by Maureen Cooper
My husband is my hero.
He has overcome physical obstacles I can only imagine: a life-altering car accident at age 19 left him with a brain injury, and one leg shorter than the other. A congenital bone defect has left him needing many shoulder surgeries and living life with constant pain. He’s had to give up his dreams of athleticism and of grand material success, and continually adjust to changes. God miraculously healed his leg when someone prayed for him and it instantly grew, but other things God has chosen to leave him to struggle with.
One of those struggles almost undid our marriage. In the wake of a failed shoulder surgery, Charlie became very depressed. He had to go on disability as pain and the drugs used to control it left him exhausted every day and unable to concentrate. He started withdrawing both from life and from others, and turned inward. As most of us do in times like these, he turned to what had soothed him earlier in life, and for him that thing was pornography. It had been a part of his dad’s life, so as he became a teen-ager, it had become a part of his.
Seeing what all this trouble was doing to us, I tried to turn the tide by taking control. I tried to talk to him, cried, raged, or gave the “silent treatment.” I insisted on counseling. His resentment grew. He talked to the people I asked him to, and read the books and listened to the CD’s I brought home in my misguided attempts to “fix” the problem, but the gap between us only got wider, my hurt deeper, and his isolation more profound.
Finally, I was exhausted. I asked him to move out so I could recover. It was a terrible time, filled with bitterness and recriminations on both of our parts. We both had talked to lawyers, thinking our marriage was over. But God wasn’t done with us yet.
After about 6 months of separation, Charlie called me one day and told me he didn’t want to give up on our marriage and would do whatever it took to fix it. A small part of me was thrilled, but most of me was filled with fear: I did not want to go through all of the ups and downs, the raised hopes and dashed dreams, again. I told him that 98% of me was done. Instead of getting angry, he said “Then I’ll work with the 2%.”
Over the next months, that’s exactly what he did. He never mentioned his own needs, but focused on mine. He wanted to hear exactly how he had wounded me, and when I told him, he cried for me, and wholeheartedly asked for forgiveness, while saying he wouldn’t blame me if I couldn’t forgive him. This shocked me!
When I asked him what had happened, all he could say was that God had touched him, he realized how blessed he had been despite his sufferings, and he wanted to embrace this life that God had given him, not throw it away, and that I was God’s greatest blessing to him. He told me he would wait as long as it took for us to be healed, and he wasn’t ever going to give up.
His attitude gradually melted the iciness I had in my own heart. Sometimes I needed time and space away from him in order to sort things out; he never complained about that, but allowed me everything I needed. He offered to help with practical things, like taking care of my car or running errands, but never pushed himself on me. Over the months of healing, after I had poured out my hurt and he had acknowledged it, I was able to see the ways I had hurt him. I cried tears of repentance, which he graciously received and forgave me. When I asked him to move back home, we both rejoiced!
I can honestly say now that we have the marriage we have always wanted, enriched with double thankfulness because we came so close to losing it. Charlie is actively involved in a ministry that helps other men struggling with pornography, and takes measures to ensure his own purity in that area.
He is my hero: a man who faces his biggest battles and endures until his enemy is subdued. He has shown me what real repentance and restoration are. He is a man of character and I’m proud to call him my husband.