Our world is full of clichéd sayings about love. Ever heard this famous one: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry”? Or maybe “Love conquers all”? What about “If you love something, set it free.” We realize that each of these clichés doesn’t fully represent love but isn’t there some truth in each of them?
A Battered Definition
No matter how many definitions or sayings we hear about love, we think we know it. We think we are experiencing it. We believed in its vows. Yet, upon discovering our husband’s betrayal, we are left feeling utterly unloved and skeptical that it ever was a reality. In betrayal’s wake, every definition of love now seems trite and unattainable. However, ask us to define the opposite of love, and we can create a detailed definition within seconds.
Our lack of feeling loved is compounded in the initial days, weeks, and even months after D-day. If our husband loved us, how could he make such choices? If God loved us, how could he let this happen? Why would he let it happen? Our world is a tilt-a-whirl, and no one seems safe – not God, and not our husbands.
Love and Safety
Our initial crisis sends us seeking safety and stabilization. We want to find a safe place or person and experience some stability. Our experience with “love” has come undone, even as it relates to our relationship with God. Did we know what love was? The crisis in our marriage often brings about a crisis of faith. How can we trust God’s love for us if He allowed this to happen?
After my betrayal, I knew the words of Romans 8:38-39 – “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” – but I couldn’t yet believe them. I did feel separated from God just as much as I felt the separation from my husband. Yet, there was a sliver of desperate hope that the verse still held even when I didn’t feel it.
The wake of the betrayal left me with one thought: God was all I had. Even though I was angry and distrustful of Him, He was the only one I could go to. Shame and fear locked me away from others; I didn’t want anyone to know about my husband’s choices. In my search for safety and stabilization, the first stage of healing, my lonely desperation pushed me to lean into Him.
What I discovered was that love equals safety. God proved his love for me by taking me as I was—angry and distrustful. I didn’t have to come to him with total faith and hopeful expectation. I could come with tears, questions, accusations, and screams if I needed to. He is not afraid of me, my questions, my fears, or even my tears.
Love and Stability
I also discovered that love is characterized by stability. As my world tumbled and swirled around me, God was steadily present. His stability gave me comfort when my emotions were all over the place when I had another question, and when I needed another answer. I found comfort in the Word and the truth that God was the same – yesterday, today, and forever. His nature prevents him from changing. Consider this, “Since God is an absolute perfection, no change for the better is possible since you cannot improve on perfection. The same holds tufor changing for the worse. Change is not possible with God. He does not develop or grow. He always remains the same” (Blue Letter Bible Institute).
What a comfort to know that the One I was leaning on wouldn’t suddenly change his mind about me. He wouldn’t make choices that weren’t in my best interest. He would not, indeed could not, break the covenant, or dishonor the vow He made with me.
- “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine” Isaiah 43:1
- “as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.” Isaiah 62:5b
- For we are his masterpiece . . . Ephesians 2:10
- For your royal husband delights in your beauty Ps 45:11a
- “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” [James 1:17]
Leaning into Love Redefined
Despite the turmoil, the pain, the fear, and the loneliness, I found my first place of safety not in the arms of a husband, but in the welcoming heart of God. A God who took me just as I was and stepped into the mess with me. He, not my husband, became my steady rock – one who never changes his mind about how much He loves me.
In the movie “Meet Joe Black,” Anthony Hopkin’s character says, “Multiply [love] it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I’m talking about.” A love like this is fathomless, but isn’t this just the way God would describe his love for us? Maybe part of understanding the definition of love is accepting that its depths are unknowable because they are steeped in the enigmatic character of God. Even in the depths of this mystery, what I know now– because of my betrayal story– is that God walked me into my first steps of healing, and He gave me my first words to redefine love.