All his sons and daughters came to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. “No,” he said, “I will continue to mourn until I join my son in the grave.” So his father wept for him.
-Genesis 37:25, NIV
Much confusion surrounds the ideas of grief and forgiveness.
I maintain that what is a grief issue is often labelled “unforgiveness” or “bitterness” and thereby treating understandable grief as a spiritually pathological state. This error is all too common within the Church. Faithful spouses are soul raped then have the compounded emotional and spiritual injury of being labelled as spiritually pathological for expressing their sense of deep grief and injustice over being a victim of adultery.
It is sick spirituality.
Very sick.
It is often easier to see the sickness if we consider it under slightly different circumstances:
A mother looses her son to a violent murder. No doubt remains as to who killed her son. The evidence is blatant. However, the murderer continues to deny he did it. The justice system does not step in and prosecute him as the murderer has bought off the police and local judge.
Making matters worse, the mother and the murderer attend the same church. This church surrounds the murderer extolling him, and telling the mother that she needs to stop talking about her son’s murder as that is “unforgiving.” Christian “friends” welcome the murderer into their homes and pretend like nothing happened. If the mother dare show her pain over those betrayals, the friends are quick to label her “bitter” and “unforgiving.” They take zero responsibility for inflicting more pain upon her by their insensitive betrayal of their “friendship” with her.
Most reasonable people can see why the mother under these circumstances would struggle with unresolved feelings of hurt and betrayal. It is very hard to let go of the pain with people who you thought were your friends continuing to betray you!
It is hard to grieve and let go of the huge losses surrounding adultery discovery and divorce with people minimizing those losses and invalidating that one is a victim. Adultery victims do exist. And they did not cause themselves to be victimized any more than a rape victim “forced” their rapist to violate her body and soul.
Expressions of anger as great sadness is a normal and healthy response to experiencing injustice and severe losses. Our marriages and families were precious to us as faithful spouses. When our cheater decided to blow all that up by selfishly choosing adultery and lies, we were left with a lot to mourn. And these things were unjustly taken from us!
Add to those injustices all the other injustices that often come with infidelity discovery. Cheaters sometimes come out looking good even though their decisions destroyed the marriage and blew up the family. Christians–who ought to be the first to support faithful spouses–are often the first to blame and shame the faithful spouse for their marriage ending even knowing about the adultery committed by the other spouse!
That is a lot to process, and I am only scratching the surface.
True followers of Christ would be quick to empathize with the victims of adultery (Romans 12:15). They would validate their feelings of hurt and anger over the injustices experienced as opposed to shutting them down with shaming messages “to forgive” or blaming the adultery victim.
We–faithfuls spouses–do not want to hold onto hurtful feelings forever. However, denying their existence via shaming messages (“You’re being unforgiving”) does not help.
Part of getting to a place of healing and letting go is coming to a settled place that what happened did actually happen and the faithful spouse did not bring the injustice upon himself/herself. Another part is seeing that true losses and actual injustices were experienced. We are talking affirming reality as a necessary basis for healing.
Sometimes the best and most Biblical response to infidelity is entrusting the cheater to God’s wrath and judgement (see Ro. 12:19 and 2 Tim. 4:14). Jesus taught us to forgive only if our brother/sister repents (see Luke 17:3). Repentance is required for godly forgiveness and reconciliation to happen.
Not everyone will experiences God’s forgiveness and the eternal life that follows sadly. He allows us to reject Him. Faithful followers of Christ ought to understand–similarly–that some people will reject the forgiveness process in situations of infidelity by refusing to repent. So, the best a faithful spouse can do in those circumstances is entrust the cheating spouse to God’s judgment.
Do not forget: Grief takes time to process. We are talking about the heart healing and not the mind–primarily. Beating the heart up with “should’s” is not helpful but harmful, in my opinion. It will take time to heal from such a deep wound just as it takes time to heal from deep physical wounds. Plus, each subsequent injustice is like another turn of the knife or stab in the back.
Someone saying “OUCH!” over a recent betrayal or experience of injustice is not the same thing as “unforgiveness” or “bitterness.” Look at it through the eyes of someone grieving protesting against the injustice of it all. We–faithful spouses–need support to accept a reality too often denied by the cheater and other “Christians.”
Thank you for this post! I struggle with this. I always worry about whether or not I’m being forgiving. I know I must do it but right now it is so very hard. It is nice to know I’m not alone in the way I feel. I sometimes feel like a bad person.
Thank you! I just saw an excellent interview with Brene Brown where she discusses the grief process s absolutely necessary to forgiveness…not that forgiveness is a mandate but grief must be fully experienced to truly forgive. I have no idea what is on the other side of my grief but I am healing with Him as a gift to myself, my children and my one else the lord should have me to express love to.
I’ve often used the analogy of a murderer or rapist to my unfaithful husband but he just laughs it off saying ” there is no way infidelity, rape and murder are the same. He thinks what he’s done is nowhere near as bad as these things. I’m still with him three years after a six month affair with our next door neighbour – I’m dead inside – he just doesn’t get how it’s changed my life. His life goes on like nothing has happened.
Kim, I am so sorry. Please know, I have been there and I am praying for you.
Thank you so much for this website, DM! There are many times I read this and I am given food for thought, and there are many times I read this and I think “Yes! This is it!” This is one of those articles. People, including ministers, who preach forgiveness, or shaming the betrayed spouse DO NOT GET IT.
Kim, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this man who doesn’t own up to violating you and your marriage. But rationalizing with these types is an exercise in futility. If he is not repentant by now, then it’s not in his heart and no amount of talking will get him there. Certainly he violated you. And chances are you don’t feel safe with him. Whether his crime is as bad rape and murder, I think God would say a sin is a sin is a sin. But trying to get him to accept your analogy, which we know is reality, is just more frustration.
I pray you don’t put up with this abuse much longer.
DM- What an excellent and powerful post- I think one of your most powerful yet! I feel like what my husband did to me and our sons was a crime and there is very little earthly penalty for it. It also seems to just go on and on. My situation started emotional abuse, then adultery, then abandonment, then financial abuse, then abuse through family court and I just wonder what is next. The amount of destruction one person can cause a family without any legal repercussions is so maddening and so unfair. I think it will take me years to get through the grief and get to forgiveness but God knows my heart even better than I do. DM- thank you for being the voice of reason through this. Thank you for knowing that forgiveness is a struggle when we’ve been so violated. Thank you for understanding that adultery is a very serious crime against all of us and for educating others about this. Your words are a comfort through our grief.
BHB, Thanks for your kind words. Glad my musings are being used as a balm to folks like you!
Broken-hearted Believer,
Your story sounds a lot like mine, I too have sons. I pray God’s healing and mercy for you and your boys. He is able to repay you the lost years❤️
Thank you cindylittlez. I will pray for you and your sons as well. I have so many positive and lovely things in my life too that I know God has brought me. I try to focus on those things all the time but it seems that little dark cloud is always lurking nearby. Your prayers are so appreciated. How old are your sons?