Why Did She Stay? Gayle Haggard Answers In Her Words
COLORADO SPRINGS -Why did she stay?
It’s a question countless have asked of Gayle Haggard, wife of former New Life Church Pastor, Ted Haggard. Those questions are answered in her book, just released Tuesday, Why I Stayed: The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour.
It’s been more than three years since the “crisis,” as Gayle terms it, happened. November 1st, 2006, marked the day she found out a man in Denver was accusing Ted of sin. The text is painfully inscribed from an excerpt in her journal.
That man was Mike Jones, a gay escort, who claimed Ted paid him for sex.
“When the crisis hit, I felt as though everything I valued was at risk,” Gayle revealed to NEWSCHANNEL 13 via phone from her New York City hotel room Tuesday night. “What I wasn’t willing to do was to deny the marriage that we’d built, the family that we’d built, the church that we’d built. I wanted to fight for these things that I valued so much. When Ted and I were pastoring New Life Church, we were as compassionate and merciful as we knew how to be. What we were missing, though, is what it felt like to be the person who needed compassion and mercy.”
That day, describes Gayle, she was in complete shock – despite confessions early on in their marriage from Ted that he struggled with same-sex attraction. In her book she recounts how, even on their honeymoon, Ted had lobbied to go on a group backpacking trip.
“I felt as though, naively I know now, that the problem was pretty much solved. Through our marriage, I would check in with him from time to time, but would express to me that it was no longer a problem,” says Gayle. “I had no indicators that he was struggling with this in the way that he was.”
Biblically, Gayle had every right to leave him. But instead, she writes, “That night I began my journey of choosing… choosing to love.”
“I knew that Ted was more than this struggle. I knew that he sincerely loved me, and I sincerely loved him,” she tells NEWSCHANNEL 13. “There was this wall that I always felt I couldn’t be as close to him as I wanted to be. And so when this happened, I saw the opportunity for that wall to come down.”
That, despite Ted not being completely honest once the accusations came out. Gayle never doubted their relationship was beyond repair.
“From the beginning I had hope. I honestly felt that God had spoken to me and told me that he had purpose.”
Gayle’s book takes readers through their family’s journey to Phoenix, “betrayal” by some at New Life, and Ted’s quest to make her feel safe again.
Ted is no longer working as an insurance agent, as the couple is busy speaking at churches nationwide about their crisis and journey of forgiveness. As for ministry from here on in Colorado Springs?
“I do not feel that Ted is disqualified from ministry. I think if anything, what he has been through has made him more qualified. I wasn’t willing that it end with a scandal. I felt that we needed to come back to finish the story,” says Gayle.
