Love Stayed: Our Story of Grit, Grace, and Marriage Restoration
- gritgraceministrie
- May 22
- 6 min read
“Sometimes the strongest marriages are not the ones that never fell apart. Sometimes they are the ones that stood back up after years of heartbreak, addiction, disappointment, forgiveness, prayer, and the stubborn grace of God.”
We Thought We Knew What Marriage Would Be
When I married Josh almost twenty-five years ago, I really believed I was marrying the kind of man you stay married to forever. He loved God, came from a strong church family, worked hard, and carried this quiet steadiness about him that made me feel safe.
Back then, I thought marriage was mostly about love, compatibility, building a home together, and growing old side by side.
I did not yet understand how much grit real love sometimes requires.
In the beginning of our marriage, I was sober, but emotionally something still wasn’t right. I would go through periods where my mind raced constantly. I would stay up half the night talking about some huge dream or business plan I was convinced was going to change our lives. Josh would try to ground me or bring me back to reality, and I would get frustrated because I thought he just didn’t understand me.
At the time, neither one of us knew I was dealing with bipolar disorder. We just knew life could feel emotionally intense and exhausting sometimes.
When Life Started Unraveling
Then our son Noah was born with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, and our entire world changed overnight.
When your newborn baby is suddenly airlifted into ICU care, something inside you shifts permanently. What made it even harder for me was that years earlier, I had already experienced the devastating loss of a child. So while everybody else around me was trying to stay hopeful, inside I was reliving trauma and bracing myself for another loss.
Noah survived, thank God, but somewhere during all that fear and emotional chaos, something inside me started unraveling.
Then came the triplets, which still sounds wild when I say it out loud. I honestly don’t know how Josh handled those years as well as he did. I can still picture him carrying babies through grocery stores, loading diaper bags into the car, working hard every day, and somehow keeping our family moving forward even when life became overwhelming.
Looking back now, I can see grace in those years that I didn’t fully recognize at the time.
After the triplets were born, postpartum depression hit me hard. The antidepressants I was prescribed triggered severe mania, and that was when I finally learned I was bipolar. Around that same season, I started graduate school, and not long after that, I was in the beginnings of addiction.
That took my life and my marriage into places I never imagined possible.
Addiction Changed Everything
Addiction changes people. It changed me. I became reckless, impulsive, angry, self-destructive, and unfaithful. I would disappear for days at a time while Josh stayed home taking care of our children. At one point, I even filed for divorce myself. We had court dates set. From the outside looking in, our marriage looked completely over.
A lot of people told Josh he should leave me, and honestly, nobody would have blamed him if he had.
Before I go any further, I want to say something very clearly because I never want this story misunderstood. I am not encouraging anybody to stay in abusive or unsafe relationships. If you are being harmed or are in danger, please seek safety, support, and protection immediately. That is not what this story is about.
This story is about redemption.
This story is about a husband who chose grit and grace when life got unbelievably ugly.
Josh kept praying for me when I was out running the streets. He kept believing God could restore me during years when I wasn’t even trying to restore myself. There were seasons where I trampled all over his trust, his peace, his patience, and his love, and somehow he still continued extending grace to me anyway.
The Kind of Love That Stayed
When I think about Josh, I think about Galatians 5:
“But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” — Galatians 5:22–23 (NLT)
People sometimes overlook quiet faith because it is not loud or flashy, but Josh lived those verses in front of me for years.
His faith was gritty.
Steady.
Persistent.
It reminds me so much of Ephesians 5:25:
“For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her.” — Ephesians 5:25 (NLT)
Josh laid down his life for our family over and over again. He worked hard. He raised our children. He prayed for me. He stayed when things became painfully difficult. He gave up comfort, peace, and sometimes even his own expectations for what marriage was supposed to look like because he believed God was still writing our story.
And somehow, after years of addiction, infidelity, mental illness, trauma, and heartbreak, God really did begin restoring us.
Not into perfect people.
Not into some polished fairy tale.
But into two people who finally understood grace differently.
Joel 2:25 says:
“The LORD says, ‘I will give you back what you lost…’” — Joel 2:25 (NLT)
I believe that verse now because I’ve lived it.
Restoration Was Not Instant
This month Josh and I celebrate twenty-five years of marriage, and later this summer we’ll be sharing even more of our restoration journey through a special teaching series, focused on communication, forgiveness, rebuilding trust, emotional healing, faith, boundaries, and surviving difficult seasons together.
One thing we’ve learned over the years is that restoration is rarely instant. It is usually layered, uncomfortable, humbling, and ongoing. Sometimes rebuilding happens one difficult conversation, one prayer, one act of grace, and one ordinary day at a time.
I’ll also re-shared and reflected on an older episode we recorded together back in 2023 on Truth Seeker Texas Radio where we publicly shared parts of our restoration story for the first time. Looking back now, that conversation feels emotional in a completely different way because we were still actively learning, healing, and rebuilding in real time.
Listen to the Conversation
And while all of that is unfolding, I’m also preparing to launch this year’s Summer Gratitude blog series here on the blog beginning in June — a more personal series focused on healing, slowing down, gratitude, faith, emotional growth, rest, resilience, and learning how to notice God’s goodness again after difficult seasons.
So if you haven’t already, make sure you’re following along at tonyabruton.com and across social media because there is a lot coming up this summer for the Grit & Grace community.
Resources That Encouraged Us
Along the way, there were a few resources that encouraged us during different seasons of rebuilding.
Two books Josh leaned on during some of our hardest years was The Love Dare. At a time when our marriage looked shattered from the outside, it encouraged prayer, patience, forgiveness, intentional love, and perseverance.
📚 The Love Dare by Stephen Kendrick & Alex Kendrickhttps://amzn.to/3P5riI4
Another resource we recently found meaningful is Gary Chapman’s Now You’re Speaking My Language, which focuses on communication, empathy, emotional intimacy, and reconnecting after conflict.
📚 Now You’re Speaking My Language by Gary Chapmanhttps://amzn.to/4wB9XY2
(As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.)
If your marriage is struggling right now, I just want you to know that hopeless does not always stay hopeless. Some marriages cannot continue safely, and some relationships do need boundaries or separation. But there are also marriages hanging on by a thread that still have life left in them if both people are willing to heal, repent, grow, forgive, and let God work in the middle of the mess.
Sometimes grace really does meet grit.
And sometimes love stays.
If This Story Encouraged You
If this story encouraged you, I would truly appreciate you sharing this blog post with someone else who may need hope today. Sharing the blog, commenting, subscribing, and engaging with the content genuinely helps more people discover these conversations.
Be sure to stay connected for:• The upcoming marriage teachings • Anniversary content• New podcast episodes• The Summer Gratitude blog series launching in June
Prayer
Lord, thank You for being the God who restores broken things. Thank You for grace that meets us in our worst moments and refuses to leave us there. I pray for every couple reading this today. Bring wisdom where there is confusion, healing where there is pain, honesty where there has been silence, and hope where people feel exhausted and defeated. Protect those who are unsafe. Strengthen those who are weary. Remind us that no story is beyond Your reach and no person is too far gone for Your love. In Jesus’ name, amen.
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