Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast

Guest (Female): If you're a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we've got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have.

The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 9-1-1, dot com.

John Fuller: In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, chapter 28, we read, "Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy." Does that apply to your marriage?

I'm John Fuller with Greg and Erin Smalley, who lead the Focus Marriage team. We're going to talk now to a couple that has a riveting story: Tim and Kathy Bush. There has been betrayal, confession, and forgiveness, and here they share what happened after Tim had confessed that he'd been unfaithful.

Jim Daly: Tim and Kathy, welcome back. It's good to see you. We really did get into it last time. Kathy, I want to pick up where we touched on last time, right at the end. We talked about Tim's infidelity, the space he was living in without the Lord, drinking heavily, and the marriage falling apart.

Tim overheard a phone call that you had that really caused a turning point, another turning point in your marriage. What was going on with that call, and what did he overhear?

Kathy Bush: This was pretty much my rock bottom when I got caught on this call. I had recently gotten back from aesthetic school. I'd gone away to school for seven months, and I wasn't even sure I was going to come back to the marriage. Our kids were all out of the house at this point. Our last one had graduated, and there was just something in me that once again I felt like I wanted to fight for this marriage.

I got back, and I remember thinking, maybe our marriage is just going to be—we're going to stay married. We'd been married for 25 years at this time. We're going to stay married, and I'm going to have an occasional affair. That's really where my heart was. I had a phone card that I had in school which I had called some old boyfriends on because I didn't want Tim to track my calls.

I was home, and I was bored, and I thought of this guy and just wanted someone to talk to. Our marriage was just kind of ho-hum, I thought, and so I picked up the phone and called this guy. Tim—I thought he had left the house. He hadn't left the house, and he walked into my office and caught me.

He saw the phone card, and I thought he's going to find out every phone call on there, and this is going to be the end. Every point of our marriage where I had said I wanted a divorce—this is how twisted my head was. I'm making this phone call to this guy, yet I'm still thinking I want to be married. I was just confused. I didn't even really know what I wanted.

Now I'm in a corner. Tim's caught me on the phone, and Tim finally says, "I can't do this anymore. I can't." I really felt like this was the first time he said, "I can't be married to you." At this point, I begged Tim because there's something in me that wants to be married to him.

I knew that there's something wrong with our marriage. It's broken. I knew of some of the infidelity; Tim hadn't shared all of it yet. But I knew that we either needed to figure out how to be married and be faithful or just get a divorce. I said, "Let's get some counseling." We had been in and out of counselors but not really dedicated to that. Tim agreed to it, and we found a husband and wife team. We started a two-year counseling process where I went to the wife and Tim went to the husband.

Jim Daly: Before we get into the learnings of that, Tim, that day that you caught Kathy—you're coming out of that too. It wasn't like it was all her fault. It was your fault too. It's not even the issue of fault. It's brokenness, as you said, Kathy. You're operating out of your past insecurities, your current insecurities, all those things that a counselor's going to unpack with you as to what motivates you to do the things that you did. But in that moment, you were trying to think through, "How do I fix Kathy?"

Tim Bush: It was always fix Kathy. When we went to the counselors before, it was always going to fix her because I thought most guys did at least some of the things that I did. It was a normal thing. I really thought that this was a time where something had to happen differently. When I caught Kathy on the phone, I thought to myself, I thought I was making deals with God, and it was going to be better.

I was realizing maybe God just doesn't want us to be married, and I'm not going to tell her everything because if I told her everything, then that would make me bad. I thought the only way out of this is probably a divorce now, and I could just start my life with somebody else. I could figure that out. At that point, that's the first time really I can say I was really done because there was no way I was going to tell Kathy everything. No way.

Jim Daly: How did you move from all of that to keeping in the process of improving your marriage? You go from "I've got to fix her". What was that transition to say, maybe it's not about fixing her; it's about fixing me?

Tim Bush: That's what I tell guys nowadays. You've always got to look in the mirror if you want to fix something in your marriage, at what's looking back at you. For me, I remember after going to counseling with Jake, he was transitioning that with me, talking to me about it. When he finally said, "The issue in your marriage is you're not telling Kathy everything." That was after two years of counseling because I hadn't told him either.

When I finally told him, it was like this relief came off me. When he told me I needed to tell her, and when I actually did tell her, it took two hours. She kept saying, "Is that all? Is that all? Is that all?" Finally, when I said, "Yes, as best of my recollection, that's all."

Jim Daly: Let me ask you, Kathy, with that disclosure—every couple's going to be in a different place, and you should talk to a counselor about how to go about dealing with unsaid things. We don't want to put a blanket here. But in that context, for a lot of wives particularly, that could be the dagger of death to that marriage. How did you absorb that and then say, "Okay, let's move forward"? How did that happen?

Kathy Bush: With those two years of counseling—what's interesting is I thought in the counseling that Tim was being honest. I didn't think for a minute that he wasn't sharing. We're paying for counseling, and we're wanting help in our marriage, so I really thought that he was telling me everything in counseling. After the two years, I even told Tim, "I don't need to do this anymore." I felt like we had worked through all we needed to work through. I felt like we were good. Enough. You know when you're done counseling.

I was 90% truthful. At that turning point is when he started having anxiety, so he kept seeing the counselor. I really think as Tim started getting unhealthy with anxiety and depression, that man that was so controlling in our marriage, that shifted. He couldn't control anything. Our marriage started to look different to where I was always controlled by Tim. Now I had to step up, and I had to take care of him.

My heart for him changed. I felt like for the first time in our marriage, I had a different kind of freedom, but I wanted to be there. At the point when he told me everything, there was not one part of me that wanted to leave him. I was hurting for him and the burden he had been carrying. Actually, what happened with me was our marriage started to make sense. Everything that I had been doing and I would tell him, I realized he had been doing the same thing.

John Fuller: Erin, this is such a big topic for so many couples, not necessarily with stories as dramatic as Tim and Kathy's, but so many couples deal with this. What are some of the common characteristics you see, in particular for those relationships that have been strained by some level of infidelity?

Erin Smalley: The first characteristic that I notice for the couples that are going to do well is whichever partner was the betraying spouse, they are willing to take full responsibility for the choices that they've made and to end that relationship at all costs. There is no contact whatsoever. If there is contact, they are willing to be humble and go to their spouse and tell them, "I saw a post. I was in a meeting and they were there," or "I saw them at work."

That spouse has to own what they have done without any excuses—no minimizing, deflecting, or explaining away what they did. It's so important because then the hurt spouse has got to lean into their healing because they're just learning about this thing that has happened. The betraying spouse has known this is going on, and in many ways, they feel relieved once they've confessed because then it's out in the open and they're no longer hiding.

The spouse that's been betrayed or hurt has to lean into healing and be willing to grieve and give this the time and space that it needs to allow the healing to happen.

John Fuller: As you're speaking, I'm realizing something. The betrayer has been engaged in the activity and maybe has been battling the temptation for a long time. This is not news to them. But it might be total news for the other spouse.

Erin Smalley: More than likely, it is. They're just learning about this, so it's all new information. The betraying spouse also needs to work on transparency—full transparency—because the hurt spouse is going to be going, "What's true here? Who are they? Are they being honest? What is the truth?"

John Fuller: Trust has been broken, right? Severed. It's going to take time for that to be repaired.

Erin Smalley: Yes. Thus there are things that the hurt spouse is going to need in order—it's their brain and their heart that are going to need certain things that will help them to rebuild trust. Things like sharing passwords, having access to the cell phone, the computer, and social media. However the communication was transpiring between the betraying spouse and the affair partner, they need to have access to whatever that method was.

Sometimes it's on Instagram, Snapchat, or whatever. I've heard all kinds of manners that the communication takes place. It's important that the hurt spouse has access to that. I know so often the hurt spouse is like, "I don't want to be a micromanager." That is why it's important to talk about this with a third-party counselor, a licensed Christian counselor, that can help you make a plan for how we recover from this and how we heal.

It is not a sprint; it is a marathon. The average time of recovery is one to three years. Typically I will work with a couple for about a year, if not longer, and even after that year, checking in regularly to make sure that they're continuing to go in the right direction.

John Fuller: I so appreciate your heart. That's the heart of the ministry, to help you if you're struggling with this deep pain that we've been talking about today. If you need a counselor but you don't know where to turn, start with us. We have caring Christian counselors, and our donor community makes it possible for them to give you a call at a time that works for you. They can listen to your story, offer some steps forward, and connect you with resources.

We have a network of Christian counselors that you can trust, likely somebody in your area or very close. It'd be an honor to hear your story and to help you in the steps ahead. That's a phone call away: 800, the letter A, and the word family. We'll also have some details about our counseling network in the show notes.

Tim and Kathy's story is incredible. The book title is almost sensationalistic: Sex on the First Date. But that tells you where they were at and what characterized their relationship. Get a copy of this book because it will help you understand the dynamics, and you'll see how you can get out of the spiral and back connected to your spouse, regardless of the transgression, whether it's an affair or something else.

Get a copy of the book from us here at the ministry when you make a donation, either a one-time gift or monthly pledge. We've got the links to donate in the show notes. Next time, Bill and Pam Farrel offer ways to push on through a midlife crisis. I'm John Fuller, and on behalf of Greg and Erin and the entire team here, thanks for joining us for the Focus on the Family Marriage Podcast.

Guest (Female): If you're a pastor wanting to save and strengthen marriages in your congregation, we've got a great tool for you. Marriage 911 by Focus on the Family trains laypeople to mentor couples who may be on the verge of divorce or who want to strengthen what they already have.

The kit includes two leader guides, four workbooks, and all the training necessary to meet with and mentor men and women who need help. Visit marriage911.com. That's marriage, the numbers 9-1-1, dot com.