Coach Daegan

Separated to Soulmates: Transforming my Marriage

It was 3 a.m. when my husband walked back into the hotel room in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. I was asleep in one bed, our three little children in another. I pretended to be asleep. He hadn’t answered his phone for hours. Somehow, I just knew something was not right.

I heard the words come out of my mouth as he slid into bed next to me. The deadly words that no married woman should ever hear spoken. “Did you have sex with someone?”

There was silence.

With James it was always silence as I waited and demanded to be answered. The wordless air and the sound of my pounding heart taunted me, and my fear demanded to be released from its prison of the unspoken scratching at my insides and pounding in my chest.

I had no idea how true my words had been until twenty minutes of anger- and fear-filled time had lapsed and he opened his mouth to admit the worst crimes I could imagine against me and our family. Not once but dozens of times he had performed sexual acts outside of our “sacred” marriage. He had been at the strip club and had sex only an hour before and with twenty-eight women over the course of our seven-year marriage.

“This marriage is over,” I declared and turned over sobbing, but the night was not over. I yelled, I accused, I blamed, and I condemned, and he apologized over and over, but I believed I would never be able to, nor should I ever, forgive him.

This was the first of four confessions, each separated by a period of fidelity. I loved him so much, and our family was so important to me. I had suffered beyond anything I could ever imagine when I split up from my first husband, and the thought of doing it again made me feel that I couldn’t go on. I couldn’t survive a second round of court with accusations being flung at each other and children being taken away.

I had no idea that the struggles we faced were about more than just his infidelity.

In these bad old days, I felt that to have a happy life I had no choice but to make sure that things went the way I felt they should so that “we” could be happy. I could clearly see that if I didn’t take charge of almost everything, our lives would fall apart.

I took charge of trying to get him to go to the gym, eat healthy, do his homework for college, help me pack for trips instead of doing work stuff he had put off. I tried to control his meals by demanding that he eat with the family. “This is normal” I said, “you are not behaving like a normal or good husband and father.” I tried to create success by “guiding” him to enroll in help for his addictive patterns, from books to programs. I also tried to convince him to help me with the housework and to get the kids ready for school and church.

I tried to set boundaries around church attendance and didn’t allow him to have a different opinion about religion. Because I couldn’t convince or control him about any of these things, I teetered back and forth between anger and depression, with almost continuous threats of divorce because he would not do what I wanted.

It seemed like I was constantly crying over his lack of support in all areas of our lives together.

Three years later and right before his last confession, I tried to take his video game controller from him, and he pulled it away and pushed me out the door. As I fell, he slammed the door, and my hand got caught in the door. It looked like he had purposely abused me because of my swollen bloody hand. The police escorted him off the property as I sat in shock.

I was finally free after nine torturous years of desiring it. There I was, alone in my house with no husband to hurt my feelings, ignore me, or parent the kids wrong. Now the only option was divorce and starting again.

I fought hard to be strong. I listened to the most inspiring books, I made a vision board, and all the while God led me through it. It was super scary for me, but I had, without a doubt, to leave my husband and rebuild my family because of all the cheating he had done. He had a diagnosed sex addiction, for gosh sake. Though I still loved him, he would never be able to overcome it.

My husband got an apartment but wasn’t allowed to see the kids for that month. Once the court granted him visitation, my husband convinced me to talk with him. We went for a walk at the park, and he expressed love for me and a desire to try again. There had been so many failed attempts that it seemed ridiculous to try again, but I had a feeling deep in my soul that I needed too.

Later I learned that this feeling was inspiration. Soon, I would learn skills that I had never understood or even thought about.

A few years later, my husband introduced me to Laura Doyle. At first, I thought she was blaming women for marriage breakdowns. Later I opened myself to listening to her book because my husband had listened to one of my books. As I listened, I realized that she practiced and taught the skills I needed to love both myself and my husband unconditionally and without blame or shame.

Her program held the keys to a happy marriage and even to my own happiness.

I finally began to implement, first “whatever you think” then self-care, which morphed into true self-care over the course of my Relationship Coach Certification. I started to let go of control and, as I did, I cried. It felt like I was clinging to the edge of a cliff, about to fall to my death.

I was wrong—I was falling to my truth. I was falling into true love.

I apologized and miraculously my husband apologized too. I did self-care and he was magnetized to me. I declared my Spouse-Fulfilling Prophecies and they came true. I spoke my gratitude aloud and he became my hero. I found the evidence that he was my soulmate and he became my soulmate.

My vision for true love from the beginning of my marriage twelve years earlier started to re-form.

Now that I know how to empower myself to be happy and create happiness in my marriage, I no longer believe the falsely taught misconception that my husband is the only one to blame for our marriage problems. I no longer turn to anger or control; instead I go within and find love by asking myself, “How do I feel, what do I want?” Then I go off, unapologetically, to have frivolous fun and just enjoy my own presence.

It turns out I was the solution to my own unhappiness.

I learned that keeping my family together was the most important thing I would ever do. I decided that my pain had a purpose. I joined Laura in her mission to end world divorce, one broken heart at a time.