Digging Out of the Trenches: Overcoming Mediocrity, Healing Betrayal, and Growing a Masterpiece Marriage

Anchored in Hope is the theme for the 2025 Pure Desire Summit. Here’s the question I want to ponder with you for a few minutes: “Where’s the hope for marriages?” 

My wife, JoAnna, and I celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary on May 2, 2025. Looking back, I can honestly say, as a young 20-year-old at the altar, when I said, “I do!” there was no doubt in my mind that I already knew everything about marriage. I knew what I would do and not do, as well as be and not be as her husband. I also knew what she would do and not do, and be and not be as my wife. It took a grand total of at least several hours for these assumptions and expectations to begin to crack, consequently giving my idealism a shot of reality. Thank God it did!

Anybody who thinks about it with some common sense will realize that outside of death and judgement day, there are three possibilities for a marriage—divorce, mediocrity, and God’s model of marriage. God’s model is defined as a mutually fulfilling marriage in which the husband and wife are growing as individuals, and the couple is growing in their core-to-core intimacy (depth and quality of their relationship). One can’t happen without the other. 

In all my wisdom about marriage when I was twenty, I thought the reason great marriages happened was because you married the right one; and if the marriage wasn’t great, your spouse choice was the cause. Who you marry is a gargantuan factor! But even if you make a wonderful choice, that will not get you to the Promised Land of a God’s model of marriage by itself. 

At seventy, my 50 years of experience as a husband and thousands of hours doing marital therapy, has taught me that unwritten and unspoken assumptions and expectations are basically universal in a marriage. The results include some level of confusion and disappointment but even more impactfully, unmet needs. There are some who seemingly believe there are two options at this point: stay in a marriage that doesn’t meet their needs or divorce because they’ve “married the wrong one.” 

For those who don’t divorce, what happens next is almost unanimous: husbands and wives start to notice their unmet needs but do not find a way to bring resolution to their predicament. This is called the Avoidance Pattern. It is identified by acting as if there is no issue, fighting about the problem, or one spouse dominating the other in a “my way or the highway” authoritarian control. All three types of responses are avoidance patterns because none of them arrive at resolution.

As unmet needs continue to metastasize due to avoidance, marriage sinks into a state of mediocrity. Some people get to this state and assume there are only two options, mediocrity or divorce, so many divorce. Common signs of a mediocre marriage include emotional “numb out” because of the hurt and disappointment of unmet needs and expectations. Being numb eventually hurts worse than the pain that led us to numb out so we look for a place to “slide out” where we can feel something good and experience fulfillment. The “slide out" is not escaping to sinful activities like affairs and pornography but to places where we can live with the passion and intensity that brings us fulfillment to the degree that a mediocre marriage doesn’t provide. For most people, this place is work. For some it is missions and church activities. And for others it is golf, fishing, or pickleball. 

Some people stay in a pattern of living in the “slide out” during the day where they are competent and fully alive but then switching to “numb out" when they go home. As awful as it sounds, and it is awful, many people live their lives this way because they wrongfully believe there are only two options—divorce or stay stuck in mediocrity—and they don’t want to divorce.

Marriages never actually stagnate! They are either growing or atrophying, getting stronger or weaker. 

The “numb out” and “slide out” states will decay the marriage, and many will sink to the lowest state of “check out.” 

A “check out” is an addictive sin including adultery, pornography, and other forms of an unfaithful double life. In any one of these three states, opt out (divorce) is an option. It is not a good or right choice from the “numb out,” “slide out,” unmet needs, or mediocre states. However, there are situations where divorce is a viable option even from the perspective of the most conservative Christian belief. It is called the exception clause, “… except for adultery.” 

After a discussion of the potential for rupture and repair for a marriage following a maximum betrayal, if a nonoffending spouse chose to divorce the offending spouse for adultery, I would understand completely. I can’t tell you what I would do should I ever face that situation. But I would want them to know the hope that is possible through rupture and repair, IF BOTH spouses are willing to get their knees bloody before the throne of God and do the repair work individually and relationally. The word “both” is emphasized because, “It takes two to make it and one to break it.”

Let’s go back to the original question, “Where’s the hope for marriages?” 

First, I have personally worked with several hundred couples where a spouse had chosen to break the faith and commit adultery. Very few divorced and very few remained in an unfulfilling marriage. The vast majority repaired the relational ruptures of betrayal and grew their marriage to God’s model. Second, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the plan of repair that God prepared before time began, shows us we are better after rupture and repair than before rupture. We don’t become God’s masterpiece till after we are made new through the blood of Christ. This is a universal principle that I could write about for a whole book, which I actually did in The Cave, The Crucible, and The Masterpiece. 

Okay, so my experience shows the hope for marriages, and the Gospel shows the hope more powerfully than anything in the universe. But there’s something else most people miss and it may be the thing that makes a difference for somebody. 

Every married couple, those who divorce, settle for a mediocre marriage, who attain God’s model, who numb out, slide out, check out, or opt out—all have one commonality. They were all in a mediocre state at one time. All of us! 

Truth be told, it is the sick feeling of mediocrity that motivates us to do the work it takes to become God’s model of marriage. Understanding this ought to change the foo-foo premarital counseling that most therapists do and it should encourage all spouses to engage, instead of avoid, especially when they notice themselves sinking into unmet needs and mediocrity. 

Most importantly, it shows us that no matter who we choose, how wonderful a fit is, the depth of love, or how good our intentions are, we all are going to have to work on ourselves individually and on our relationship intimacy in our marriage. 

If both spouses are willing to truly do the work, not just band-aid a malignant tumor of betrayal with a pomp and circumstance, spiritual bypass forgive and forget, God’s model of marriage is a realistic hope for everybody.

Dr. Adrian Hickmon will be speaking at the Pure Desire Summit 2025. Visit our website to learn more about the Pure Desire Summit and to register!

The views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are those of the author alone and do not reflect an official position of Pure Desire Ministries, except where expressly stated.