Thursday, December 10, 2009

Has Adam Always Been Faithful?

All I can say is, "WOW!" Who knew that all I had to do to get women involved in a marriage ministry was to talk about the dissolution of a marriage? The response that we saw yesterday & the traffic that we received was incredible. On a normal day here at the Women's Marriage Ministry we have about 400-500 visitors. In the last 24 hours we have had just over 2500! Praise God!

Why do I praise God you ask? Because, whether yesterday's post touched your heart or just raised your curiosity, I am blessed that you came by. We were able to reach so many women yesterday that desperately NEED the support that our blog family can offer. There are many women that NEED Christian influences in their life right now for a multitude of reasons. There are many women who NEED some hope & guidance in their marriages. Thank you. Thank you all so much for checking us out & sharing us with all of your friends, co-workers & family. You are helping so many women, many women that I am sure you don't even realize that you are reaching. You, yes you, are responsible for helping to save a marriage, a family. Keep sharing ladies. Together, we can all make this world a MUCH better place. One person may not be able to change the whole world, but one person can change the whole world for one person.

Many of you reading today joined us from Kayleigh's Story that was so well portrayed by my dear, sweet, amazing, husband, Adam. He touched us all in a way that we never expected through a "blog". He allowed everyone feel that they were indeed a true part of our family. So many of you wrote those very comments. So many of you would write to us & tell us how Kayleigh's blog & Adam's writing brought you closer to God, caused you to hug your children a little tighter, helped you to appreciate the smaller things in life, not to be so quick to think that your life is the pits, & so many other wonderful blessings. You all fell in love with not only our sweet Kayleigh, but our entire family, & especially my husband. (no worries, I won't get jealous)

Since I started this blog just a short month ago, I have received countless emails about all the things that are "wrong" with your husbands. There have been many excuses as to why you can't work on your marriage, why you have given up, why your husband isn't worth it anymore, etc. etc. It is unfortunate how many examples I could share. Would it completely shock you to know that this amazing man that I am blessed to be married to WAS like many of your husbands? That many of you would have kicked Adam to the curb if he was yours? Maybe that sounds a little strong or even egotistical, but I know what a wonderful Godly man that I have by my side. A man that any women would be lucky enough to call her husband. He is flawed, he is a sinner, & he sure isn't perfect. But God felt that he was perfect for me. God created Adam in His image. He knew that Adam would sin & He knew that I could handle it. Thank you Lord for this blessing!

I know that many of you are thinking that Adam & I have the "perfect" marriage & we really don't have a clue what we are talking about. After all, we have only been married for three years. Well, let me prove it to you. Why do most couples divorce? No faith, check. We were there once. No money, check. We were pretty broke, remember? We lost our house, a car, our power, our cable, went on food stamps, etc. A long term illness and/or death of a child, check. Enough said. We love you Kayleigh bear. Of course some of these things were also happening simultaneously. We weren't "lucky" enough to have one disaster at a time. Lastly, an unfaithful partner, check. You heard me right ladies. Adam was not always faithful.

Now I know we aren't supposed to speak negatively of our husbands over this 30 days but our negative can be YOUR positive. This post was actually Adam's idea. God called us to help others & we are grateful to have learned that over the past year or so. We are not too ashamed to share our "dirt" with the world, we are so thankful, honored, & blessed that God chose us to use our "negative" situations in life to help others get stronger. It is our job as Christians to share our testimony for the greater good of others. If telling our story will bring one person closer to God or will save one marriage, it was all worth it. If people want to judge us, that is okay too. It hurts, sure. But God knows what we are doing on Earth & we look forward to the day that He says, "Good work my child. You have done as I expected you to do."

So, why did this infidelity happen? Most importantly, God was not at the center of our lives. At that time, God wasn't even on the outside. As I said in yesterday's post, I wasn't going to Church except for a few times a year. Adam had converted to Christianity while in a previous relationship. Actually, I never had the pleasure of meeting that particular woman & I want to take a second to thank her publicly. I am not sure if she reads my blog but I know that some of her family was reading Kayleigh's story. Thank you BN/BB so very much for leading Adam to Christ. You were instrumental in building the foundation that Adam's Christianity stands on today. (Therefore, mine as well) So thank you, thank you, thank you. Keep sharing the Lord with others because you never know who you are reaching.

Sorry ladies. I thank you all for bearing with me for a moment. That needed to be done.

After several years of going to Church & actually being quite active, Adam allowed some unpleasant, life altering situations to derail his walk with God. He stopped going to Church, got mixed up with the wrong crowd, did his fair share of sinning, etc. In the midst of all of this, I came along.


Here is Adam's take on what happened - 



"Hello Ladies!" (LOL- Sorry Aimee...I had to say it since you didn't do it this time) You see, after reading all of Aimee's posts and seeing how they start off this exact same way, I couldn't bare to let her break tradition. 

Wow, look at this! Is this legal for a me to bust in on my wife's blog, made especially for women, to honorably be the main focus who's goal is to capture all eyes by pulling back my skin for close examination?  Legal or not, I am sure you all are itching to hear my experience about being faithful, or lack thereof.

Just as Aimee was saying, most people see me as this loving father who captured every waking hour of his daughter's fight for survival while she touched the hearts of millions of people through her heroic journey. Most people viewed my relationship with Aimee as perfect as what perfect can possibly be. I could easily understand because while the focus was on Kayleigh and not our personal relationship struggles, I could see how easy it was to categorize us in that fashion. But truth be told as you all recently found out from the very first post, we are real crazy people too with real crazy problems in this real crazy world. As for me being portrayed as this awesome Christian father and husband, I can proudly agree with you "now," but it took a lot of me doing wrong to allow God to make it right. 

Speaking of doing wrong, I am going to humble myself before the Lord and not hold back my fear of being judged for my honesty is spoken with purposeful intentions of showing you all that you are not alone. We ALL have committed sin, made mistakes, constructed regrets that we are not proud of. I will honorably speak it straight from the heart because there is still a profound scar that was formed on my heart when I severely shredded Aimee's in two the day I chose to be unfaithful in our relationship. 

I can sit here and make up all the excuses in the book to justify why I did what I did. "It was early in our relationship," "I was hanging out with the wrong crowd," "I moved away to start my life over from a bad break up," "I was abusing drugs and alcohol," "Blah! Blah! Blah!  It doesn't matter what excuse I would come up with, it all came down to one thing and one thing only.  What caused me to be unfaithful to Aimee and to be unfaithful to practically every woman I ever dated prior to Aimee was because I wasn't letting God lead my life.

Think about this. All Jesus does is teach us God's word on how to live a happy life. The Bible is literally a glorified self help book...hints why it has so many pages. How did He know we would all have so much drama? The answer is really simple and I completely understand 100% why people have such an issue with Christianity, God, Jesus and the Bible or why so many people judge Christians more than any other religion in the world. It is because God's word is RIGHT and I just didn't want to be told what to do.

I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to live it because I was selfish, invincible and a know-it-all at the same exact time. I lived my whole life with my father teaching me how I need to live my life, why would I want another father to tell me how to live my life when I already moved out on my own, especially when God caused so much damage in my life.

The whole reason I moved out to Virginia Beach was to start a whole new life since the previous one was shattered by sin. Can you tell how starting over a new life (still without God) somewhere else really made a huge difference? Not one single bit. I was still living the exact same sin-filled life, just in a different city and unfortunately Aimee fell victim to my God-less driven life.

Do you see any resemblance of my story and yours? Let me help...without God in your life is compared to living without truth, lack of positive direction or better yet, you have no clue what the right answer is that will fix your marital situation. Just like me and just as Aimee had mentioned on several occasions, I was perfect and I never did anything wrong to bring on this kind of trouble in my life. It was always someone else's fault. In the end, I was the poor victim and when I divorced my old life, I re-married a new life with the same problems.

Like Aimee's post yesterday, Mike and Aimee's sin caused their marriage to end because God wasn't present. Just as she was equally at fault for driving the marriage to it's demise, so was I for my previous relationship that caused my fiancé to fall in love with another man weeks before our wedding day. It was all my fault because even though I thought I had God in my life, I didn't live how He wanted me to live.

So the easy thing to do was blame God for causing this trouble because it is never my fault, get involved heavily with drugs and alcohol to feel sorry for myself, hang out with people who wouldn't dare preach to me and who wouldn't stop me from the endless partying that drowned my sorrows. Ultimately, it caused me to break Aimee's heart by cheating on her.

Shhhhh......Do you hear that? I think there is a pitty party going on.  Come on...listen to all those poor excuses I was making. It was ME that was the problem. It was ME who caused all the pain. It was ME who ran from the truth. It was ME who played the victim. It was ME who broke Aimee's heart. It was all about me and I was causing all of my own pain and sorrow because I wasn't living my life the way God intended me to live. I needed to straighten up, get back in church, read the Bible, listen to sermons online and let God speak directly to me on how to fix what "I" had broken.

God is the one who provide light when you can't see! God is the one who comforts you in sadness! God is the one who takes all the pain away when you give Him all your troubles! God is the one who eases your worries because you can trust in Him! God is the one who can get rid of your drug and alcohol addictions! God is the one who has a plan for my new life when all I have to do is listen to make that new life better!  God is the one who saved my marriage from being destroyed by unfaithfulness! God gave me Kayleigh to touch your life in a special way! God saved me from falling in to a life of sin again when I left Aimee! God is the answer, the protector and the healer!

 "Thank you Lord for forgiving me for my imperfections and allowing me to learn from my mistakes to help others learn from theirs so they too can understand how awesome Your love is. May you continue to speak through Aimee and send the message to those in need for complete restoration in  their marriages, Amen"

I always told myself that if a man cheated on me, he would think that John Bobbitt had it easy. Seriously. However, it was foreign to me that I could feel completely different if I trusted what the Lord had in store for me. Adam rebuilding trust with me was a process, but he understood that. To this day, if I have a question about that period, I can ask him. (I don't anymore because with the Lord's help I have truly forgiven & trust him.) After hearing all of this, what do you think? If it were your husband that behaved that way, would you have forgiven him? Or would you abandon him in his weakness? Ladies, I beg you to reconsider. What if I would have given up on Adam during one of his most awful moments as a man? I'll tell you. I would be missing out on the greatest gift that God would ever bless me with. My life partner, my lover, & my best friend. Please forgive your husband as God has forgiven you. Your husband will never be perfect, but he is perfect for you. You once believed that, otherwise you wouldn't have married him in the first place. Trust your Father & start the healing of your marriage today!


Day Eight - 


Faithfulness is a wonderful but rare quality today, especially in regard to marriage. Do you understand how important this quality is? Your challenge is to continue to root out all negative speaking, & plant seeds of encouragement instead. You may be amazed at what will grow.


Contemporary culture often entices men to be unfaithful to their wedding vows & spiritual commitments. Appreciate your husband's faithfulness - how he is loyal to you. Let him know that you are glad he has "stick-to-it-iveness" in your marriage. Appreciate his faithfulness to God. (If you have an unfaithful husband, this is a difficult area for you. Pray, speak the truth in love, remain faithful to yourself, & discover ways to encourage faithfulness in your spouse. The Bible says that husbands may "...be won by the conduct of their wives" [1 Peter 3:1]. You may also want to seek counsel from a mature, Godly individual or couple.)


Day Eight Prayer - 


Pray that your husband will yield his mind & thoughts to the Lord. Pray that he will not entertain immoral or impure thoughts, & that he will resist the temptation to indulge in pornography or infidelity. (Prov. 27:12; 2 Cor. 10:5)


I hope that you all enjoyed the message, the challenge, & the prayer for today. If you did, PLEASE forward our blog onto to others. You probably know someone that needs it. You probably aren't aware of even more people that really need it. Your co-worker, your friend from Church, or a mom on your child's athletic team. Most people that are having marriage problems get good a disguising it. It has become "normal" to them. Give them the biggest present that you could ever offer them this Christmas. Give them the link to a little bit of hope. Give them the right tools to put in their marriage toolbox. Give them the membership to an entire community of support. If you check out our poll question, 94% of the women reading this blog have found something here that has improved their marriage even a little. That is just in one month! Imagine what we could do together if every month we change 94% of marriages. That is a world that I want to live in!


I know that many of you have come over from Kayleigh's blog & you are totally new to our Ministry. I made a list of all of the ways that you could link to us easily so that you don't miss a single update. Thank you again for coming to see what we are all about, & thank you to those women that have been loyal followers.


Just click on the links: (You can do all of them)
Follow Me on Twitter - Get a text message immediately when a new post is published. Never miss an update or have to check 100 times to see if it is posted.


Follow Me on Facebook - I update my status each time there is a new post. I also post new family photos & other fun stuff.


Email Me - Direct email address is you need more one on one guidance.


The Blog Frog - A community where we can all chat interactively. Our goal - the largest women's marriage "small" group ever. Come talk about the blog, prayer requests, introduce us to your blog, get an accountability partner, weight loss support, or anything else that is on your mind.


Become a Official Follower of This Blog - Have your photo icon posted as a "follower" of this blog. This widget is posted in the left sidebar of the blog.


RSS Feeds - Okay, what is this? By subscribing here you don't even have to get on the internet. You will receive the daily post in an email in your inbox (work, home or both). It is that easy!


Add Our Button - You can also add our button to your very own blog so that your "followers" will have a direct link at all times to our site. You will save them from having to search or Google us. The html code is listed in the left side bar of the blog. Or, you can save this photo & link it directly.







At the bottom of each daily post there is a share button. By clicking on this button there are some other websites that you are able to share the blog on. (Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) This feature enables you to re-tweet or post to your own pages with one click.


Ok, I think that I gave you enough ways to connect with us that hopefully everyone has at least one option. I look forward to "seeing" you all tomorrow! Have a great night.

Aimee Freeman

12 comments:

MommyIvy said...

Thank you so much for this. My husband has never cheated in the physical form, but he might as well have over the internet. He has done it to me twice. I still today have issues with trusting what he is doing on the computer and phone. Its been hard, but we are working on it. What did you do to help you trust him again? Was it a easy thing or did you struggle with it for a while?

Heather said...

I too would like to know if it was a struggle for you to forgive. I have been fortunate enough to not have these issues in my marriage, I just struggle with forgiveness in other relationships. I just don't know how to get to a point where I can forgive someone for all the heartache they have caused me.

The Lane Family said...

Thank you for sharing the two great posts that you have over the past two days. I think it becomes easy to forget that we HAVE to have God in our marriage or it will fail. My husband I have had many struggles..may that you mentioned and the one thing that has gotten us through is when we really trust in the Lord and lean on him. We both notice when we start to forget God and how it starts us down a path that is not so good. Thank you for this blog.
Wendi

Michelle said...

Wow! You are so brave to share your dirtly laundry with the world so that God's Kingdom can be glorified. You have an awesome ministry and such a humble heart. I adore you!

As for my own relationship with my husband, I can't thank God enough for him. We have not, thankfully, experience infidelity, but I know this is a huge issue in our culture. Being that I've never been a victim to infidelity, I can't say I know what I would do. I would like to say that I would forgive him, but I just don't know. I suppose if I ever have to cross that bridge, I'll know then. But I'll continue to pray that I don't. I'm also praying for the woman who are victims and that their marriage can withstand.

Thank you for your awesome ministry. I can just imagine Jesus smiling down on you and Adam.

Blessings,
Michelle

Anonymous said...

Wow, this was beautiful although my 17 year marriage ended because of him being unfaithful it was also due to abuse the unfaithfulness was the last straw, I was weak... I do not regret, loving, trying or leaving...God has blessed me with a God loving man and he will be a great step-father to my four children( we are recently engaged), I only wish I could have the same relationship you have with Mike, but we have been praying that my ex will change....still praying... God Bless you all Freeman family

Heather said...

Amiee- I gave you an award on my blog so maybe I can spread the word some about WMM.

http://itsspelledmaguire.blogspot.com/2009/12/i-won-award.html

Anonymous said...

WOW! Thank you. ♥

Anonymous said...

I think it is great that you have this blog dedicated to helping marriages. Marriage is amazing, but HARD! to make a good one. I hope your work moves forward and you touch husband and wives so that they choose to stay together and make their lives better!

Charolette said...

Amiee I know how you felt I have been married for 10 years and my husband also wanted to live a different life. Not sure if he Cheated but I do love my husband and I know that its wrong to cheat but we do have to try and forgive. My husband use to do drugs brfore we got married and it was very hard to see him go throught it. But I stood by him and Love him very much. I just take one day at a time. We dont have any childeren we have been trying for well 10 years as a married couple. We have been together for 13 years so you know its been awhile. I pray everyday that we get blessed with a child that we can love and share or life with. I to would forgive him and I have for alot of other things that goes with being married! All I can say is to take one day at a time.

Kami said...

Thank you again for another great post. I have a really hard time trusting men period. Any man that walks on the face of this earth. I do not trust my husband at all but I love him with my whole being. It is so hard living like that. My husband cheated on his ex wife so I feel like he will do it to me. He swears he has never cheated on me but there have been several times that he has come close. (Internet, flirting at our local pool, etc) This is the reason I can't trust him. He tells me that what he has done is nothing compared to what I have done. (Before marriage, I cheated on him once because I was pretty sure the relationship was over) I still beat myself up over this all the time. He tells me he has forgiven me and trusts me, so why is it so hard for me? I could get into my whole life story about not having a father and all that so I know I brought baggage into my marriage. I just wish I could forgive him for the past and move on. I am getting ready to deliver twin girls in the next month and I don't even trust their father!!!! How messed up is that?? It frightens me. I love my husband so very much, I need help with the trusting. Sorry to make this so long. Thank you Adam for sharing that. I now see that men can change. I really hope my husband has.

In His Service,
KAmi

~~Mel~~ said...

And again...this post was written for me! lol. Early on in our relationship my boyfriend was communicating with a few different girls (one an ex co-worker, and one a current co-worker)...both cute girls...and I (having been cheated on in the past) was very insecure. When I found the emails he had been sending and receiving I thought my life was over...I confronted him and for a full year refused to forgive him...I watched his every move...checked his email and Facebook all the time...not another thing ever came up...and now I can say I do trust him...Do i still get emotional about it from time to time? Of course...we are only human, right? But at this point I know he only has eyes for me...and for that I am so grateful!

Thank you for being so real!

R said...

It has been a year since I have checked on you guys. Maybe God led me here. After 12 years of marriage, I just found out my husband cheated on me twice early in our marriage. Although for him it has been a long time ago, for me it is still fresh and raw. His story sounds allot like Adams. Its only been 4 months since I found out, and I have dedicated my heart to moving past this and forgiving him. Trust on the other hand eludes me, and my faith in our vows is shattered. I dont know if I can regain those. Thanks for you openess. I will be back.

 

Template and Design: By His Design