A Pathway to Healing

From Betrayal to the Best Years of Marriage

by David Sumlin | Sep 3, 2024

If someone had told me more than twenty years ago that my wife and I would one day be guiding couples through the hardships of betrayal and the journey to restored oneness, I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet today, my wife and I serve as full-time marriage educators, leading high-adventure marriage retreats around the world nearly every week of the year.

A Foundation Built on Shifting Sand

Terri and I met at the University of North Texas, where—if we’re being honest—it wasn’t love at first sight, but lust. At the time, we had no real understanding of what love truly meant. After graduation, we got married and, within two years, welcomed our son and daughter. As life picked up speed, the pressures of marriage, parenting, and career began to take their toll.

For me, success became my driving force. I needed to know I had what it took to be successful—not just in my career, but in every aspect of life. More than anything, I craved validation, especially from my wife. I wanted to know she believed in me. So, I poured all my time, energy, and focus into work, convinced that the harder I worked, the more success I would achieve. My job required frequent travel, and in chasing professional success, I unintentionally abandoned my most important roles—husband and father.

Meanwhile, Terri was juggling her own demanding career as a full-time schoolteacher while managing our home and raising our children. More than anything, she longed to feel valued and pursued in a way that was meaningful to her. But I wasn’t there to meet that need.

With each passing year, our marriage became more fragile, built on shifting sand rather than a firm foundation. We had no real relationship with God, no guiding principles to anchor us. We fought constantly, drifting further apart until we were more like distant roommates than husband and wife. By the time we reached our seventh year of marriage, we were at our breaking point.

Everything came to a head one evening in 1998. We had gone on a date to see Hope Floats, a newly released film about betrayal and infidelity. During the movie, I reached for Terri’s hand, but she pulled away. The gesture spoke volumes. Later that night, back at home, tensions erupted into a heated argument. Finally, I snapped.

“I’m done! I’m calling an attorney tomorrow to file for divorce,” I declared.

“Good! I hate you!” Terri shot back. “I’ll take the kids and move in with my parents.”

Then, something unexpected happened. Terri suddenly began shaking as if overcome by a convulsion. Her anger dissolved, replaced by desperation. Through tears, she turned to me and pleaded, “Stop! David don’t leave me. Let’s work on this.”

That night, we held each other and talked—really talked—for the first time in years. We knew we couldn’t fix things overnight, but we also realized we couldn’t stay in the same toxic environment that had fueled our resentment. So, the next morning, we packed up our kids and went camping, hoping the trip would mark the beginning of something new.

The first day felt promising. We reconnected, shared our hopes for the future, and allowed ourselves to believe that healing was possible. But nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.

The following morning, as Terri cooked breakfast outside our tent, I emerged and said, “I had the strangest dream. It was about truth and honesty. And when I woke up, I saw an image in the scrunched-up blanket next to my head—it looked like the face of Jesus.”

Terri froze, staring at me in silence. Then, with a heavy breath, she said, “David, I know why you had that dream. Sit down. There’s something I need to tell you.”

The Confession and Aftermath

While forgiveness is difficult for most, it was seemingly impossible for me.

As Terri sat me down and began confessing the extent of her affair, my entire body went numb. Though words were coming out of her mouth, they made no sense to me. My mind raced: This isn’t happening. This can’t be real. How could this possibly be happening to me?

Terri explained that she had met a man at work who gave her the attention she had been craving. What began as emotional support turned into a physical affair that had lasted for the past three months. She assured me it was over, that she had felt convicted by God, and that if we were ever going to build a lasting future together, she needed to confess.

In an instant, my emotions shifted from disbelief to uncontrollable rage. My body surged with adrenaline. Without thinking, I tore down our campsite in a fury, throwing the tent, sleeping bags, and cooking supplies into the minivan. I strapped the kids into their car seats and barely registered whether Terri had gotten into the car or not. When she finally did, I forced her to sit in the back as I sped down the highway at 110 mph, rage consuming me.

At every gas station along the way, I made phone calls—one after another—to everyone I could think of. I wanted the truth to be known. Terri was the one who had the affair. She was the reason for our divorce. I called her parents, my mother, her sister, my brothers, and even our marriage counselor—who had no idea what had been happening. Not once did I stop to consider my own role in our broken marriage: the neglect, the abandonment, the ways I had failed her.

But the moment we arrived home, the unimaginable happened.

Standing on our front porch was the last person I ever wanted to see—my father.

I had cut ties with him years earlier after he left our family for his secretary, the woman with whom he had been having an affair. Though he lived nearby, we barely spoke. My mother had called him, fearing what I might do in my state of rage. She asked him to be there when I got home.

The sight of him sent me over the edge. The first thing I did after getting out of the car was to shove Terri into the swimming pool—just to get her out of my way. Then I stormed into the house, tearing through phone records, emails, credit card statements—anything I could find as evidence of this life lived apart from my knowledge. And there it was. Like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, it all started coming together.

Blinded by fury, I chased Terri through the house, screaming at her. “How could you do this to me? What are our neighbors going to think? What about our kids?”

My father followed behind me, trying to intervene. “David, you need to calm down. You’re too emotional. This isn’t the time to make decisions.”

I spun around, seething. “Oh, I’m making one decision. Terri, you have an hour to pack your stuff and get out. The kids are mine.”

Everything was spiraling into chaos. But in that moment, my father did something unexpected—something that changed everything. He convinced me and Terri to go into an empty bedroom and sit on the floor. Then, he gave me permission to vent.

I unleashed everything. My pain. My anger. My betrayal. And as I poured it all out on Terri, I realized I wasn’t just yelling at her—I was yelling at my father, too. Decades of unresolved hurt and resentment boiled over as I confronted him for what he had done to our family.

When I finally stopped, exhausted and emotionally spent, my father spoke.

“David, there’s one decision I want you to make,” he said. “I want you to come to church with me tomorrow.”

I blinked at him in shock. In the years we hadn’t spoken, he had apparently become a Christian. I scoffed. “That’s not going to happen. I don’t own a Bible. I don’t know God. And if there is a God, I’m pretty sure He doesn’t know me.”

But my mind was a whirlwind. Thoughts raced through my head: Would I still wear my wedding ring? Would Terri? Would I even go to work on Monday? Where was I supposed to sleep?

Finally, in a moment of surrender, I muttered, “What do I have to lose?” And just like that, I agreed to go.

An Unexpected Peace

The next morning, I sat at one end of a church pew, Terri on the other, with our family sitting between us like a barrier. I felt lost. Alone.

Then the pastor began to preach, and something inside me shifted.

It was as if he was speaking directly to me, addressing the pain and anger that had consumed me. Every word felt like a healing balm to my soul. How could he know what I was feeling? Did he write this sermon just for me?

That night, Terri’s parents returned from a mission trip in Boston. They had listened to the furious voicemail I had left them and immediately caught a flight home. At 2 a.m., her father walked into our house, approached me, and handed me a Bible.

“David, I want you to have this,” he said. “I think it’s time we started going through it together. We’ll meet weekly. You can ask anything—no question is off-limits.”

A few days later, I opened the Bible for the first time. It was overwhelming. It seemed to be split into two parts—an old version, the Old Testament, and a new and improved version, the New Testament, or so I thought. Deciding to start fresh, I turned to the Gospel of Matthew and read the first two chapters about Jesus Christ’s birth.

When I met with my father-in-law to discuss it, I had only one question:

“Why did Joseph stay with Mary?”

He looked at me, confused. “What do you mean?”

“It’s obvious,” I said. “Mary had an affair and gave birth to a son named Jesus. Joseph wasn’t the father. Why would he stay with her knowing what she did?”

A slow smile spread across his face. “David, I’ve never heard anyone put it that way. Let’s go through that together.”

A Long Road to Healing

Over the next few months, my father-in-law walked me through Scripture, explaining God’s purpose and the depth of Christ’s sacrifice. As I began to understand who Jesus was and what He had done for me, my world shifted. I clung to Him like a lifeline, my refuge in the storm of my broken marriage.

Our family became actively involved in the church. My wife served in the youth ministry, drawn to it through her role as a high school teacher. I volunteered in a program supporting children of divorce, my own childhood experiences giving me a unique empathy for them.

But despite our outward involvement, we carried a painful secret.

No one in the church knew the truth. No one knew about the affair. And no one knew that I was harboring deep resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness towards Terri.

And though we sat side by side in the pews, Terri and I remained emotionally distant. We rarely slept in the same bed. We never said, “I love you.”

For two years, we lived as roommates.

I had embraced faith, but I had not yet embraced forgiveness.

And without forgiveness, true healing could never begin.

The Eye of the Storm

Two years after Terri’s confession, I found myself at an unexpected crossroads. Our church youth group was set for a winter ski trip to Colorado, and just days before departure, the youth pastor approached Terri with an urgent request. The adult chaperones had backed out—would we be willing to step in? It was Christmas, and Terri agreed, on the condition that we could bring our two small children.

The twenty-hour bus ride to Crested Butte was long and exhausting. Terri and I made a silent pact—not to rehash the painful questions that had haunted our marriage since her confession. But the week was still difficult. Sharing a hotel room, and worse, the same bed, was a reminder of how fractured our relationship had become.

As the trip came to an end, our group was supposed to leave at noon, but the youth pastor made a last-minute decision to let the students take one final run down the mountain. That delay pushed our departure to 7 p.m.—a mistake that would change everything.

Our bus was the first of five Trailways buses, following a snowplow through the treacherous roads of Monarch Pass. Snow was falling hard, and the road conditions were worsening by the minute. Our 73-year-old driver was furious. He had counted on the earlier departure to make the scheduled driver exchange in El Paso. Instead of driving cautiously, he made an impulsive decision to pass the snowplow.

The second bus later reported that within seconds we had disappeared into the night.

Then we hit the first patch of black ice.

The bus slammed into the mountainside. The driver wrestled with the wheel, trying to regain control. I was seated directly behind him with my seven-year-old son. Terri sat behind me with our five-year-old daughter.

Terri stood - her voice sharp with panic. “Slow down! You’re going too fast!”

The youth pastor sitting across from me rushed to the back of the bus, shouting for the students to brace themselves. We were coming up on a wide curve in the mountain road when we hit a second patch of ice.

The bus spun out.

At 75 mph, we went off the mountain—backwards.

The black box later confirmed our speed.

We didn’t just roll. We bounced violently down the mountain, metal crunching, bodies flung in all directions. When we finally came to a stop, the bus was upside down, resting just two feet from a river.

The scene of the accident looked like a battle torn field of mangled wreckage among sixty-one injured bodies strown down the mountainside, among them two students and the driver who were pronounced dead at the scene. Terri had been ejected through the front windshield and lay motionless in front up the bus next to the lifeless driver. Her body was badly broken. She had severed her spine in several places, shattered her hip completely, and broke her arm.

I was found halfway down the mountain, concussed, my arms and ribs broken, a deep gash on my head. One of the high school boys later told me he approached me and asked, “David, are you okay?”

I had looked at him, dazed.

“My name isn’t David. I’m Joshua.”

The head trauma had stolen my memories. I didn’t know I was married. Didn’t know I had children. I thought we had been attacked, that the chaos around me was from bombs and gunfire. The screams, the crying—it was like a war zone.

Army helicopters airlifted survivors to five different hospitals across Colorado. I was taken to a small hospital in Canyon City. Lying on the emergency room table, I kept hearing the same questions from a nurse:

“What’s your name?”

“How old are you?”

“Do you know where you are?”

I told her, “My name is David, and I’m eighteen years old.”

I was thirty-four. I can only imagine the look on the nurse’s face.

Then they brought in my son. The nurse told me that she had a young boy with her and that the hospital was trying to locate his parents.

“His name is Robin,” she said gently. “David, do you know him?”

I couldn’t see him, but he could see me.

“Dad, it’s me! It’s Robin!”

Reality crashed down on me. My memory returned in an instant. My thoughts raced.

“Where is Terri?”

The nurse hesitated before answering. “David, I’m sorry. We don’t know yet.”

The Moment of Truth and A Choice to Forgive

Lying on that hospital bed, I prayed.

“God, why did You allow this to happen?”

There was silence.

Then, suddenly, a single word filled my mind.

Done.

Over and over again, I heard it.

Done. Done. Done.

“David, you’re done. You’re done with chasing success, with the money, the career, the possessions. And you’re done with the bitterness. The resentment. The unforgiveness. David, you need to find Terri. Tell her that you forgive her, and that you love her.”

I don’t know how to explain it, except to say it was one of the clearest, most undeniable moments of conviction I had ever experienced.

By some miracle, our entire family had been taken to the same hospital—but no one realized it. It took two days before the hospital staff connected the dots and wheeled my bed into Terri’s ICU room.

The room was full of doctors, nurses, family, and pastors who had flown in to support us. I didn’t care.

“Everyone out,” I said.

The room emptied. It was just us now.

I looked at my wife, lying unconscious. Her face was unrecognizable, swollen, bruised, tubes running in and out of her mouth and nose.

I took a breath.

“Terri, I don’t know if you can hear me,” I whispered.

“But I need you to know something.”

“I forgive you for that affair.”

“And I am so in love with you.”

The Pathway to Healing

Terri remained in the hospital for four months after we were life-flighted back home to Houston. She endured surgery after surgery and spent months in a body cast, uncertain if she would ever walk again. During this time, our perspectives on life and marriage began to shift—especially mine. As Terri’s primary caregiver, I was forced to step outside of myself and focus entirely on her needs. I fed her, bathed her, and tended to her in ways I had never imagined. This newfound responsibility led me to release the entitlements and expectations I once clung to. Over time, the bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness that had consumed me for two years began to fade, replaced by a renewed hope for our future.

Reflecting on the conversation I had with God in the emergency room after the bus accident, I couldn’t shake the words I had heard so clearly: “Done. David, you’re done with your career, the money, and the possessions.” At the time, I was an executive for a major tech company in California. Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, I met with my senior vice president for my performance review. As he helped me to a chair, he assured me, “David, the company will stand by you and your family during this time of healing.” Then, with genuine generosity, he asked, “In terms of your future here, you can have anything you want. Do you want to lead operations in Asia or Europe? Just tell me.”

I smiled, confident in my response. “Don, I’m done. God has something far greater for me and my wife—something that involves walking alongside couples and helping them lift their gaze to see His perspective on marriage and life.”

With the support of our marriage counselor, our church community, and my unwavering focus on Jesus, I began to see Terri differently. The painful memories of her affair no longer held a grip on me. The relentless questions that once plagued our conversations were replaced with genuine concern for her well-being. I no longer saw her as the woman who betrayed me—I saw her as a beloved child of God.

Forgiveness wasn’t a one-time decision; it was a daily choice. The scars of both the affair and the bus crash left an indelible mark on my memory. While forgetting was never realistic, I learned that God could use our storms to strengthen our faith and reshape our marriage. True forgiveness meant surrendering all hope of a better past and embracing the promise of a redeemed future.

A Calling Beyond Ourselves

You don’t need a catastrophic event to awaken you to what truly matters in life. For me, apart from my faith in God, nothing holds more significance than my love for Terri. God used the storms in our marriage to reveal this truth to me.

In the 26 years since Terri’s confession, our lives have transformed. I left my corporate career, and we sold everything—our sprawling home on a golf course, luxury cars, furniture, all of it—to pursue God’s calling. I enrolled at Dallas Theological Seminary, to pursue a biblical counseling degree and a doctorate in marriage and family ministry. After graduation, I became a senior pastor in South Texas. During vacations and sabbaticals, Terri and I began leading marriage retreats. The demand for these retreats grew beyond the walls of the church, leading us to step away from our careers and launch Marriage Life Ministries, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthening marriages.

Today, we lead high-adventure marital enrichment programs worldwide, hosting 40 to 50 events annually and ministering to over 12,000 couples each year. Through God’s grace, our marriage not only survived but flourished beyond our wildest dreams.

Practical Pathways to Overcoming Betrayal

Through our journey, Terri and I discovered several practical steps that helped us heal and build the best years of our marriage. Here are a few of the most impactful:

1.       Faith and Community as a Foundation
Our faith in God and active involvement in a Christ-centered community became our anchor. Scripture provided the principles we needed to rebuild trust and love. Early in our healing journey, we purchased a couple’s devotional Bible and committed to reading it together each night. These discussions deepened our understanding of faith and marriage. Surrounding ourselves with a strong church community also provided the accountability and support we needed.

2.       The Power of Forgiveness
Forgiveness was essential—but not easy. Inspired by Christ’s teachings, we completed a two-part Hurt Inventory exercise. First, we listed all the ways others had hurt us, prayed over each one, and asked God for the strength to forgive. The second part was even harder: listing the ways we had hurt others, then seeking their forgiveness. This exercise was a turning point in our healing process.

3.       Managing Unmet Expectations
Unmet expectations were a major source of conflict in our marriage. In the past, we reacted with avoidance, passive aggression, or withdrawal. To change this, we completed an Expectations Inventory, listing:

• Our personal expectations for ourselves in areas like communication, conflict resolution, finances, parenting, and intimacy.
• Our expectations of each other.
• What we believed the other person expected from us. We then circled all unmet expectations and discussed whether they were realistic or needed to be adjusted. This simple exercise transformed how we approached marriage, intimacy, and daily interactions.

4.       Prioritizing Emotional and Physical Intimacy
Over the years, we’ve intentionally worked on deepening our emotional and physical connection. We’ve learned to enjoy each other’s company, play together, and express affection in meaningful ways—non-sexual touch, kind words, and thoughtful gestures. By doing so, I’ve learned how to pursue Terri in a way that makes her feel truly cherished, and in turn, she reassures me that I am enough as her husband.

Embracing God’s Perspective

Betrayal is a storm few see coming. When trust is broken and the promise of the future abandoned, it’s natural to feel helpless and hopeless. But in those moments, we must shift our perspective—lifting our gaze to see our situation through God’s eyes. Just as a pilot pulls up on the yoke of an aircraft during turbulence, we, too, must tilt our chins upward and trust in His plan.

It has been more than two decades since Terri’s confession, a moment that once sent me spiraling into darkness. But through our encounter with God and His Church, we found a way forward—out of betrayal and into the best years of our marriage.

Today, Terri and I have the privilege of ministering to couples worldwide, teaching them vulnerability, communication, intimacy, and the power of a God-centered marriage. In many ways, we are Stormologists—studying the storms of marriage so we can help others navigate through them.

As we prepare to celebrate 35 years of marriage, I can confidently say that the last five years have been the best of our entire journey. And for that, we give all the glory to God.