Never Without Hope (Sacred Vows Book 1) by Michelle Sutton

felt too hypocritical to be reverent right now. Yet, I needed some spiritual input before I became so depraved that I stopped attending church altogether. That would be the worst thing I could do to myself and to my family.
    So I stuck it out, uncomfortable as I was.
    A deep discussion about marital trust ensued after we reviewed the lesson. One woman, Maryanne, shared about her recent separation, and with tears in her eyes told the group that she didn’t know if she could ever forgive her husband for the adulterous affair he’d been involved in.
    Tears now cascading down her cheeks, she said, “I love him, but I don’t trust him, so I don’t think I could ever love him again like a wife should. And that scares me.”
    I reflected on my own situation and anger stirred within me. My husband had neglected me so much that he ’d practically nudged me on to another man’s lap. I opened my mouth to speak, but thought better of it.
    “ Hope, something on your mind?” Annabelle asked.
    Annabelle, who never had any problems of her own. Or at least none that she would openly share with the group. And she expected me to open my heart? Hardly!
    “Just wondering how things got so bad.” I looked at the tearful young lady and handed her a tissue. “Did you sense something was wrong before you found out?”
    Okay, maybe that sounded insensitive, but I really wondered, and had some questions of my own. Maybe she had some insight that would help me.
    Maryanne twisted the tissue in her hands. “I don’t know. Maybe because I was working a lot and going to school. I would be so tired. My husband wanted sex every night and I was just too exhausted to get enthusiastic, you know?”
    I soaked in that information as I listened to the other ’s comments.
    “ That gave him no right to break your wedding vows. If he loved you like he said he did, then he’d be faithful to you. I don’t think you should go back to him,” Claire said angrily as her fist hit the table.
    Claire ’s husband had left her two years ago and she still held a lot of anger against him. Now her daughters had no discipline and dressed like little hookers. Claire’s whole life seemed to have gone down the tubes. I used to empathize more with her, thinking she was an innocent victim, but now I wasn’t sure. Maybe her anger had alienated them all.
    The more deeply I got sucked into my affair, the more I realized that there was more to the sin than what was obvious to everyone else. There was a deep hurt, a lack of communication, and selfishness on both ends. Sure, there were probably rare occasions when someone cheated on their spouse for no apparent reason, but at this point I was convinced it took two people to make a marriage weak enough to succumb to adultery.
    “Have you thought about counseling?” The words slipped out of my mouth before I could hold them back.
    Maryanne blinked. “I…I don’t know. I guess I hadn’t thought about it.”
    “ Has he given any indication that he might want to make your marriage work?”
    She nodded. “Yes, Raymond calls me every night, crying and saying he is very sorry. He says he didn’t mean to hurt me.” Maryanne wiped her nose. “But how can I ever trust him again?”
    “ Depends on how much you love him, I guess. I think you have to make a decision to trust your spouse, whether you feel like it or not. Trust is a decision, just like love is.”
    I couldn ’t believe my own ears. Here I sat spouting words of wisdom to the hurting women around me, and just this morning I’d had a wildly sensual and adulterous encounter with a man who was not only NOT my husband, but a married man himself. No one could feel more depraved than I, or more guilty, but I still couldn’t share the truth about myself with them. I was too afraid.
    However, I did test the waters with a  question, just to see the response I ’d get.
    “ What if you were say, twenty-five years old and your husband just stopped paying attention to