Through the years, people have told us we looked like an “ideal couple.” Down deep inside we knew we were far from that image—we were just good at pretending everything was fine. Recently we both concluded that keeping up an appearance of the ideal couple was not the right thing to do so we agreed to strip the pretenses, the hypocrisy and become more authentic. We will put the ideal couple illusion to rest by writing this memoir and let the chips fall where they may.

Our story begins with our growing up in the 1930s in religious, fundamentalist environments that included abandonment, emotional abuses, silence, and fear. As two wounded souls, we developed a friendship, got married, and, through sheer determination struggled to maintain an unusual marital relationship punctuated by betrayal, sexual infidelity, and bisexuality.

Writing intimately about our troubled marriage has been like the pangs of childbirth—some tears, some laughter, an emotional and labor-intensive project. By being candid and straightforward in sharing the marital stresses that for so long we minimized or denied and hid from others, we trust that God’s healing light will be shed more broadly among our Christian communities on topics that are often closeted into powerful and destructive secrets. We are aware our story may trigger a reader’s own unpleasant, repressed memories. Uncovered pain can be a blessing in disguise if it nudges a person toward seeking needed help. If our story evokes a strong reaction, we encourage readers to connect with a trusted pastor, friend, or therapist.

When we first started writing, we used pseudonyms instead of our real names mainly due to fear of rejection by our friends and family if they knew what our struggles have been. However, after reading Elyn Saks’ autobiography, The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey into Madness, we took courage from this paragraph:

"My experience of revealing my illness to all these people has been eye-opening. Most have been very accepting; many said they had no idea and were shocked. . . . A psychiatrist urged me to use a nom de plume (pen name, pseudonym) when writing this book, but I thought that would send the wrong message—that all of this was too awful to say out loud (and let everybody know it is me). Ultimately, I decided that writing about myself could do more good than any academic article I’d ever pen. Why do it under a pseudonym if what I intended was to tell the truth? I don’t want to be marginalized; I’ve fought against that all my life."

As we discussed how best to share our journey, the question arose: for whom are we writing this memoir? The answer was always the same: primarily for anyone who is tempted to give up the struggles in a difficult relationship. A secondary reason was to help readers who are in a more stable relationship to better understand the inner turmoil involved in a troubled marriage. The details of our story are woven together using a dialogue format that identifies each of us. They are gleaned from our reflections, diaries, journals, and letters written over a period of years. We chose examples that best portrayed the painful process of seeking answers to our inner conflicts, with a look at the bigger picture.

Despite the pain of the telling and the reading, we take this risk of opening up ourselves for redemptive purposes. It’s our prayer that the chronicle of our journey will show that it is possible for a couple to stay together even against all odds. Divorce isn’t the only response to a seemingly intolerable life situation. God’s grace can transcend difficulties but it requires some sacrifice, transparency and willingness to change. This is a testimony to God’s faithful, patient work in our lives and hopefully will be an encouragement for others to work on the tough problems even if it’s tempting to give up. We experience awe and wonder as we reflect on how God has used our sincere efforts to seek his will and serve him despite hurt and disillusionment. We give him credit for any accomplishments we’ve achieved as well as the perseverance to remain in a deeply flawed marriage.

Touched by God’s grace we work toward accepting each other as we are, not as we wish the other would be. We do this fallibly—one acquaintance reading a prepublication copy of the book observed how easily in a marriage in which one partner struggles with same-sex attractions the other spouse may be viewed as the one more sinned against than sinning, for example, and that is no doubt a risk here. We also recognize that readers will vary in their understandings of what healing should look like in a marriage faced with such circumstances as ours.

Yet we pray that grace has helped us come out of the false light of the “ideal” and has enabled us to believe the light of God’s love can illuminate all our human shadows, empowering us to face them and not to run away in fear. In that spirit, we invite our readers to enter this story, filled with the grace of God that may give hope to others whose lives are dappled with shadows, sunlight and the eye of God that touches all with a loving and healing gaze.
—Carl and Marilyn Wolgemuth