No More Perfect Marriages | Jill and Mark Savage Share Infidelity Recovery to Offer Hope, Inspire Others to Safeguard Relationship

Oct 5

Do you realize that every interaction between you and your spouse is either knitting your hearts closer together or infinitesimally moving them farther apart. Like grains of sand being washed away from an eroding beach, one day you could look up and realize the entire coastline of your marriage has changed. Marriage ministry leaders Jill and Mark Savage named that distancing process the “Slow Fade” after a line in a Casting Crowns song that described the drifting that contributed to what they call the darkest year of their now 40-year marriage.

During their struggle to rebuild after infidelity, they identified areas where fading almost shipwrecked their marriage. After reconciliation and restoration, the Savages shared their story publicly in a 10-part blog series published in 2015 that describes their journey and offers couples tools to counter seven “slow fades.”

“Looking back, it wasn’t the big things that made a difference. It was the little things. Things that simmered under the surface. Things unnoticed. Unattended. Undetected. Untouched. These unknowns caused an unraveling that gained momentum over time,” they wrote. “Each fade begins somewhere. Ours started with: • unrealistic expectations • defensive responses • minimized feelings • naïve thoughts • unaccepting attitudes • differing opinions • guarded emotions… When you can identify you’re standing too close to a dangerous cliff or you’ve already began to slide into a damaging fade, that’s the first step in getting your head and your heart back on track.”

The blog series resonated with their No More Perfect readers, ballooning its audience from 5000 to 15000 overnight, Jill said. “We realized the impact we could have sharing more of our story, how we healed, the hope,” They expanded the content to become the 2017 book No More Perfect Marriages, a piece that launched their thriving ministry speaking, writing and coaching couples through workshops and marriage intensive weekends.

“A real marriage isn’t perfect. A real marriage is two people being perfected,” they write on their website, markandjill.org. “If you feel like the spark is gone, like a critical spirit has invaded your marriage, like you want more intimacy but something is in the way, you could be suffering from the Perfection Infection.”

The Savages could hardly imagine their vulnerability to the affair that nearly tore their family apart in the 28th year of marriage. Mark had been serving in ministry for 20 years, while Jill juggled a thriving career running Hearts at Home ministry, writing popular books on homemaking and parenting and raising their five children. But Mark, disillusioned by mid-life, found himself embroiled in an affair with an old girlfriend with whom he’d reconnected with on Facebook. It took intense therapy, individually and as a couple, and storming the gates of heaven in prayer, for the Savages to be able to reconcile and begin to build what they now call Mark and Jill 2.0. The couple speaks candidly about this time in their life and its effect on their children, two of whom were still living at home.

“What we didn’t realize was that the things slightly under the surface going on inside our hearts were causing us to be discontent and frustrated,” Jill said. “We were letting things slide, but in reality, they were pooling in our hearts. Discontentment is the space between reality and expectations that pulls you apart.”

“When you can identify you’re standing too close to a dangerous cliff or you’ve already began to slide into a damaging fade, that’s the first step in getting your head and your heart back on track.”

— Mark & Jill

Mark’s affair went on for almost a year. “I wasn’t sure our marriage was going to make it,” Jill said. She realized that whether or not her marriage survived, she wanted to deal with her own baggage to avoid dragging it along in the future. “I did not cause my husband’s affair, but I did contribute to the dysfunction in my marriage,” she said. Jill identified a critical spirit and a pattern of avoidance that had been keeping Mark at a distance. Her new attitude gave Mark the spark he needed to surrender to Christ and return to the marriage.

“He saw me making changes, and at first he didn’t believe or trust them,” Jill said. “But they went on long enough that he began to realize they were for real, and it gave him a tiny bit of hope in our marriage. Then his affair continued long enough that he started experiencing conflict in that relationship. He realized there were weeds in the grass on the other side of the fence. Once he recognized he was the common denominator, that played a big part of his surrender.”

“We have survived an affair and lived to tell about it. When you experience deep pain, you long for God to redeem it for His purposes,” the Savages wrote. Their story serves a cautionary tale to others because they were doing all the “recommended” things to enrich their marriage. “We knew each other’s love languages and spoke them often. We had date nights. We did getaways on a regular basis. We were intentional about communication. In the midst of that much intentionality, infidelity became a part of our story. How in the world did that happen?” Mark wrote on the blog.

They determined they were still vulnerable to an affair because they were failing to connect on an emotional level. Deeply entrenched patterns of interaction in their marriage and coping skills brought from their families of origin had allowed their emotional intimacy to fade until their union could be breached. Couples will find the content of No More Perfect Marriages instructive whether they are teetering on the brink of disaster or desire to proactively avoid a downward turn.

“Date nights and love languages and couples getaways all fall short if we don’t feel heard. Increased emotional safety reduced defensiveness, allowing us to have different kinds of conversations. We dug deeper, listened better, and learned more about fine-tuning the inside rather than symptom-treating the outside of our relationship,” they wrote.

“Hurting marriages can heal, and good marriages can become great. It takes work, yes, but No More Perfect Marriages will give you the insights, language, and roadmap you need for the journey!” they write.

The Savages address how couples can use the “God tools” of courage, forgiveness, grace, love, humility, wisdom, compassion, and acceptance to counter fades in their own marriages before a crisis rocks their world.

“I had to use courage to be vulnerable and engage emotion,” Jill said. “Mark needed courage to find his voice when before he was silent and simmering. Forgiveness allows us to clean things up when they go sideways.”

To help others get started, the Savages offer a free, four-week No More Perfect Marriages E-challenge at jillandmark.org, along with a free video curriculum and on-demand courses for personal or group study to help upgrade marriages before they need a complete overhaul. Those who sign up for the 10-part blog series also receive encouraging email messages. Another rebuilding trust course and free guide can be found at rebuildingtrust.us.

“Cleaning up after infidelity is a messy process,” Mark said. For those whom an affair has already happened, the Savages recently released a pair of books that can be used in tandem or alone: My Heart is Broken: Your Next Steps for When Your Spouse is Unfaithful and I Really Messed Up came out in 2022. Both are written gender neutral, so either spouse can find application as the betrayer or betrayed. “People don’t know how to clean up the mess that they’ve made,” Jill said. “These are books to help them.”

They counsel couples in what they call a Marriage 2.0 Intensive. They’ll start with a couple’s 1.0 to identify their dynamics and understand where they’ve come from, and why they are seeking help. Then they’ll cast vision. “What do you want your 2.0 to look like? You could have been married five years or 45, if you have had a season when your marriage has been less than ideal, it’s time to upgrade that,” Jill said. They begin by examining what each spouse “brings to the party,” noting the marriage itself can’t be a 2.0 version until both spouses do the individual work to bring their best self to the relationship. One of the practices they introduce is how to reframe memories.

“When we were healing from Mark’s infidelity we were dealing with broken trust. When one person in the couple is being deceptive, they know the reality of what’s going on, but the other one doesn’t know the reality of the big picture. They begin to understand that the time in the past wasn’t what they thought it was. It takes time to re-frame the memories. The betrayed spouse has a lot of catching up to do,” Jill explained.

Forgiveness is layered, it’s not just once and done, Jill added. “I’d have to process and grieve each infraction of trust before I could forgive and move past it. Mark addresses this in I Really Messed Up. When somebody breaks trust, they want to say, ‘I’m really sorry, I’ll never do it again, let’s move forward.’ That’s the hard part. It’s not that easy. It’s going to take some time. We help people understand what to do to restore a spouse’s trust and create a new relationship.

“The thing Mark did so well was staying in the game,” Jill added. “He committed to staying humble, answering questions. He didn’t become defensive or lash out.” One afternoon he did remind Jill that he also was making changes in a humorous way with the phrase, “Jill, that was your old husband, and I want to remind you he’s not around anymore, We shot and killed him and buried him out back.” This was his way of saying, “Hey… I know that Mark 1.0 really hurt you, but Mark 2.0 is standing in front of you, and he’s committed to not hurt you again.”

Many couples seeking help from the Savages have experienced an affair, but not all. Some are just looking to reconnect – even those in decades-long marriages. Jill said the fastest growing demographic of those divorcing is empty nesters. They’ve stayed together for the sake of the kids. They don’t know how to find that connection again, so they convince themselves to connect with someone else.

“As couples approach the empty nest, they may realize their hearts are miles apart, and they don’t know how to find each other. They haven’t been communicating about feelings and dreams. These are dynamics that have been playing out for a long time. They didn’t see it because they were so busy,” she said.

“This doesn’t mean you need a new relationship. It doesn’t mean the marriage is over. It does mean it’s time to put some energy back into the relationship again,” Jill said.

She and Mark help couples get back in touch with themselves and each other. “It’s almost like introducing themselves again,” she added. The Savages draw from Milan and Kay Yerkovich’s attachment theory and love styles research (as published in their book, How We Love), which they found helpful on their journey to reunification. Jill said no one is too old or married too long to benefit from understanding their dynamic. She mentioned that last summer they worked with three couples in a row who had been married for a handful of decades.

“Even in that stage of life — in their late 60s and early 70s — their childhood experiences were still affecting their marriage,” she said.

Jill published the book, Empty Nest, Full Life, in 2019 to provide encouragement for empty nest moms through her own experience launching the Savages’ five children. The book is written in two parts inspired by a verse in Ecclesiastes, “There is a time to let go, and a time to hold on.” The first part of the book details things mothers of adult children should let go of — things like guilt, unrealistic expectations, control and their children’s problems.

“You did the best that you could with the knowledge and experience you had at the time,” she said. “Let go of guilt and the need to fix your kids’ problems. Don’t compare yourself to others, that will hold you back.” She recommends moms join her in the “Keep it Shut Club,” and to “Pray, Don’t Say” when tempted to comment on their kids’ lives or give an opinion on their appearance or behavior.

The second part, Hold On, based on Isaiah 49:19, “Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?” casts a vision for what’s to come. “That’s the excitement of a full life,” she said. “The possibility of something new that’s just around the corner. We’ve been waiting for the kids to leave for so long, we’ve forgotten the possibility that our lives and marriages can be different.”

Jill encourages empty nest moms to Hold On to their marriages, addressing ruts and bad habits, how to communicate dreams and feelings and the sex gap. She writes in detail how changing bodies in mid-life can affect a person’s enjoyment of physical intimacy and encourages readers to get help to rekindle a vibrant sexual relationship with their spouse.

She likened the empty nest season of life to an encore performance. “People think the show is over when it really isn’t…. Surprise — there’s so much more to come!” Jill also reminds readers that people applaud at the end of an encore. “This is when the hard work of the show is rewarded.” For mothers, this reward comes from the audience of one, their heavenly father, who’s saying, “Good job!”

Readers will feel uplifted and empowered to stop midlife drift and make the empty nest a time to enjoy their next stage of life and marriage. “The concert was great, and the music was solid, but the encore is what you came for,” Jill wrote.