From the outside, it seems like Jinger Duggar and Jeremy Vuolo‘s marriage has always been smooth sailing, but now, the couple is opening up about a big struggle they faced early on for the first time. On this week’s episode of their Jinger & Jeremy Podcast, Jeremy revealed there was a “deep betrayal” not long after they got married and how difficult it was for them to overcome it.
The betrayal took place ‘very early on.’
“There was a time in our life very early on in our marriage, where we experienced some — I describe it as deep betrayal,” Jeremy said on the podcast. “Because you have relationships in your life that ground you, and when those shake or are removed, you feel like, ‘What am I doing?’”
The couple discovered the betrayal as soon as they returned from their honeymoon, and Jeremy said it felt like walking into a “war zone” that left them both shaken.
“There are times in life where the two of you will go through something and one of you will have this steadiness and the other is really struggling, so you’re coming alongside,” Jeremy continued on the podcast. “This was a moment when we were both very deeply unsettled, where it was like, we both felt that shaking.”
As hard as that time was, Jeremy feels it was a ‘necessary’ experience for them both.
“Now it’s eight years on, we’re in Los Angeles, we have friends who are family to us, we have a deep community that we’re invested in, involved in. We have everything we didn’t have in that moment. And yet, those years were necessary,” he said.
They didn’t share too many details about what happened.
Though Jeremy and Jinger didn’t share exactly what went down back then, they did say that the betrayal was at the hands of someone they thought was a friend.
“I’ll say, the betrayal wasn’t even family,” Jeremy said. “And I know a lot of people listening might try to figure out. It was people in my life that she had come into, and people I had been really like excited for her to meet and engage with, and then it was it was really difficult.”
They turned to their faith to begin healing.
While trying to cope with the situation, Jeremy went to his pastor for advice, while Jinger turned to “devotion and prayer.”
“[The betrayal] was so deep, and you’re just so desperate for the Lord to help you and to draw near to you. And then also for us as newlyweds, it was huge because we were able to draw closer to each other in that,” Jinger said on the podcast.
