Alan and Lisa Robertson of Duck Dynasty’s Robertson clan have opened up about their tumultuous life in a new book that was just published.
In A New Season: A Robertson Family Love Story of Brokenness and Redemption, the couple recounts their rough teen years as well as an affair that nearly ended their marriage.
Alan and Lisa first got together in high school. Alan started drinking and doing drugs by age 15, while Lisa had to deal with a male relative who molested her for seven years.
Alan’s behavior, they say, led to their first split. They did reunite more than a year later and get married, but an extended affair Lisa had with an old boyfriend nearly caused things to end for good.
“We wanted to write our story, and [my past] has everything to do with our story. We just wanted to put it out there — the good, the bad, the ugly, but also what God has healed us from and brought us through,” Lisa told Us Weekly.
“It makes our story even more compelling to realize everything that affected us and our relationship really started way back, before Lisa and I ever met, when she was a girl and I was a boy,” Alan added.
Alan said he wasn’t worried about people’s perceptions over the raw stories of things such as premarital sex and drinking, because both he and Lisa have changed a lot.
He also said he vowed not to leave his wife during the affair, and to forgive her, despite some family members encouraging him to leave her.
Lisa said an important tenant of marriage is honesty. “I think that whenever you go into a marriage, you should be totally honest with the person that you’re with ... Throughout the marriage, I was never really truthful about who I was with Alan, and it almost devastated our relationship. To me, honesty is the most important thing. Because if I cannot be honest with my husband, how can I be honest with myself or with God or my friends?” she said.
Both Alan and Lisa told radio host Dianne Linderman of Everything That Matters that they still struggle with emotions over their past, sometimes being brought to tears.
“Our relationship started badly because of me – I mean it was my fault,” Alan explained, reported WND. “Lisa was a good girl and I just took her down the wrong path. Then I dumped her and took off to New Orleans, because I was trying to find myself.”
Alan says he didn’t find much there, and ended up returning home and finding God.
They both consider themselves Christians now, and are successful marriage counselors, able to draw upon their turbulent past and their faith to give strong advice.
