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Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 2) - Chris and Cindy Beall
Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 1) - Chris and Cindy Beall
Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 2) - Chris and Cindy Beall
Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Part 3) - Chris and Cindy Beall
FamilyLife Today® Radio Transcript
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Gradually Rebuilding Trust
Guests: Chris & Cindy Beall
From the series: Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New (Day 2 of 3)
Bob: When Chris Beall was unfaithful to his wife Cindy, she faced a decision. Was she going to forgive him, or not? Here’s how she thought that through.
Cindy: I really do believe—with all my heart—he never wanted to hurt me. He still did—but he did not want that—so forgiving him, was really rather easy. Trusting him? That was something had to be earned for months—and years—to come.
Bob: This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, August 29th. Our host is the President of FamilyLife®, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine. What does the process of rebuilding trust in a broken marriage relationship look like? Chris and Cindy Beall join us today to talk about their experience. Stay with us.
And welcome to FamilyLife Today. Thanks for joining us. One of the things that we’ve talked with couples about over the years is the whole issue of how trust gets rebuilt in a relationship when that trust has been violated.
1:00
Usually the violator is hoping that that trust can get rebuilt—like really quickly. The violated person is going, “No, no, no, no, no—this is a much slower process than you imagine—or than it feels like it ought to be to you—because you’re not the one who got kicked in the gut; right?
Dennis: Yes. Usually the one who confesses the sin—especially in a marriage relationship where a betrayal is so personal—feels like they can empty the garbage can and it’s like a dump truck comes and takes it away.
Bob: And they feel free because they’ve become unburdened!
Dennis: They’ve finally gotten rid of it and their spouse is left to know—what do I do with this—
Bob: In the garbage!
Dennis: —with this garbage? We’ve got a couple with us—first of all the author of the book Rebuilding a Marriage Better Than New, Cindy Beall—welcome back, Cindy.
Cindy: Thank you.
Dennis: And her husband Chris, joins us.
Chris: Thank you. So excited to be here.
Dennis: They’ve been married since 1993. They have three boys.
2:00
You shared earlier about how your marriage had to deal with Chris’s deceit, betrayal, pornography, an affair, the birth of a child outside of marriage that you knew nothing about—and your world was shattered instantly. Yet, one of the great parts of your story is that you were part of a church—Life Church—where you now work—
Chris: Correct.
Dennis: —Chris. I actually love this part of the story, Bob, because many of us have heard a lot of couples, where things have gone wrong and they kind of drop off the face of the planet, and you never hear from them again. Well, that’s not the case with Chris and Cindy Beall. They received forgiveness from one another—they have experienced healing. That’s what I really want to explore here—and begin with you, Cindy, to just unpack.
After you initially responded with grace and forgiveness and a commitment to the marriage some three weeks into the discovery that your husband had been unfaithful for a number of years—
3:00
—not only with pornography but also with affairs with multiple women.
How did you experience that healing on an ongoing basis—because there are a lot of listeners who are in the midst of their own deep trauma and trial right now—they need to know where to look for help and hope.
Cindy: Grief is not enjoyable. Nobody wants to grieve. We experienced grief when we lose something—it could be a job, it could be a relationship, it could be a person—so our marriage—I felt like—died that day. So I began a grief process. There’s different stages—you can research and find about all that—but I didn’t really experience a ton of anger or denial—I went straight into the ‘pit of despair’, is what I call it.
For me, I tried for a little bit to kind of push it away when triggers would come. That’s what I used the phrase a lot in my book and when I’m talking to women.
4:00
Triggers would come to remind me of something he had done or something he had said that would trigger back to that two and a half year period. I had an option—I could suppress it—push it aside—forget it—not think about it—or I could feel it and I could push through it and I could move through it.
Dennis: Let’s talk about one of those triggers. One of the ways would be when he came home late. Maybe a bit later than he had told you he would be home.
Cindy: Oh, yes! And I’m thinking, “This reminds me of that time period and what am I going to do with it?” An even better trigger—I want to tell you about this—that I wrote about—I was in Walmart and I was grocery shopping.
I remember looking up on the shelf for a particular item for this recipe I was making. This was probably three months after confession. I see it and I’m reminded of something that I used to do when we lived in the other town and it reminded me of, “Oh, he often wasn’t home when I did this.” “He was doing a ministry appointment.”
5:00
“Oh, he was—,“ and it triggered and I started thinking...
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