I was leaving. My suitcases were in the car, and I headed south on Highway 51 towards Kentucky and a woman I’d met at work. Behind me I left my house, my church, my children and my wife.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was a respectable individual who worked hard, provided for his family, and attended church. Getting involved in an immoral relationship and leaving my family was not in the plan. Somehow it had just come upon me and now the highway to Kentucky seemed the only logical course to follow.

Little issues had accumulated unnoticed. My job change that moved us to Chicago uprooted my wife’s social connections, leaving her feeling abandoned. My commute bled hours away from my relationship with my wife, and soon a chill settled over our marriage.

I grew weary and lonely from my frequent business trips. A private struggle with alcohol resurfaced. My childhood exposure to my dad’s Playboy magazines had sown false notions of manhood into my mind. Now, the lack of fulfillment in my marriage led me to believe that I deserved better. A lack of accountability left me without a reason to resist the pull toward another woman, one who was sympathetic to my deluded sense of entitlement.

Now I’d been caught.

As I drove south, a parade of images flashed in my head, memories of my wife, the children, and our years together. The farther south I drove, the stronger an impression grew in my soul. Without going through my ears, God was talking to my insides, and His message grew clearer and clearer: “I will not let you go. Either you turn around, or I will take your life early so that you don’t destroy yourself.”

I’d had enough. I repented and turned around on the inside. I turned from selfishness, toward sensitivity for my wife. I turned from pride toward humility. I turned from self-sufficiency toward honest openness with other men who could keep me on the straight and narrow. Those moments spent on my knees on Kentucky soil marked my rebirth, even though I had been a church-goer for years. I had just become a new man. I turned the car around… I was going home.

Walking back through the front door wouldn’t be easy. Every mile brought a new doubt, a new accusation, but I resolved to humble myself before my wife, and to be completely transparent and honest with her. I would make myself answerable to other men, just to make sure I kept my resolutions.

It took three years to rebuild my wife’s trust, and to save my marriage. No, it wasn’t easy, but it was worth the fight.

"With God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

Mike Todryk