A Change of Heart

By Ginny & Tommy, NeuroDiverseChristian Couple

Life circumstances whether it be good or bad, can change a person’s heart. I came into my marriage with a heart that was soft, full of love, care and devotion.  Two decades of friction from pain, betrayal, misunderstandings, lack of communication and lack of having a partner caused my heart to develop calluses that were running deep. I knew that I didn’t want those calluses to get any bigger. I grew up knowing there was a God and always believed there was one. However a deeper more meaningful relationship with God began to develop in 2021 after reading a book that helped me see there was purpose in my pain. It would take 4 more years to walk the steps and do the work for my heart to change and those calluses to fall off. This was a time I stopped asking myself this one question, “Why is this happening to me?”  Instead I began asking “What is God trying to teach me?”  During our separation it allowed me to reflect. It gave me time to ask myself really hard questions. Despite the pain and betrayal, I knew I wanted to be married, because somewhere in my husband was a good guy who just made some really bad choices and had lost his direction. 

Before I knew our separation would even happen, with the help of my coach, I wrote out my grief. A page and half later, I stayed in that space for a few weeks and allowed myself to feel that.  I then allowed myself time to process all of it, I knew I didn’t want to unpack my bags and stay there so I began identifying where all that came from and then was able to let that grief go.  That grief turned to anger, so I did the same thing as I did with grief, I allowed myself some time to sit in that anger. That lasted about 2 months. I wrote it out, sentence by sentence, I processed, identified, I felt it, I let it go, and then I moved forward. I then could start building a new foundation on neurodiversity.  I knew I wanted to share with Tommy my grief and anger that I worked through, but I knew he wasn’t in a place to be able to hold that space for me just yet.  So with the advice of my coach, patience and Gods timing would need to happen. 

The start of our separation began in January of 2025 with me having my own space in our house.  I was learning through the help of my coach that I needed a complete safe space so my nervous system could calm down and allow my heart to heal.  Tommy and I explained to our daughter what was happening as I knew this would affect the whole household. Age appropriate discussions were had and several in between to reassure her things would be ok.  During those first three months of separation, I really turned inward and asked myself some hard questions. Some of those questions were:

Do I want this marriage?

How am I any better than Tommy? God sees his pain like God sees mine.

If the roles were switched, and I was the one diagnosed AuDHD, would I want someone to quit on me because of the mistakes I made?

 Is it a complete deal breaker for me for what he has done?

Why can’t I let some things go?

What am I trying to prove?

Why do I get so angry?

What if Tommy can’t give me what I need?

Why would Tommy want to keep trying if I only keep yelling in response?

Aren’t we supposed to be building each other up?

Am I truly “resting” in God during all this? This question hit hard. Do I truly trust God? Am I truly resting? Do I truly believe that God is working out the details, in the background, when I don’t see or feel it?  I was reminded that He did reveal himself me when out of nowhere that turkey had appeared when I had cried out to him over a year ago. 

I was looking back through my life and identifying the moments that changed me. That time allowed me to reflect on my own life where I had made some bad choices.  Did I deserve to be punished the rest of my life? No. So I felt it was only right to offer that back to Tommy. I mean doesn’t God forgive me daily and offer me grace?

And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”  John 8:7

I was able to start identifying the way my body would respond to things. Tommy simply walking down the hallway and hearing his footsteps set my heart racing, and I got jittery and very uneasy.   Identifying that made me realize I had a lot of work that needed to be done. I was hopeful he would have a heart change too when we came out of the separation and I wanted to expect that of myself.  I needed to be a new person for him that he could trust.  During my prayer time hearing God was becoming much clearer.

This thought came to me about trust: 

Trust goes both ways. Because of the decades of lying, betrayal, and empty promises, it was like my brain had been hardwired expecting him to lie. I needed that rebuilt so I could start trusting him again.  But I needed to be willing to take that first step into that scary world and giving him those small opportunities to start rebuilding trust. This was something I had done many many times in our marriage only to be let down again.  But this time I had this added thought; Tommy also needed trust from me. Someone might say, Ginny you didn’t break trust in your marriage. You don’t owe him anything. Again in my deep work I needed to acknowledge all areas. If I expected ownership from him, I then needed to own my part.

So think of this. I had hardwired his brain over the years that most anytime I interacted with him it was with a tone, raising my voice, irritation, frustration, and yelling, maybe even slamming things. So I had the same responsibility to him as he had to me. I needed to start rebuilding trust for him little by little when he would interact with me. I needed to show him by stepping in my world that I was going to respond calmly with a soft voice and understanding him better. So when I looked at it from both perspectives, we both had decades of trust broken. Neither one of us felt seen. We had become toxic for one another. And those patterns were not going to go away in a couple of months probably not even a couple of years. It was going to take consistency on both parts to rebuild that trust again, and feel safe with one another. When I went into separation, I had to fully submit Tommy to God and trust that whatever happened things were going to be OK. An in-house separation definitely has its challenges living in a small house, but when I took my care and concerns off of him and realized this separation was for myself, then I turned inward and focused on that. I learned taking separate cars to places was ok.  Walking with Christ is supposed to challenge you, grow you and refine you and none of that is easy. 

When I realized that I was not able to see him through a Neurodiverse lens and was struggling to see him through the eyes of Christ because of the layers of pain, I knew this was where the real work would begin. I needed to start working at letting that pain go and forgiving him and seeing him for whom he really is. Tommy is a child of God just like I am. He also has a purpose just like I do.

It was then those calluses of the heart were getting a little softer. I was acknowledging that even though Tommy was the one that ran our marriage off into the ditch there came a time I needed to stop keeping him in the ditch. I had to own that the way I was responding was no longer working and wasn’t helping our marriage either.  I needed to be able to identify what I was contributing or not contributing to the marriage to make it better. I needed to stop keeping score. So as 3 months turned into 6 months then turned into 9 months the changing of my heart was happening because the calluses were falling off. The calluses of pain, betrayal, misunderstandings, lack of communication and lack of having a partner. These were being replaced slowly with the heart of Christ and a new reality I was actually getting excited for.  I found myself not only sitting in His word, but worship music became my center. God spoke to me often through music. I was grasping the meaning to fully “rest’ in Him. I understood more that the word “resting” was not so much that physical rest but the mental rest too. I was discovering more things about myself that I never had before.

For whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.  Hebrews 4:10

Truly resting and not wondering if Tommy was doing his work became an important part of my healing. When I would give God something, I needed to fully believe that He would take that weight off me “resting” my mental state. I needed to trust that God was working for the good of both of us. God was doing a work in me and that was changing my heart. My heart change was seeing Tommy as someone hurting, someone whose shame ran deep, someone who did feel terrible about the pain that was caused, someone that struggles and has a difficult time communicating and someone that wants to be seen also. 

I knew in time that I would start interacting with Tommy again, but I needed to show him my true heart change. I was starting to envision what our life would look like as a Neurodiverse couple. Tommy will say now that he noticed a heart change within me around 6 months which encouraged him to want to try harder. That heart change allowed him to see that I was and that I am FOR him, and that I do understand him. At the same time I could see his heart changing too. 

So by the time we came out of separation at the later part of 2025 we had two changed hearts that continue to grow and the calluses had fallen off.  We now are striving everyday to walk with Christ and to better love one another. Some days it’s still a little messy, but in those days we have two hearts pulling for each other.

If you were wondering, in Gods’ perfect timing Tommy was able to hold that space for me when I shared my letter of grief. I had added to my original pages of grief the growth that developed so we can now focus on the good that is to come.