No More Secrets

I am a statistics girl. I love studying numbers and can’t sit in a restaurant without trying to estimate what their hourly profit might be after expenditures. It’s why I love fundraising. After we lost Liv, I started a t-shirt fundraiser for local causes, and we would always set our profit margin to $10 a shirt. With this margin, I knew that selling just 100 shirts meant we could make $1,000. Year after year, we have raised at least that much, and the drive to support the community has always left me brainstorming new ways to generate revenue for each non-profit. But the other day I came across some different numbers that were quite startling-- ones about marriage.

 I had already heard that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce, but I also discovered that an estimated 40 percent of marriages would encounter some form of infidelity and that 83 percent of all affairs discovered from secret would end in divorce. Of those who came to their spouse with the truth and marriage counseling was involved, around 60 percent of marriages survived. I had never seen these estimates before, and it left me wondering: Why aren’t we talking about the impact of unfaithfulness? I have been in church my entire life, and yet I have barely heard mention of the impact of emotional affairs, pornography, sexual infidelity, and the danger of marital secrets. Some of these buzzwords have been dropped right before an altar call, but I have not heard of specific keys to guarding one's marriage or Biblical direction on putting your marriage in a sacred place, both with each other and before God. In fact, it’s almost like the entire picture has never been painted; we vow “for better or worse” and sweep the nasty stuff under the rug. I want to break the silence because in very recent days, I have encountered the liberating freedom of “no more secrets.” 

When Josh and I met, we had a unique start. We had both recently ended lengthy relationships and were attempting singlehood so we could draw closer to God. But when I saw Josh at revival one night, looking like a smokeshow in his dress shirt from Express for Men, it was over. His piercing blue eyes, his smooth voice, and the way he shook my hand when he said, “I am so glad you’re here tonight,” sealed the deal that I would be back. My attraction to him was unlike anything I had experienced before. Night after night, he was worshipping Jesus like no one else was around. I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be with a man whom I was fully attracted to, who also loved Jesus even more than he would love me. After just a week at church, I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I used to send my dad home from a service and then pretend like I needed a ride, so that Josh could drop me off and I could get a few precious moments alone with him. 

 Jamming to Matt Kearney in Josh’s black Mustang was a whole vibe in itself, but simply sitting that close to him was enough to make me feel like my heart was going to explode. He was shifting gears, rounding the corners way too fast, when I looked over and decided he was the one. I could sense it to my core that I was hitching a ride home from a revival service with my future husband. I was convinced already, but he hadn’t heard that yet. 

I gave my life to Jesus at Camp Nikao in the summer of 2005 at the age of 19. The night I encountered Jesus, I remember seeing Josh standing near the back of the room, wearing a pair of camo shorts from American Eagle. His fashion was an A+, but his all-in love for Jesus was even better. I heard a few girls speak on purity at our cabin that week, and so I left determined that I wasn’t even going to kiss my future husband until our wedding day. I had made mistakes in my past, sure, but this was a fresh start. I remember how excited I was to share this new decision with Josh, who was just my friend at the time.

“Really?” he asked me when I told him about my no-kissing-until-I-get-married plan. “I wouldn’t even date a girl unless I knew she was a good kisser.”

In that moment, I was terribly disappointed. I thought he would be all in with my plan, but this did not appear to be the case. We continued our friendship, volunteering at youth group, hanging out together at church or playing Halo with a group of guys on a Sunday afternoon. One evening, I wore my hair in two braids and rocked out some oversized sweats on a trip to play Bubble Buster at Josh’s parents’ house. I was enjoying myself as I dominated the game when Josh had to reach past my legs to grab a new controller. When his arm brushed across mine, I experienced a feeling of safety that I wouldn’t even know how to describe. My attraction to him was undeniable, and I was falling hard. When I got home from his house, I had two text messages waiting for me, both from Josh.

“Hey Laura, I just want to let you know that I was really attracted to you tonight,” the first message read. I re-read it five times so I could pinch myself.

I paused before I took in part two. “And if you are the one God has for me, I will wait until our wedding day to kiss you.”

I fell right onto the floor from the bottom bunk. It was that very moment that I had prayed for. Josh would honor my wild idea about not kissing until after we said “I do,” and that beautiful declaration started us on our path that morphed straight from friendship to an engagement just a few months later. We were married that November and less than two years later, we welcomed our first child. I graduated from KWC with Jonah in attendance and got my first teaching job all in the same month. Life to me felt like a fairytale for a while. I was married to a Godly man who loved his wife, worked hard, and was a fantastic dad. I had so much to be thankful for. 

I can still remember the text that changed everything. 

“Laura, I need to tell you something,” the message read.

Everything after that was a blur. The confession that followed had to do with admitting infidelity, and the details that came with it would first shatter my world and would put everything I thought I ever knew into question. Those seven words in the text would lead us on the path of rebuilding and healing our marriage, and nothing about that season was easy. We had just become parents a few months before, and instead of enjoying the freshness of a new baby, I spent time criticizing my changed body and struggling with my self-image. Although it was more than fifteen years ago, the ripple effects of the decision to step into the trap of sin were felt in many painful ways for not just me, but for our entire family, too.

For years, Josh and I have worked on valuing truth and transparency in our marriage. After he opened up about stepping away from his vows, I began to struggle with wanting to retaliate. This retaliation was contrary to who I am. I think about David in 2 Samuel chapter 11 and how he lusted after Bathsheba, not only acting on it but eventually killing her husband, too. As if lust had not made a big enough mess, covering his tracks made an even bigger one. This is exactly what can happen in a marriage when things start coming to light. If there is no wise counsel, either partner may withhold certain aspects of truth, and absolute freedom cannot take place. The first mess is sin, and the bigger mess is trying to cover up the sin. I know this to be true because it’s exactly what happened to us. 

“Josh, we need to talk,” I texted him. I wanted to be free from guilt and shame. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of a message like that. I wanted to be transparent about my own heart. I had been drawn to other men and would seek validation from them through my words and interactions. I attempted to tell him everything that night, but he cut me off.

“Please, stop,” he told me. “I don’t want to know.” Just like that, I dropped it. I even considered that I had done my duty as his wife to come to him. I repented in my heart, and we went on living for the next thirteen years, going through the motions and assuming we were doing just fine. 

Then life events hit our family like an avalanche. One after another, we dodged the attacks and always reminded each other that we were on the same team. Through all of the devastation of 2025, we kept coming back to the same principle-- anytime something came from the dark to the light, God could work it together for the good. We clung to each other on tough nights, held each other when we needed a good cry, repented for the times we had missed it, and tried to be good listeners for one another. It was the closest I have ever felt to Josh and yet still there was hidden sin for both of us.

This past week, I decided to rip off the band-aid. During a conversation with a dear friend, something she shared warned me that there were things about the past I was not privy to. After much prayer, the Holy Spirit revealed to me another inappropriate relationship from the past. I confronted the person to find out my biggest fears were true, and I confronted Josh, who confirmed my discernment. Over the next two days, with the door already open, we began to confide and confess to one another instead of responding with “I don’t want to know.” We wept, we asked questions, we both felt the weight and devastation of sin.  I questioned everything I once believed about love and marriage. How could the man I saved myself for, the one who was willing to wait for me, step outside of our marriage to betray me like that? How could my heart, that was loyal to a fault, retaliate against the man I pledged my life to?

Getting rid of secrets was like shattering the glass ceiling over our household. Suddenly, we started REALLY talking, we prayed over one another, and we reconnected in such a deep way that I discovered the intimacy I have yearned for over the past two decades. We opened up to each other more and more after the first hard conversation, and I quickly realized the first words we would eliminate from our marriage would be “I don’t want to know.” We HAVE to want to know. In fact, infidelity is defined as unfaithfulness within a marriage, which includes any type of intimacy with someone outside the relationship. This was a fresh reminder of the necessity of protecting my heart. The urgency for us personally included creating a plan for setting boundaries, having an escape plan when the enemy tries to set a trap, and remembering these moments where transparency has led to deep intimacy. It’s not enough to walk away from sin or confess my shortcomings at the altar. I needed to remember that my marriage was a depiction of two becoming one flesh. Secrets from our deep past were eroding our chance to be vulnerable and transparent. When fidelity is a taboo topic, then secrets get to stay in households. When no one talks about the real stuff, we cover our struggles with lust, perversion, crossed lines, and sin, burying truth deep beneath the surface. The side effects are deadly with lukewarm marriages and struggling minds going through the motions until hearts have gone cold. 

Just retelling the story of the season when I fell in love with Josh made me want to live it all over again, choosing him despite all the pain we would cause one another. I can vividly remember what it was like to count down the hours and minutes until we would see each other again, and what it was like to get my dress from a newspaper ad because I didn’t care what my wedding dress looked like as long as I got to become Mrs. Murphy. I remember the first time we held hands, the safety of his tight hugs, and the way he LOVED my parents, urging me to respect them if ever I got mouthy. I remember holding his hand in the hospital, just days before Christmas, when Jettson was born sleeping. I remember our sobs the night my mom was killed in a car accident, our bodies cradled into one as we grieved together deep into the night. I remember the thrill of standing next to a huge waterfall in Iceland under the midnight sun with Josh’s tight embrace around my waist, and what it was like to wake up in French Lick on our anniversary to a fresh blanket of magical white snow. I chose each of these moments, highs and lows, because during each of them, there is not another human I would want standing beside me. If you love your spouse today, I urge you to consider taking a good look at your marriage and declaring “no more secrets.” Only good can come from the intimacy that grows in this layer of freedom. I have always shied away from sharing our story publicly because shame told me people would see us differently. I am walking in a new season where I care more about others encountering freedom than I care about what others think about us. We are walking in a fresh revelation of what marriage can be, and I want you to walk in that freedom, too.