Rebuilding a House, a Marriage
Adapted from a Woman & Home article.
Six months after discovering her husband’s affair, Jo was packing for divorce when Paul emailed. He said he’d found a run‑down house with her dream garden, and asked if she’d view it… with him.
She went. They considered. And they ended up buying it.
They spent weekends painting walls, planting flowerbeds, and rebuilding spaces—externalizing the work they still needed to do inside their marriage.
“When I walked into the garden, I thought, ‘Maybe we can be happy again’,” Jo said.
“It wasn’t fixing the past,” Paul added, “I was making something new—with her.”
They see this as more than just a repair of a marriage; it’s a rebuild, built with honesty, hard work, and even a few paint-splattered laughs.
“Rebuilding our home took months,” she reflected. “Rebuilding us is taking longer, but it started with a shovel and a paintbrush.”
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