From Drift To Redemption - Part 2

What if the spark you’re chasing is blinding you to the repair you actually need? We open up about the lowest point of our marriage—an emotional affair, misaligned priorities, and a deep identity crisis—and the unexpected path that led us back to trust, tenderness, and shared purpose. No gloss, no shortcuts. Just the honest story of how counseling, prayer, and a faith community helped us move from parallel lives to a unified team.

We start with the breaking point and the slow unraveling that came from being physically present but emotionally distant. You’ll hear how a coffee shop conversation turned into a decision to seek Christian counseling, what we learned in the room, and the simple language shift that lowered our defenses: replace you shouldn’t feel that way with I’m sorry I made you feel that way, that wasn’t my intent. We talk about praying together even when it felt awkward, why it’s hard to stay angry when you hear your spouse pray for you, and how choosing the same goal changed the way we fought.

Church became a lifeline—first for one of us, then for both—especially a teaching series on spiritual attacks against marriage. We share the visible changes that followed, from softened tempers to cleaner speech to a hunger for Scripture. Community played a huge role: small groups that prayed for our unity, mentors who challenged us, and friends who refused to take sides. Along the way, we offer practical resources that helped us build new habits: Two Hearts Praying as One for everyday prayer, the Five Love Languages to target how love is felt, and Love and Respect to honor how we’re wired differently.

If you’re searching for marriage restoration, emotional affair recovery, Christian counseling, or how to pray with your spouse, this story offers practical next steps and real hope. Listen, share it with someone who needs it, and if it resonates, leave a review and subscribe so more couples can find their way back to each other. Your next small step could start a very different ending.

Books:

-Two Hearts Praying as One by Dennis Rainey & Barbara Rainey

-The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman

-Love & Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs by Emerson Eggerichs

Apps:

-Holly Bible App

-Bible Promises

Music by AlexGrohl from Pixabay

Transcript

Welcome Back And Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Kingdom Chaos, a podcast for anyone trying to live a purpose and faith-filled life in a loud and messy world. Jesus said his kingdom in another story, yet here we are navigating real life and real struggles. I'm not a guru, just someone learning that God's grace meets us even in the chaos. This is Kingdom Chaos where faith meets real life and purpose is still found in the mess. Hey, welcome back to Kingdom Chaos. My name is Troy. You're listening to part two of mine and Amy's testimony. If you haven't heard part one, you really need to go and listen to part one. It's episode four. You need to listen to that because it really lays down the foundation of how we almost lost our marriage. It shows through our childhood how there were influences growing up, then into our marriage, and then parenting styles and all these little disconnects that we had. We just weren't on the same page, not on the same team, had misaligned priorities, all these different things. You really need to go listen to that before you listen to part two. But part two, right now, we're about to start into the climax was almost the destruction of our marriage. Listening to this.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

So I was working outside the home, and there was a guy at work that was showing me attention, was saying really nice things. And I want to be very clear. This I never wanted to have an affair. So I had an emotional affair, and I was very confused. I was really thinking about leaving the marriage. This guy promised me, of course, all kinds of things, but it was just more of the words of affirmation, the the communication, the learning about me, the learning what I liked, what I didn't like, and just talking. Yeah. Right.

Trying Quick Fixes That Failed

Church As A Lifeline

SPEAKER_00 2:14

Yeah, just fill in the holes that I wasn't. I mean, the like we talked about a second ago, the physical part, I was there. Yeah. I mean, I was actually there in the room or at the ballpark or wherever. It but it was that relationship that I just did not invest in, and in our relationship, and that's where you found it from somebody else. And it was those innocent conversations you talked about that starts off slow and then gets to a point where you look up and you're like, I I don't even know how we got here. And so I ended up finding an email on a computer and saw I think it was him writing to you or something like that. So uh that was a long night. Uh we cried a lot, talked a lot. Uh there was a long struggle of rebuilding trust and uh still rebuilding our relationship because it's not like, oh, I I read this and now we're all good now because I know what you're missing. We just had to work on our relationship, and it was a struggle. We did a lot of things after that, trying to again fill a hole that we couldn't fill with the things that we were trying to bring in. We would go to bars and uh try to you know have a lot of people. Well, we had weekend getaways, we tried to enjoy each other, but yeah, so we just tried to just spark our marriage again, and it was just it worked for a little bit. Yeah, there were small things that we would do that would help for a short period of time, very short period. Very short period of time, and so it just wouldn't it wouldn't help for the long haul, and we still didn't understand at this point, even though you were getting things from this other guy that I wasn't providing emotionally, we still didn't understand what it was. We didn't know what was missing still, right? And so we were just trying to grasp at straws and find these things. I mean, guys, we would do, like I said, we would just go out and party and have fun and just try to do those sparks. I mean, we would do things in the bedroom that we were just trying to spark our relationship, and things just were not happening, and so we got to a point where you got lonely enough to let me know about it.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah, so at this point it had gotten really bad, and there were a few times where we had been invited to church, and we I think we did go one time, but I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

I think we did go one time.

Separation And Choosing Counseling

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yeah, I think we did go. It it was fine. Um, but Ashley was actually invited to a church weekend, and I remember her coming home and saying, Mom, you've got to try this church, you would love it. And I was like, Yeah, your dad's never gonna go back to church, yeah. That's not gonna happen. But whenever I got to a place in my marriage where it just was not working, where the kids, Ashley, I want to say, was a sophomore at this time, TJ was eighth grade, and I knew something had to change. I didn't know what, so I decided to go to church, and so I went to church for about six months by myself, and I remember every Sunday listening to the kind of love that the pastor was talking about, and I had a really hard time accepting or even thinking that I was worthy of that kind of love. Um, I had a hard time coming to Christ because if my husband didn't want to talk to me and didn't really appreciate me or want to know me, then how could God of the universe love me or even want to spend time with me like that? And so I had a really hard time, but I remember just crying during a lot of the messages, some of it in a really sad and bad way, but some of it in a good way because I knew something had to change. I knew something, you know, I feel like the Holy Spirit was really working on me just saying this something's not right. And so something had to change. And I remember one night we had had one of our really long discussions, not knowing if we if I wanted to be married. I remember it got pretty, pretty in depth, pretty sad. But then we woke up and we went to church or we went to work the next day, and I remember you texting me and saying, I can't focus, so I'm sitting over at a coffee shop. And so I ended up coming and meeting you at the coffee shop. I remember asking for a separation. I just felt like at that time that I needed some time to um find out who I was.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

I think I was an identity crisis.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

Yeah, absolutely. I had been Troy's wife for so long, and Ashley and TJ's mom, and outside of that, I didn't know who I was, and so I just didn't know if I wanted to be married, if I should be married, who I was, what I wanted. And so I asked for a separation.

Learning To Communicate And Pray

SPEAKER_00 7:07

Yeah, and in my mind I heard divorce. Like I thought, okay, we're gonna separate, we're done. And I did not want it to be over yet. I wanted to fight for my marriage, and so I told her that I was okay with a divorce, but I was not okay with 10 years or 20 years down the road us not being able to tell our kids we did everything possible to fight for our marriage. So I was like, let's start going to counseling. And and she agreed that we're to go to counseling, and we uh picked a Christian counselor that was recommended to us by my boss at the time, and so we went to the Christian counselor and we didn't have to go very long, honestly. But the first meeting was rocky uh because Amy's still having this identity crisis, and the counselor said you gotta be like Jesus. That's not gonna happen. And again, guys, you gotta understand those those of you that uh have a walk with Christ and understand what that means. We didn't, we weren't there yet. We didn't know what that meant. So Amy's sitting here.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

I knew Jesus was perfect and I wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Yeah, and so I've got to be perfect now. What I can't do that, and so we didn't know what that meant, but she was really struggling with it. The first meeting really went good outside of that. I mean, it was a good meeting with the counselor, but when we got home, we had a conversation, and she didn't really want to go back to that counselor, and it was partly, I think, that, and then it was again, I'm the only child. This this is the counselor I brought to the table from my boss. It's a male, so it was like, okay, um I think she was sort of fighting, and you can speak to this sort of fighting. Am I fighting against two people that are fighting against me, or is this really a counseling situation? We ended up going back, and it was fantastic from there because he taught us a few things. Two things that I remember he taught us a lot. Remember, we met, you know, 15-16 years old, is how to communicate. He started teaching us how to communicate to each other, and the second thing was praying with and for each other because once we knew we were fighting on the same team for the same goals, it changed everything for us.

SPEAKER_01 9:18

It's hard to be mad at someone when you hear them praying for you.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

It is difficult, it is difficult, and but I mean we at at the time we were living individual lives, yeah, and we in in some ways we were going the same direction, but we were still fighting each other on how to get there. Yeah, and in in some ways we were completely fighting each other, period. And once we started praying for each other, then it was like, oh wow, we are really on the same team, we are one, and we're going the same direction, and we're gonna get to that that destination the same way, the same path. And it it it changed the you know everything.

Returning To Church Together

SPEAKER_01 9:54

So yeah, one of the main things I remember from counseling session is when he was teaching us about communication. Whenever I would try to say how I was feeling, if my feelings got hurt, or what I thought we should do. I remember you would always tell me you shouldn't feel that way. And the counselor said, Well, Troy, you can't tell her how somebody should or shouldn't feel. That's how she feels. He taught you how to say, I'm sorry I made you feel that way. That's not what I intended. And I tell you what, that probably changed so much to me. I mean, I was blown away.

SPEAKER_00 10:35

And the funny thing is, it was just a different way of saying what I'm I that's what I meant, but that's not what I was saying. The words were not told you shouldn't feel that way, right? And that and this is the words were not coming out properly again. So it's just a different way to phrase what I was saying, but the the meaning was still there. And it again, like it it changed a lot in our marriage to be able to communicate the right way and be able to express really what we were feeling and we were really what we meant in those words, right? So yeah, it was it was a big change for us. We only went to the counselor three times, really changed our lives, eventually started going to church. You want to talk about that, how that from your perspective, how that kind of came about?

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, so after the coffee shop situation and uh we started going to counseling. I remember Troy woke up one Sunday morning. I was getting ready to go to church, and he was like, I think I'm gonna come to church with y'all, with you today. Is that okay? And I was like, uh, sure. And y'all, not really so nervous because church was my safe space. That was my happy place, that was my safe space. And Troy grew up Catholic, and I was going to a non-denominational church.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Lots of loud music, big lights, all these different props the pastor would use to get the story across.

Visible Heart Change And Healing

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I was so nervous, and I didn't want him to, I don't know, I didn't want him to not like my church, right? This was my place, and I was so nervous. I was just like, yes, of course you can come. But inside I was like, Lord, please, please, please, please let him like it or at least just not hate it. I don't know. I was just so nervous.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

And there were parts that I that I definitely did not like.

SPEAKER_01 12:22

You did not like the 20-minute concert before the message.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

Yeah, I'm not a music person to begin with, and I didn't understand worship at the time, so it was very difficult for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

It ended up being a complete God story because the pastor was starting a new series, um, and it was all about how Satan attacks marriages, and Troy absolutely fell in love, absolutely fell in love with it, and I could not wait to get back to church every single week because I needed that.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

It was speaking directly to me, it was speaking about my marriage and how to fix it, and I was truly invested in fighting for my marriage, and this guy from stage, like he was talking to my heart, and that's another thing that I really didn't like the 20-minute concert because I was like, I need what this guy's telling me, and so I just wanted to get to it and get get that information, and it was so it was speaking to my heart more than I actually realized at the time. I and I I realized it, but it was even more than I knew. But it was it was incredible, I loved it, and I'll never forget that.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

So I remember the first time I saw Troy on his knees praying, and I was like, that is so weird, like something is happening, and I just remember things started to change pretty quickly from I mean, God was still restoring and working on us for sure, but there were certain things your anger issues kind of I mean it changed so quickly. Yeah, yeah. Um, you stopped cussing really quickly, and I think I think God was showing me how real he was through changing you, yeah.

Community, Small Groups, And Growth

SPEAKER_00 14:03

And I think the crazy thing about it is that he showed us different things to each other because you started going to church and I started seeing a difference in you, and he started to save my life through you and what you were doing because I was I was chasing after you, and I believe this whole let's call it a tragedy in our marriage came about for him to draw us closer to him, and and he knew exactly how to do that, and so I I think that's how that, and then as I was chasing after you, you could see the change in my life, and then you started to do the opposite, or you know, change chase after me, and it's it was this uh amazing cycle that kind of worked because God was working in both of our lives in the middle of it, yeah. From then on, we were completely invested in God, completely invested in the church, completely invested in each other. And I remember uh I I prayed this very specific personal prayer, which I won't share with you guys because of the personal nature it was, but it was extremely specific. I needed God to reveal Himself, and so He answered the prayer in a way I I just could not believe, and from then on my faith was completely trained changed and transformed and strengthened to where I couldn't go back, and then we were serving, we uh started a a life group or a small group or Bible study, whatever you term you use.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

Yeah, and guys, like we had never read the Bible before at all. We went to we went to this first small group, this Bible study, and it was much older people come to find out it was a pastor at the church that was leading it, who um I think we would have probably been pretty intimidated.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Oh, 100%. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

If we would have known just being surrounded by a community of people and for them to be asking questions and really wrestling with God's word, we had never seen that before. And I think that was shocking and exciting all at the same time, scary. But I remember at the end of that um Bible study, the pastor who was leading it challenged us to start uh a Bible study on our own, and we did just not knowing.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Yeah, we're dumb. We were just like, whatever, yeah, we'll we'll do this. I mean, we don't know what we're doing. We've been reading the Bible for like five weeks, it's crazy.

Practical Resources And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 16:28

And that first Bible study that we started, it grew up. I mean, it grew up to like 25 people, something like that, way too big of a small group. We still talk to some of those people today, yeah, and they helped grow us in our faith and our walk with Christ so much. I remember there was one guy who was a former atheist. Remember him? Yeah, that was a good thing. Oh my gosh, I loved him. I remember me and Troy, we were such baby Christians that we would get very defensive, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

We wouldn't have to defend God, yeah. We needed to defend because he needs us to do that. Yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

And so he he he would like challenge us, right? He would ask us questions or things just to kind of get us all riled up. Yeah, yeah. Um, but it helped us.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

I remember from that just, I mean, we're kind of getting off on a tangent, but I remember I remember this specific story. We were kind of going back and forth, and he was playing the atheist, and I was playing the Christian, and I was defending God exists, and he was saying he didn't, or whatever. You know, we were going back and forth, and I remember him looking at me and said, Look, I've been an atheist a lot longer than you've been Christian. I can go back and forth all day long. He said, What you need to understand whenever you're talking to somebody that doesn't believe in Christ is your testimony cannot be refuted. They cannot argue what God has done in your life. Stop giving them facts about the Bible because they're gonna, you know, throw it back at you. They cannot argue what God has done in your life in your transformation. That changed my testimony, yeah, and it was insane. I was like, oh my goodness, you cannot argue my life. Yeah, and it was just incredible.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

I wanted to talk about that specifically because having that community around us at such an essential part of our marriage and our walk with Christ, it's priceless. Like there's just nothing that could have taken the place of fellow believers just walking with us through them.

Prayer And Closing

SPEAKER_00 18:22

Absolutely. Yeah, so that was that was huge in our life, and it and it happened through our small group, building that community. It happened through serving, building the community there. The more we started to get you know plugged in, uh, for lack of a butter, better way to put it, we just grew our community and it has strengthened us so much because we had people that were going the that were imperfect, going the same direction we were, but were fighting for the same things.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Like they it means so much that whenever you are having a bad day with your spouse, right? Whenever you're having an argument and you reach out to your Christian friends and say, Hey, me and Troy are, you know, not doing so well today. Can you, you know, pray for us? And they actually pray for your unity together as a marriage couple, right? You don't have a friend that's against your spouse, you have someone who is praying alongside you to ensure that your marriage stays together. So I think that was super important for us.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, and and so there's a lot more to our story actually beyond that and what Christ has done in our life from that point to here, and we won't get into all that, we'll do that some other time. But we do want to leave you, as this podcast has gotten kind of long, some uh calls to action, and we want to leave you with some resources, and I'll leave some of that stuff in the show notes. But Amy, I don't know if you've got those right now, if you want to talk through just briefly a couple of those things so they understand what they are.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

Um, whenever we went to counseling, there were a couple of books that really, really helped me and Troy grow in our spiritual walk and just growing in connection. Um, one that helped us, y'all. I know praying out loud is so awkward at the beginning. I remember it so clearly. Um, but I promise you this book will help you walk you through how to pray for each other. Um it's baby steps. It's baby steps. It takes you page by page, and by the end of the book, it's it's so easy to pray for your spouse. So, Two Hearts Praying is One by Dennis and Barbara Rainey. I highly, highly recommend. Just take one prayer each day. We did it before we went to bed at night.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah, and all it does, like the first day, it might be okay, husband, you're gonna pray, and all you do is you read the first prayer. You don't even add anything, you just read the prayer. The next day the wife might do it, the next day it's gonna just start to um a little by little start taking a little things away and just give you prompts to pray. And so by the end of it, then you're you're praying.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

And it's y'all, I I promise you'll love that book. Just take it one page at a time and it'll build your prayer life with each other. And again, it's hard to stay mad at someone who you hear their heart when they're praying to God for you and for your marriage. It's really hard not to have your your heart just so hardened. So definitely recommend that one. Another one that truly helped me and Troy learn how to love each other in the right ways was Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. That one really, really helped us understand how we each feel loved. Mine is words of affirmation and quality time. Troy's is um acts of service and physical touch. And so just knowing those um acts of service is not easy for me, guys.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Words of affirmation are not easy for me.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So most of the time you are married to someone who it is not easy to love the way they want to be loved. But so it has to be very intentional.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

And and you guys can read the book if you want. We actually didn't read the book. Yeah, we just took the question.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

That one is really good. And then Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Egrich. That one is really good. That just really explains how God designed us, how women have to be loved and cherished, and how men need to be respected. And so it just kind of talks you through how God designed a husband and a wife and what that really means in a daily marriage relationship.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Obviously, you know, you want to read your Bible, you want to pray on your own, you have your quiet time as you build your relationship with God. You want to get apps like the Holy Bible app is great to have on your phone because it's your Bible in your pocket. Everybody's got a phone. So that means you always have that with you. Bible promises.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Oh, that's a good one. Bible promises a good one. It has um subject lines. So like if you're struggling with anxiety or depression or loneliness, you can click on a topic and then it'll give you scriptures that are for that topic that will help you with that. And you can take that scripture, go into your Bible and kind of read more about the context of that scripture.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

And as you find scriptures that really speak to your heart through that, try and memorize them. Like say them throughout the day, put them on a post-it note at work on your monitor or uh in your car or whatever, but make sure they are scriptures that start to penetrate your heart because that will start to soften your heart. As we talked about hardened hearts, that will start to soften you, and it'll also keep you connected to the Lord. So we want to make sure that you stay connected to the Lord. So all this stuff is for that. So do those things, put those things into action, and you'll see your marriage start to change. Remember, all this stuff that we want you to do is for you, not for you to change your spouse. Allow God to work on your heart, and that's what happened in our marriage. Amy started, and it really changed our marriage. God worked on her. She didn't invite me to church, she didn't try to change me, and it really started to change her, which I saw, and then it started to change me, which she saw, and it started to change our marriage dramatically. So just wanted to give you guys those tips. But thank you so much for listening. If you liked it, please share it with somebody. We want this to go out to people to be able to know that they're not alone if they are fighting for their marriage, that there's other people that have done that, and there's hope in Christ for a changed life and a changed marriage.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yes. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

All right, let's pray. Lord, just thank you so much for the time. Thank you so much for uh the equipment, the the just the podcast that you've created. I don't take any credit for this. Amy doesn't take any credit for this. We don't take credit for our story. It's all about you, from you, for you, to glorify you. We pray that what we've told today through your story, that it helps somebody else. It changes somebody's life, it changes somebody's marriage, that you are invited into their marriage to change it and to make them unified, Lord. We just thank you so much. We can't wait to see what you're gonna do with this story. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. That was good. You're micro um, yeah. So where we go from there? I don't know either.