Breaking Marriage Strongholds: Removing Satan’s Grip from Your Marriage

Sometimes, serious conflict may arise in marriage—not the kind that a good night’s sleep can help resolve.

I’m talking about conflict sown through repeated patterns of sin, which can cause a deep chasm of relational and emotional pain.

For example, an affair is like a hatchet that can deeply wound a marriage with a single blow. Sometimes, it’s not a single blow from a hatchet, but rather it’s death by a thousand cuts. Your marriage is slowly bleeding out over the course of weeks, months, and even years. I’m talking about small and sometimes subtle patterns of sin and dysfunction that don’t appear to be a real threat at first but have a dangerous effect over time.

Repeated sin, no matter how subtle, always gives Satan a toehold. That toehold eventually becomes a handhold, and that handhold eventually becomes a stronghold.

Satan Had a Stronghold in My Marriage

I know what I’m talking about because there was once a satanic stronghold on my own marriage. You’ve heard me say that disobedience to God while dating will bring dysfunction into your marriage. I certainly brought it into mine. It has been years now, but I still reflect every March when our marriage was forever changed. It was because something changed in me. Christa and I have been married more than 30 years now, but this pivotal moment came in March, in year 14 of our marriage. By this time, I had resigned from my career in law enforcement and had answered the call of God upon my life to pastor God’s people and preach His Word. I’m now convinced Satan was attempting to destroy my ministry by slowly destroying our marriage.

Everyone at the time would have seen us as a happy, healthy couple. For the most part, this would have been true, but as the years went by, we were becoming more and more unhappy and unhealthy. I remember being in this season of life and driving to the marriage retreat our church was hosting that year. We had a guest speaker coming, dozens of couples had signed up, and I was praying God would do a wonderful work in all of their marriages.

I commented to Christa on the way there, “We already have a pretty good marriage.” What I was really saying was “Mirror, mirror on the wall, am I doing any good at all?” My mirror just sat there staring straight ahead. I repeated what I’d said, only this time I made a question out of it: “We have a pretty good marriage, don’t we?” Silence. I was hurt and irritated by the time we got to the retreat. The simple truth is Christa had said a lot by not saying anything at all, and I knew it was true.

You see, I hadn’t connected all the dots, and I was choosing to live in denial. Like most men, I had convinced myself that things were better than they were and that whatever problems we had were as much my wife’s issues as they were mine. Unfortunately, I almost broke my mirror before God would finally break me. Today, I’m so thankful He did.

The sinful pattern that emerged by the fourteenth year of our marriage began very subtly. It might have only materialized once or twice a year in the early years. As the years went by, it began happening more frequently. Eventually, it was monthly, and by the fourteenth year, it was every week—usually right before the weekend when we should have been enjoying some extra time together.

The pattern went something like this: Christa would say or do something that hurt me. It usually was not her fault. It could have been something she had done unwittingly, but it was something she said or did that made me feel weak, disrespected, or unwanted. I’m sharing this with you now because this pattern plagued our marriage, and it’s the same behavior that troubles many marriages.

Remember, a man will retreat from anything that makes him feel weak. God made men with a need to be strong and feel strong. He wants to feel like a man. He has two mirrors—his work and his wife. I felt weak and inadequate in my marriage, like I was never enough. Again, it was not her fault. It was something broken in me that only Jesus could heal.

A man will do one of two things when he feels weak around a woman relationally. He will either blow up and get mad to regain control, or he will retreat emotionally. Occasionally I would blow up and get angry. But most of the time, I would just retreat emotionally and give my wife the silent treatment. The more I was hurt, the longer I wouldn’t talk to her—sometimes for several days at a time.

At the time, I was never consciously aware that in my sinful, broken self, it was my way of punishing her. I loved her. All I knew was that I was hurting, and it was my way of trying to recover my strength when she made me feel weak. I was trying to convince myself I didn’t need her by withdrawing from her. I was trying to regain control and recover my broken masculinity. The reality was that I was taking life from my marriage by taking life from my wife. Satan had absolutely cracked the code of our marriage to bring about our slow destruction. If God hadn’t done what He did in our lives in March 2006, who knows where we would be today. Had the pattern continued, we would either be divorced or so broken we would be two married zombies just going through the motions.

A Slow but Steady Death

I didn’t have the maturity then to understand what I know now. All along, I wanted my wife to want me the way I wanted her. I wanted to be desired the way I desired her. I wanted her to pursue me the way I pursued her. I knew my wife loved me, but I never felt like she was in love with me.

As human beings, we react to pain without thinking about it. If you accidentally place your hand on a hot stove, you instinctively remove it. We react to all pain in the same way, whether it’s physical or emotional pain. I didn’t know at the time that I was reacting to pain that had been buried deep inside of me since before I met Christa. I know now that I was reacting out of my own insecurity and broken masculinity. Christa had my heart, but I wasn’t sure I had hers. And it was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

One night, lying in bed after the lights were out, I don’t even remember now what was said, but whatever it was, it hit my trigger. I reacted in the same way I had countless times before. I rolled over on my side, turning my back to her. I was hurt. I was angry, and I was going to give her the silent treatment. I was going to sleep angry, and I was going to wake up angry. I was not going to talk to her, maybe for several days. Then I heard my wife quietly sobbing in the darkness, and it broke my heart.

Year after year, month after month, season after season, I would retreat. I knew I was hurting, but I had no idea how badly I was hurting her. I was trying to save my life because, during those moments, I felt like I was dying inside. In trying to save myself in those moments of pain, I had no idea that I was taking the life of my bride. My marriage was slowly dying. That night, I realized for the first time how much I was hurting her.

We are never less desirable to our wives than when we quit talking and stop listening to them. It never worked because Christa didn’t know what to do. So, in the end, she would wait me out. Eventually, I would get over it and talk to her again, but each time I drained a little more life from our marriage.

As I lay in bed listening to my wife sobbing, I distinctly heard the Holy Spirit say to me, “If you do not take care of her, you could lose her.” My heart was broken. Instead of turning away, for the first time I chose to turn in. It is crucial for you to hear this! For the first time, I turned toward the pain instead of turning away. I said, “Honey, I am so sorry for what I have done to you. If you will forgive me, I promise to love you for the rest of my life.”

Up to that point, I was trying to save myself. I was trying to avoid the pain. But that night, for the first time, I chose the nails. That is the night I learned what it means in Ephesians 5:25, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” I would have told you that I was a great Ephesians 5:25 kind of husband and would give my life for my wife.

The question is not whether you will die for your bride but whether you will live for her. I realized up to that point, I had tried to save my life instead of truly giving my life. I was trying to avoid the nails and protect myself from pain.

I got the wife I always wanted when I became the man God always wanted.

That night I chose to die so that I could live for my bride, and everything changed! I got a new marriage without getting a new mate because God got a new man. Years later, it has never been the same. What today amounts to a few seconds, or at most a few minutes of silence between us, at one time would have been days. We still have conflict; we still have difficult moments. It is a part of all relationships. But instead of turning away, we now turn in and talk about the conflict, communicate gently, and listen carefully rather than becoming angry and responding in our fallen, sinful flesh.

It wasn’t until weeks after God brought revival to our marriage in March of 2006 that I connected the dots. After much prayerful introspection with the Wonderful Counselor of Isaiah 9:6, God reminded me of some painful memories that I hadn’t thought about for years.

Pain on the Inside Becomes Patterns on the Outside

Truthfully, I’d forgotten these painful memories in my mind, but they had deeply shaped my heart. Why did I react like this repeatedly over the course of so many years? Why did I have a trigger that only Christa could flip so easily? What was my source of insecurity when Christa had only ever proven her fidelity, love, and loyalty as my bride?

I told you earlier that disobedience when you’re dating will lead to dysfunction when you’re married. In the opening pages of this book, I told you I started dating way too early—long before I had the maturity to be in a romantic relationship. I had my first girlfriend before I even had hair on my legs and my second shortly after. I still had a child’s heart while playing a grown-up game. That child’s heart was broken, not only once, but twice. While still in adolescence, two girls had broken my heart, and my child’s heart broke hard—it shattered into a thousand pieces.

I often hear parents say, “Well these teenage romances are just part of growing up.” I will argue that they don’t have to be if we teach our children how to guard their hearts before marriage so they can fully give their hearts away after marriage. What I know now is those moments of rejection and “lost love” in my adolescence were deeply traumatic.

My injured heart responded by making idols. As a young person, the idols of my heart became females, football, and fun. I became really good at getting all I wanted from all three, but of course, it was still never enough. Only Jesus could heal my heart, and only the truth could set me free.

The lies we believe the earliest are the lies that run the deepest and last the longest. The lies I began believing in adolescence, after feeling the pain of rejection, are the lies I believed into adulthood. They had unconsciously shaped my relationship with my wife for years. “You’re not good enough. You will never measure up. You will never make a girl happy. You aren’t handsome enough. You aren’t man enough.” I had no idea that when I married my wife, I still had the broken heart of a middle school child.

What I know now is all the years of giving Christa the silent treatment were driven by my own insecurity. I had married the girl voted best looking by our senior class. She was the one all the guys wanted to date. You would think that would have been enough to affirm my broken sense of masculinity, but when I pursued her my senior year, she “friend-zoned” me after only three dates.

Deep down, I think I wondered if marrying her was a fluke—like maybe someday she would realize she had made a mistake, and I wasn’t enough. The lies we believe become a counterfeit reality. They were becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Satan has a way of crafting the bait we’re most apt to take, but Jesus said, “The truth shall set you free,” and He brought healing to my broken, sinful heart.

The key to healing is to embrace the way of Calvary and the Cross—not merely the one on which Christ died—but the one on which you die. Only by way of the crucifixion do you get to the joy of the resurrection.

That’s what I did in March 2006. God brought a resurrection, and with it came a lasting transformation. As you choose the nails, you give life to your spouse and your marriage. If you want your marriage to live again, there can be a resurrection, but only after a crucifixion. Two people must go to a burial, and it must be yours.

If you go to your own funeral and choose to take the nails and embrace the crucifixion, God has the power to bring about resurrection, restoration, redemption, and reconciliation. He can take what was lost and restore it. He can breathe new life into your dead, loveless marriage.

Today is the day when everything can change in your marriage. It changed for me when I became the man God wanted. In return, I got the wife I always wanted.

You can get a new marriage without getting a new mate.