Eight years and three kids into her marriage, “Lyn” began an affair. As dissatisfaction grew in her relationship with her husband “Allen,” she began to feel closer and closer to a coworker named “Paul.” She began telling Paul about her marital problems. “The more I shared how awful my marriage was, the more my heart opened to Paul,” Lyn writes in this week’s featured article. “I thought he possessed all the qualities Allen lacked. I thought he was the one I was meant to be with. I thought I was in love. Our relationship grew physically and emotionally, and eventually we also became sexually intimate.”

Yes, this happened in a Christian marriage. In “I Had an Affair,” Lyn is candid about what led her to commit adultery, how the affair eventually ended, and the healing she and her husband began to find through their mutual faith in Christ.

Each of us will face temptations—and for some, that temptation may be exactly like Lyn’s: connecting too closely with someone who isn’t our spouse. As in Lyn’s case, it can be particularly difficult to resist that sort of temptation if you’re also going through marital struggles. But thanks be to God, he always provides a way to withstand or escape from temptation (1 Cor. 10:13). We can find strength through prayer, we can rely on support from friends, we can seek out help from counselors. May God give each of us the strength to protect and strengthen our marriages so that we will be able to withstand the schemes and temptations of the Evil One.