I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. It solidifies the principles already in place.

I also wonder if walls are not used for the metaphor because if you do go over the wall, it’s harder to get back than the hedge.

After all, that seems to be what my ex-wife did. She want over the wall, then used the wall she erected between us to justify her herself why she wasn’t leaving the affair and returning to the marriage.

Walls work both ways, making it hard to return as well as hard to leave.

My heart is just broken for you, sweetie. I can so feel every word you wrote…every.single.word. I live it myself and have been for so very many years. God has a plan for us and he can make any marriage better than our wildest dreams. Praying for you!

For me, during our first separation (four years ago), I was crazy diligent with boundaries b/c I knew satan would come after that sacred part of our marriage. What happened was that satan was oh so quiet, biding his time, quietly and patiently lying in wait. I know the enemy and his schemes and lies, I know what the enemy sounds like, how he lures us, how appealing he can make the other side look and just how sneaky he is. I was not naive enough to think that *I* could never be tempted by adultery, but b/c I knew the schemes of the devil, I went too far in trusting that I would see right through it. And, you know what, I DID see right through it. What initially caught me WAY off guard (a seemingly innocent conversation in PUBLIC) and scared the daylights out of me, ended up sucking me in b/c I was so, so vulnerable. As the other person would say EXACTLY what every woman longs to hear, I would say to myself, “LIES…straight from satan, nothing, but lies,” and yet we know that satan doesn’t need to change his game plan b/c the same ole stuff works and it sure did. I had been so starved for so long that I crumbled under every lie of the enemy.

Somebody up above spoke about being a stumbling block for someone else and I must admit that that wasn’t a thought in my mind. I’d have NEVER guessed that not only was his marriage leaving him vulnerable, but that he’d had other affairs. To this day, I’m still so shocked that I missed the initial danger signals and then actually went ahead and went through with it after seeing what was happening. I become someone I was pretty sure I’d never be and certainly not doing something I was pretty sure wouldn’t happen once, much less for months!

This has been over for months, but it wreaked havoc on my life in such a huge way, you can’t imagine, and I don’t mean with my spouse. My relationship with God suffered horribly (of course), I was drinking more often to deal with the guilt, it kept me away from my beloved church, I stepped down from leading small group and on and on and on the destruction goes.

Marriage-wise, I have no idea what will happen. I didn’t end up that vulnerable on my own, but I bear the sole responsibility for my actions. I went from a (marriage) stander, to looking like the rest of the world over a few kind words spoken to me. It’s unreal. I still believe in a God of miracles and restoration, but it would sure take the mother of all miracles to fix this mess. Take my word for it, NO marriage is immune, NO person is immune from this sort of temptation. Tend to your marriage and build, build, build those walls!!

Proverbs 14:1
“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.”