Beauty from Ashes: Marriage, Infidelity, Restoration

By Todd and Mandy Davenport

Sometimes life throws us an unimaginable circumstance that seems insurmountable. How we handle these monumental occurrences will not only shape the future of our lives but those around us whom we care the most about. When infidelity entered our marriage not once but twice, we found ourselves facing many decisions that no one can ever be prepared to make. We were standing at the base of a massive mountain that we either had to climb, knowing that we could fail, or just quit and turn away from the precipice. Do we stay together? If we do, how do we start? Where do we start? Do we separate or divorce? How does that life look? Will the kids be okay? What about finances? All these questions had to be answered all while dealing with feelings of isolation, pain, confusion and depression.

While the task of transforming as people and spouses under these circumstances is daunting and terrifying; evolution, growth and success are not only possible but likely if you are willing to lay down everything and put in the selfless work that is required. In Beauty from Ashes, we walk through our highs and lows as well as the steps we took to heal our marriage and family. If we can be successful, so can you. Our prayer in writing this book is for people to see that recovery is possible and to spark some hope in the lives of those who are preparing to make the journey to healing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798887313047

Book preview

BEAUTY

from

ASHES

MARRIAGE, INFIDELITY, RESTORATION

TODD AND MANDY DAVENPORT

Copyright © 2022 by Todd and Mandy Davenport

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 979-8-88731-329-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88731-304-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Me

Our Story

I’m Her

Mandy’s Red Flags

Friendships

Your Situation Is Not Exceptional

Todd’s Control

Forgiveness from the Hurt

Forgiveness from the Offender

Boundaries

Foundation of the Marriage

Signs and Wonders

Don’t Forget the Kids

Stay or Go

References

PREFACE

Most people don’t see an affair as an opportunity, but it can be. And while it is an opportunity for destruction, it’s also an opportunity for healing. As a marriage therapist, I have seen more couples use the areas of broken relational trust to heal issues for themselves personally and find healing in areas of past resentments, old insecurities, addictions, rejection, and abandonment wounds, to name a few. I have watched couples who, in grieving the loss of their broken past, develop at a foundational level an honesty and a trust that many couples never achieve. But it takes courage, honesty, accountability, transparency, and vulnerability. It sometimes takes praying for the hope to have hope as you take the hand of the one who hurt you and walk forward in creating a healthier normal for your lives. I believe God is at the center of this and meets us in these darkest places, giving us strength, wisdom, and hope for each step.

As a marriage therapist and colleague of Mandy and a friend to them both, I have watched their struggle, their commitment, and their honesty. Peeling down the layers of broken trust and shattered dreams can be so hard. Her courage to look at herself in the mirror, knowing that her actions caused such destruction and pain in the lives of those most important to her, was astounding. But at a point when it couldn’t get worse, it appeared that honesty was all she had left. Todd’s willingness to heal his own wounds and love Mandy even when trust was shattered was so beautiful. The courage it took to forgive and to trust again was a painstaking process. But as you read their story, you’ll find that the gifts they gave each other by stepping over their own woundedness to love and trust each other and God was eventually a gift they gave to themselves as well.

This is their story. It’s a gift they want to share with people, and it is so beautiful and personal. I couldn’t be more blessed, proud, or honored to watch them do the hard work and achieve what many marriages never achieve. I’ve watched them honor God, their kids, their vows, and themselves in this process not out of blind commitment to old religious vows but out of integrity, openness, and hope. The honesty, pain, the hard work—they share it all. Can you imagine? But as they open up the wounds of their past, they will show what it’s like to walk through the unimaginable and build something great.

My hope and prayer for this book and for Todd and Mandy is that God multiplies the efforts of their labors and their vulnerability and uses it to help restore marriages and individuals. My prayer is that the idea of a sex addiction will no longer only apply to men. It’s a cultural thing with devastating effects relationally and personally, and the closet that it hides in is dark and filled with shame. To Todd and Mandy, thank you both for your courage and for your story. To the reader, grab a cup of coffee or tea while you read and please know this book applies to far more than sex addiction and affairs. It’s life.

INTRODUCTION

I will start by saying that my wife and I are not writers. Yes, we wrote this book, but we can also put paint on a brush and smear it on a canvas. That doesn’t make us painters. In this book, you won’t find vivid descriptions about the chill in the air or long walks on the sandy beaches of some faraway place where the air smells of roses and the wind blows against your face as if to give you a gentle kiss on the cheek. No fluff here. If you are looking for fluff, I will save you the trouble and tell you to grab another book…but thank you for your purchase! Our kid’s college fund appreciates it greatly.

My name is Todd. Initially, I started this book to help other guys in the same situation I found myself in. Through the writing process, I realized that my wife’s side of things could also help not only women but men. Therefore, we decided to team up and share both sides of the pain, source, and outcome of adultery. I am just a guy with a story to tell, and in doing so, I hope that I can help someone else who is facing similar hardships. I hope to help someone not feel alone and maybe even help them traverse the difficult path of healing after an affair. Being a man and having been the wounded partner (wounded—that is therapist speak for having your soul ripped from your body and flushed into a liminal space), I found that there was little to no information out there to help men who have been the victims of adultery. Likewise, my wife had difficulty finding anything that applied to her situation.

Depending on where you find statistics, you will see that in relationships in general, men and women are within a few percentage points of one another when asked about cheating. Both men and women are in the mid-50 percent range with women being just a few percentage points behind men. However, if you look at statistics on married men and married women, the numbers drop dramatically, and the gap between them grows. Men are in the low 20 percent range, and women are at or below 15 percent. You will also notice a sneaky little word in the stats that jumped off the page at me: admitted. More people admitted to cheating in relationships in general, and suddenly the numbers plummet when you ask about cheating while married. This tells me that people are less likely to admit to cheating if they have to admit to being married and that women are even less likely than men to admit to cheating. I found endless information on the web, so I won’t bore you with a list of sites to check out. Hopefully, you know how to work the Interweb.

We live in a time where men have too much pride to seek help and admit they were cheated on and where women are, on the one hand, viewed as powerful and, on the other hand, infallible. In today’s age, it is not socially acceptable for men to be victims and women to be perpetrators. That doesn’t match up with the picture politicians and media want to paint. Just do your due diligence, and you will see the truth for yourself. If we are all straight with ourselves, we all know that everyone, regardless of gender, is capable of awful things. Gender doesn’t determine a cheater. Human nature does. If you believe what the Bible says, we are all flawed. Both Adam and Eve ate the fruit, not just Adam.

The realization of the lack of resources for men who have been cheated on and the stats that show there are a lot of men out there that are going through what I have gone through are the motivations for this book. Like I said, I am not a writer, but being that there is virtually nothing out there for men in this situation, I feel like my feeble attempt at writing is better than nothing at all.

In this book, I will walk through things that stood out to me during my affair recovery. Things that were eye-opening, confusing, or just flat-out hard to get through.

ME

I am not one to talk about myself, but I can see the value in the reader knowing me on a more personal level. I feel like I had a pretty normal life growing up. Normal like divorced parents, having a mullet in fourth grade, awkward teen years with the school pictures to prove it, playing