Marital Separation | The Last Prayer

I remember in my first broken marriage as a 20-year-old asking a counselor "But what if he dies?" in response to my hesitancy to allow my heart to attach to another human being. I held my heart back from choosing to feel and show love for him in part because of my fear that if I gave in to that sensation - placing my heart in a man's hands - that one day, I would seriously regret it. It could have been unfaithfulness, desertion, death, divorce, or any type of abandonment that could have delivered the seemingly-fatal blow to my terrified heart.

Fast forward to the toxic push-pull dynamic I shared with my second, addicted husband. I constantly tried to escape the pain he and his bondage caused me; I constantly looked for a way out. I wanted an exit for the feelings of agony, abuse, abandonment, betrayal, and deceit.

I always knew a shoe was waiting to drop, and consistently sought out a way to intercept the pain before it hit its target in my life... anything to try to control or prevent the pain from affecting me again.

One of the most difficult lessons I learned married to an addicted man was that loving him inevitably meant being hurt by him. In fact, this truth is universal in life and love. In a broken, sin-filled world, love without pain is impossible. Human relationships will always involve some form of emotional risk. Loving another opens up your heart to fill any and all pain their own sin, sickness, personal trials, or bondages cause in their lives. Choosing to attach, to love - is asking for the inevitable pain that will assuredly accompany it. Loving Bradley taught me this truth. I believe I had always known this truth in my heart, which is why I feared allowing my heart to be given away. But accepting it, and having peace knowing love and pain can exist simultaneously at times, was the obstacle I had to face ultimately.

"No love, no pain." This was tattooed on my late husband's wrist, and now, it's tattooed on my scarred heart. God shared His heart for Bradley with me along the broken road of our 3-year marriage.

God put me through a grueling spiritual bootcamp where I had to train long and hard to learn how to love a man who was unlovable in his sickness and sin, most of the time.

Like Christ, I loved the unlovely. God placed a divine love for Brad in my heart and a resiliency in my spirit to not give up on him - to choose to love, despite the personal consequences. I surrendered my heart to Brad, and vowed to honor him and God through my conduct as a wife, aside from his treatment of me as my husband.

He abused, I set boundaries.

He assaulted, I forgave.

He left, I stayed.

He lied, I spoke truth.

He chose sin, I chose prayer.

Without God's grace in my spiritual bootcamp experience, I would have cowered in self-protection and stayed in victim-mindset as his wife. But with God's way, I learned how to stay without allowing the same dynamics in our marriage to continue. God helped me interrupt the crazy cycle. God didn't change our marriage first; He changed me first. And after I set boundaries, forgave, stayed faithful, spoke truth, and prayed for Brad over time, Bradley changed, too. Because of the love of God displayed imperfectly in his wife, Bradley came to know the love Jesus has for him as His personal Savior. God used me -a very broken, impulsive woman to show just a glimpse of God's heart for my late husband... and Brad got it. It clicked. My personal sacrifice led to Bradley accepting Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, which saved him, in the end. Bradley and I embodied the believing and unbelieving spouses explained in scripture (1st Peter 3).

God saw my training was complete in learning to love despite dread or fear of the consequences, when I learned to relate to Him in His own human experience of dreading the cross, but choosing it for us - out of great love, anyways. Christ chose to endure the cross because He knew the joy it would bring (Hebrews 12:2). After God transformed my heart in a similar way, He directed me to "separate myself" from my husband. It made no sense to me; I had just re-dedicated my heart to Bradley a few months before and was all in, no matter what pain or obstacle we might face... I had finally submitted to God and my husband and decided in my heart I would willingly offer my heart every day in the knowledge I would be hurt at times, trusting it to God's care, ultimately.

And soon after, God changed plans on me. I was asked to make a different type of sacrifice... I was asked to separate myself from the man I had grown to love more than myself.

My Heavenly Husband asked me to do something I didn't understand or want to do, but I knew I had to obey Him; He had proven Himself faithful in my life. I loved my Jesus... that love required obedience, no matter how painful the request. I stopped speaking so much with Bradley. I pulled away as he relapsed again and again between programs in early 2021. I told Brad what God had commanded me to do concerning him, and tried to love him from a distance for the following two months. Little did I know my sweet Jesus was preparing me to lose Brad - for the last time. My considerate Lord was trying to soften the blow for my scarred heart... He was creating space between our hearts and our lives. He was watchful and in waiting...

The last prayer I ever prayed for my husband was on April 30th, 2021, around 11pm. I had been informed he was using again that night, and I was prepared to go no contact with him for 6 months or longer to set a re-enforced boundary for him. My heart was broken, and I was tired. I had exhausted asking other people to pray. My heart gave out that night... quietly, inevitably. The last prayer I spoke in a choked whisper was "God, if you know he isn't going to recover and beat addiction in this life... just take him, Lord. Just bring Brad home to You..."

The next afternoon, I got word my Bradley - the boy I had learned to love deeper than anyone else in this life - had passed away. It was estimated he had died around 11pm the night before, just as I had spoke my last prayer for him. He passed away without my knowledge, in a different city, from his 13th overdose. He wouldn't be coming back this time. God had honored my final prayer for Brad's deliverance. He had honored Bradley to keep him alive until he had accepted Christ as Savior and would have a home in Heaven... and He had honored me. He waited on me. My God waited until I was ready to let Bradley go. He didn't have to, but He did. My God had trained me, worked boundless grace in our marriage, and set us both free into better. I now entrust Bradley to God's perfect care, and my own future here to God's perfect care, too.

I now identify with Christ in the human experience of loving people fearlessly, though pain is required. My Jesus did it for me; I will do it for Him.

The kicker in this life is listening to God. What is God telling me to do? Is he telling me to leave, or to stay? Is He calling me to intercede in prayer, to reach out in love, to set a healthy boundary? Seeking God on the issues of marital separation is paramount, because God is in control of all the moving parts; He knows what each spouse needs. He prompts us to work with Him in the outcomes of our marriages, not against Him. He asks us to trust Him, no matter what He directs us to do or not do with our spouses, because ultimately He is our bridegroom in Heaven, and He knows what's best for us.

If you're considering separation from a spouse who's addicted today, please contact us for guidance and support.