrieve the bags. Amazingly enough I managed to get them all back. I spent £25 in the launderette getting them cleaned and back home before Charlie ever realised what had happened. On another occasion, I was so full of rage that I smashed his car windscreen. It was a morning after he’d stayed out all night after saying that he’d be back soon. I spent the whole night waiting up for him and cursing the day I had bought him his own car.
Things reached a climax for us when Charlie confessed to me about the real reasons for his disappearances. We spoke to our pastors and they suggested that we do the marriage course. Charlie and I only did two sessions of the seven-session course, the first one and the third one, and both times he kept nodding off which really got my goat. We ended up rowing on the way home. We never managed to get to the other sessions because the course was on a Sunday and Charlie would generally stay away from home at the weekend.
Around the same time in October 2005, Charlie and I decided that we would both do the Celebrate Recovery course, which was on a Wednesday evening. I decided to do the course to support and encourage Charlie who I believed desperately needed help to change his behaviour. As for me, I only had minor issues with anger and that was because of Charlie’s bad behaviour. In my opinion, if he were to straighten up, I’d have no need to be angry and so we’d have no more problems! Or so I thought.
Charlie and I missed the introductory night but we were there for the first session on DENIAL. Once again Charlie would be nodding off while the talk was being given which was so frustrating for me. I kept thinking, “I’m here for you when I could be at home chilling. You need to hear this and you’re not even paying attention.” I felt so angry and embarrassed because he just kept closing his eyes and sometimes he’d even start snoring!
I had wrongly thought that the course was mainly for people with various addictions. I didn’t have an obvious addiction, but I soon realised that I had a problem with wanting to control certain things in our home. I certainly felt that I needed to have control over Charlie’s behaviour, and so when I felt out of control, I would react with sometimes violent outbursts of anger.
So what was the impact on me attending Celebrate Recovery?
As I answered the questions in the CR workbook, relating to Step 1: “We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviours, that our lives had become unmanageable”, it was plain to see that the situation at home between Charlie and me had spiralled out of control. I was powerless to change his behaviour which I felt was the problem and which I had desperately been trying to change. I had been going round and round in circles for almost a year.
Step 2: “We came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity” really did give me hope. I had been so busy trying to change Charlie that I wasn’t aware of my very serious hurts and hang-ups which were the cause of my anger. As I worked through the first workbook and answered the question, “What things are you ready to change in your life? Where can you get the power to change them? , this is what I wrote,
“I’m ready to change my negative behaviour in response to the hurt and pain I feel whenever my husband wrongs me. I have responded with intense anger, often resulting in physical and verbal abuse towards him. I hate it when I lose control in that way and I am no longer willing to blame him. I know that God has the power to change me. His promise to me is that He is working in me giving me the desire to obey Him and the power to do what pleases Him. I know that in the future; if I am abandoned by my husband, God will remind me that He will never leave me nor forsake me!”
This was a significant turning point for me because up until this point, I had completely blamed Charlie for all of the problems we had. Whilst I was not responsible for Charlie’s actions, I had come to realise that I had to take responsibility for my actions. Charlie didn’t make me lose my temper and lash out at him. I lost my temper and lashed out at him! It was painful to admit that I was responsible for my behaviour—not Charlie, ME! The reason I would get so angry is because of the fear that one day Charlie would not come back home at all. At the time, I didn’t even feel that I really needed or wanted Charlie. In fact, there were times when I felt relieved when he went out because the atmosphere in the home was so bad. I felt more at ease when he wasn’t around. But my fear was that he wouldn’t come back. I think that the reason I wanted him to stay was because I feared going through the shame and humiliation of him leaving me after such a short time of us being married!
We both continued to go along each week and we would have a week or two of peace at home. Then we’d have a major blow up and he’d be off again. Now that I was aware of the reason for his disappearances, I was trying really hard to extend grace and forgiveness towards him. Unfortunately, I was not consistent, particularly as Charlie’s behaviour began to deteriorate, to the point where we did not even manage to properly celebrate our first wedding anniversary. In fact, that very day life at home got worse. Things came to a head when Charlie stopped attending CR with me just before Christmas, less than 12 weeks into the course. We spent that Christmas with me at home alone suffering from a heavy cold, (which I’m sure was brought on by the stress) and Charlie with his family in London. At that point I was ready to divorce him.
As soon as the holiday period was over, I had every intention of going to see a solicitor to file for divorce. (By the way the ‘D’ word was often banded about between Charlie and me but this time I was serious.) But as I was looking at my face in the bathroom mirror after having a weeping and wailing pity party, God spoke very clearly, almost as if an audible voice and said, “I hate divorce!” Immediately my heart softened and from then on I tried hard to practise the principle of Step 3: “I made a decision to turn my life and my will over to the care of God.” I wanted to divorce Charlie, but God said, “No”, so I had to trust God to care for me in the midst of this painful situation.
By this time, I should have been well past completing the work on Step3. I had listened to the very inspiring talk about turning things over to God, but I had been procrastinating and neglecting to complete the homework. Then a lady who had previously completed this course came to share her testimony with us. She spoke about the importance of completing the steps and how it really helped her. That night I went home and began to complete the work for turning things over to God. This is what I wrote in my workbook in relation to Step 3, Question 2 in June 2006:
How has relying on your “own understanding” caused problems in your life?
I know when I was trying so hard to be patient and to exercise self-control, I just got worse. I remember writing a letter to Charlie’s sister 1 ½ years ago, saying how I was determined to change. But by the end of that same year I had done far worse to Charlie than I ever did before we became Christians.
Charlie had left home in late January and I had no direct contact with him whatsoever for six months when he finally called me. He thanked me for the letter which I had sent him back in March in which I apologised for specific wrongs I had done to him and asked for his forgiveness. The teaching that I had received on this course around Step 9 (making amends) helped me to understand the importance of taking responsibility for my actions and not making excuses. It was really difficult to do because I wanted to justify my actions. God helped me to not only ask for Charlie’s forgiveness, but also to tell him that I still loved him and that I was trusting God for him to come back home. Charlie told me that the reason he hadn’t responded to my letter at the time was because he was ashamed of things he had done and did not think that I would forgive him if I knew the full extent of some of his behaviour.
For another two years, Charlie continued to live in bondage to addictive behaviour, but over that time, I have grown in compassion and love towards him. During the first year of him moving out of our home, I had received sufficient healing from God to avoid evil towards him (i.e. I stopped thinking evil thoughts towards him), but I was loathe to go out of my way to bless him in anyway. However, the Lord kept speaking to me about overcoming evil by doing good. He would ask me to do certain things which I felt would make me seem like a fool to anyone else looking on who knew some of the stuff that had happened between Charlie and me. Even some of my Christian friends have said they would have divorced Charlie just for having been away for all of that time, never mind some of the other behaviour. But God was telling me to trust Him for the reconciliation of my marriage.
As I have done what God has asked, Charlie’s heart and desire to change has increased. I have had to constantly refer back to the learning points I received whilst doing Celebrate Recovery, particularly around taking negative thoughts captive and forgiving Charlie over and over again. For the last 1 ½ years, Charlie and I have regularly spent time together rebuilding our relationship. For the last 9 months, he has been participating in a residential Christ-centred 12-Step programme. Charlie and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary 4 months ago which was the first celebration since our disastrous 1st anniversary! We also spent our first Christmas and Boxing Day together at our home with our daughter and our first New Year’s Day together (just the two of us)—on each occasion without a single row! An absolute miracle!
The key steps for me and which I continue to practise, (although I do have my little wobbles), are Step 3 and Step 9: Turning my will over to God and Making amends. I have found that when I am quick to apologise for something I have said or done wrong without making excuses, peace is very quickly restored and when I obey God He is faithful to reward me. Charlie and I now have a completely transformed relationship. There is still a lot to be worked through, but with both of us committed to practising the 12 Step principles, which has God at the very centre. We will overcome, for God has promised that whom He has joined together no man can separate!
I am so grateful to God for the time I spent doing this course. God is so good because I obviously needed it far more than I realised and benefitted from it far more than I could possibly have imagined!