“I’ve never loved you. Our marriage is a lie.”
Grace and Sam met on a college campus in North Carolina more than ten years ago. Grace couldn’t believe a guy with “those eyelashes” and good looks would even glance her way. He was sincere, down-to-earth, and straight-up goofy.
“She was—is—gorgeous,” Sam remembers about Grace. But it was her uniqueness, her utter confidence in who she was, that snagged him. Introduced by a friend, the two met in a coffee shop only to begin spending nearly every day together.
They became Mr. and Mrs. in the summer of 2013, both bound for graduate school. But when graduation signaled their opportunity to start a family, clouds moved in.
What We Can’t Control
Sam and Grace tried for two years to get pregnant. Sam, for whom school, sports, and popularity had come easily, was overwhelmed when tests revealed his near-sterility.
“I’ve learned about myself recently that I’m a closet control freak,” Sam says. “I had absolutely no control over infertility, and I didn’t understand that. That made me turn to things I could control: my hobbies, my work, my ambition.”
But beyond what Sam turned toward—a part of him turned away.
“It also made me resent things beyond my control: my wife, my marriage, my family,” Sam reflects. “I withdrew completely from things I couldn’t control and turned to things I could control.”
For Grace, the bedroom became a source of failure and then a chore. Intimacy was dictated by body temperature, charts, and doctors.
Even when in vitro fertilization finally proved successful, a new fear engulfed both of them.
“Every day there was a fear we would lose the baby,” Sam says. “You hear so many horror stories about in vitro pregnancies. From the second we found out she was pregnant till the time Myla came out, we were terrified.”
“I Don’t Love You”
Yet Myla did arrive—a beautiful 7 pounds, 15 ounces.
With her daughter at last in her arms, Grace confesses, “I thought things were great. I’ve always been oblivious.”
But Sam’s withdrawal continued to increase over the next 15 months. And then four weeks before the Weekend to Remember® marriage getaway they planned to attend, the slow inward crumbling became an implosion.
“He starts saying he doesn’t love me, he’s never loved me, our marriage is a lie,” Grace recalls.
She shoved belongings into a bag, picked up her half-asleep toddler, and left for her parents’.
Thinking back to that horrible night, Sam admits the conversation “was my way out, my way of letting her down easy. It should have crushed her to her soul. But God gave her strength. It is appalling what I said to her.”
Sam’s resentment intensified, and a developing emotional relationship with another woman catapulted into a physical affair.
Your Spouse Isn’t What You Need
A pastor recommended to Grace that she pursue counseling. It was there she discovered, “I was trying to find my identity in Sam. I learned Sam isn’t what I need; God is what I need. I’m going to be OK even if this doesn’t work out.”
Having already determined to attend, Sam and Grace sat bewildered at the Weekend to Remember® in Charleston. During the sessions, Sam says he was “forcing myself not to hear what’s being said.”
As for Grace, she heard what she needed to hear: God, You are all that I need.
Sensing the reluctance of her husband, Grace sought out the conference speakers, Joe and Cindi Ferrini, who prayed with her.
Everything You’ve Been Trying to Find
But Sam and Grace’s marriage pivoted on a single lunch during the conference. Grace recalls looking Sam in the eyes and saying, “I don’t know what you’re dealing with. But I want you to know I’m OK without you. I have the Lord. Whether you don’t want to be here or don’t want our marriage to work, with or without you, it’s going to be OK.”
She didn’t know God was working in Sam.
“When she told me she didn’t need me,” he says, “I saw the confidence and the heart of the woman I’d fallen in love with. Like God smacked me in the face: Everything you’ve been trying to find is 4 feet in front of you.”
Still forcing himself to remain absent and continue living the lie, he put his fist down on the table and said, “Let’s leave.”
But as they drove, Sam says, “I start[ed] shaking and convulsing. I can only describe it as the Holy Spirit. I was scared to death I was going to wreck. I pull[ed] off at Harris Teeter and said, ‘You told me I could tell you anything, that I could be completely honest. I’ve been having an affair. I have lied to you, I have betrayed you, I’ve been cheating on you.’”
In full surrender, Sam said the only phrase on his mind in that moment: “I don’t want to lose you.’”
Grace climbed out of the car and began walking. It was Sam’s first perspective of life without her: “This perfect person is walking away, and I may never see her again.”
Melted
Back at the conference, they found the Ferrinis , who counseled them and prayed for them. The speakers described watching Sam’s repentance “like watching a snowman melt away.”
In tears, Sam says, “Those were the worst eight months of my life. I never want to do that again. It scares me to know how good the devil is … He takes the darkest things you may not know about yourself—me being a control freak—and exploits it.”
Since the Weekend to Remember, Sam started going to counseling with Grace and has made needed changes to repair his marriage.
“I’ve completely turned my life and marriage over to God,” he says. “And I’m learning what it means to be the head of my household, having a Christ-centered household, being the husband to Grace that God would be, the father to Myla that God would be. I do feel like a different person.”
And he’s willing to tell whoever needs to hear it. “If I can help one man to not do this to his marriage, to the woman that is literally God’s perfect gift to him, it’s worth it, me reliving this.”
“Sam’s change is evident by his actions,” Grace says, filled with hope. “It’s amazing to witness that side by side.”
