hmm.

Thank you. I will probably come back here to see what else you have going. Thanks again

I know it is hard to watch such injustice, but I say I would stay out of it. Here is why. Most of the folks I have known who were victims of a cheating spouse knew it long before they were ready to acknowledge it to others. They might have been in denial, but on some level knew that things just didn’t add up. They weren’t ready or strong enough to face it for awhile. And who could blame them? Betrayal is a huge thing to process. It is humiliating enough without adding in the embarassment of being “the last to know”. So I say sit on the information. But you are not powerless in this situation. You have the ultimate weapon in your arsenal. Prayer. I believe it is best to pray for GOD to give all parties involved, including you, wisdom. Pray for the affair to end. Pray for healing of the marriage. Pray for your own marriage and the marriages of friends. By rooting yourself in prayer, you will be in the best situation possible to help her when she comes to you.

Just a thought…Sometimes GOD gives us information that we are not supposed to do anything with on our own. A privielge of being a friend to GOD is that we get to partner with HIM through prayer. That could be what you are being called to in this situation.

First off, I love your blog.

Now, to the topic at hand. My marriage has been victim of an affair almost 11 years ago now. So, when I speak on the subject, having been through the fire and grown past it, I think I can shed some insight. To begin with, you are absolutely correct in that an affair is a symptom of a deeper problem in the marriage. Most likely one or more unmet expectations. By this I mean, a set of expectations that one spouse will have for the other spouse to meet yet they don’t voice them.

To give you an example. When the affair happened in our marriage, I was going to college and my wife was working at UPS at night. Monday through Friday, I would get up at 6:30am and be off by just after 7am. She would watch our two children at the time until about 3pm when she took them to the sitters and then off to work. I would get them from the sitters at about 6pm and head home. Watch them until about 8pm when they would go to bed and start homework. My wife would work until after midnight and come home. At some point in there, I would clean the house, but leave the dishes because they took so long and I could get so much more done by cleaning everything else (we didn’t have a dishwasher at the time). Sundays were church and home group and Saturdays we spent mostly fighting. Even in all of that, we still thought we were doing everything for the other. Well, my wife would come home in the middle of the night and find the house (most nights) spic and span clean except for the dishes, which I would later find out was the bane of her existence and she hated them. But would she yell at me about this dishes or even tell me about it. No. Instead she would find a dustbunny to yell and get upset about. She had an unmet expectation that she did not voice and it was grinding on her EVERY DAY. Even to this day if you ask her what caused our problems from her side she says the dishes. For me, it was a combination of needed to know that she was there for me and me only which was being worn down every time she would yell at me about the dustbunnies and then want nothing to do with me.

You see, we both had unmet expectations, but neither of us were really communicating what we felt and thought correctly to the other one and a wedge got between us long before the affair happened. On top of this, neither of us was really growing in Christ or walking closely with him because we let the world come in and choke out the Word. We didn’t spend any time in it and things got really dicey. In fact, an elder couple from the church (a really strong and powerful church) told us there was no way we could reconcile and to get a divorce. Imagine our shock.

What did we do? How did we overcome? Well, we went to the Pastor and spoke with him and he sent us to a couple that through Christ saved our marriage. I can still remember sitting at their kitchen table for that first meeting. Gary asked what was going on and I was ready to give him it all. In fact, I had a speech that I had worked on for some time explaining in complete details how horrible I thought my wife was (it is amazing she stayed with me through this) and I began to give him the whole thing. I got maybe a sentence to two into my speech when he stopped me and asked, “How is your walk with the Lord?” Before I even knew what had happened the following words came out of my mouth, “What does that have to do with anything.” And that was where the beginning of our problem was. From there, we were able to get to a ground zero and begin to build our marriage back together (actually really together for the first time) and have something that is so much stronger today than we could have every imagined.

Now, I say all of this to say that while our problems began long before the affair, not telling would be a major problem (and I know it was an off-handed comment). The reason is because there would always be something between you. Not to mention what the enemy will do with it. He will pound guilt on guilt and make your life with your spouse miserable until you can’t bare to look at them because all you see is your guilt. And then, the enemy will find the most inopportune time in the most inopportune way to reveal your secret and devastate your spouse. No, you have to come clean. In our case, the enemy had gotten us so torn apart that we didn’t believe that there was any way to save our marriage even though our spirits were screaming at us to reconcile and trust God. It will never be a good conversation to tell your spouse you cheated on them, but in the long run it will be healthy one. Even if the spouse leaves, you can at least have a clear conscious that you came clean and they did not forgive you for your mistakes nor realize theirs in the mess that had become your marriage.

There is so much more I could say about this having been there and lived to tell that there is life after an affair. But I will stop for now because if I don’t get off my soapbox this could wind up being several thousand words (LOL!).

Love in Christ,
Pat

Tell.

In all honesty, I don’t think there is any other option. I rarely feel “black and white” about anything, but this is one of those things that I feel everyone should abide by at all times, no matter what the consequence. If the consequence is so severe that you’re not sure what will come after, too bad. You screwed up. Now you pay for it.

In addition, though, once confession and repentance have taken place, it’s time to move on. Understanding as well that what that means differs for many people. It’s not an easily navigable trench to go through, but one that is unavoidable.

Tell.