“Redeemed” wrote:
It’s hard to read your blog, because you seem to be very bitter still, about everything to do with your marriage and it’s ending.
My husband is training to be a minister and we had been married for 9 years and in September 2014 I started to have an affair for just under 5 months (3 whilst living with my husband, 2 whilst separated), with our mutual best friend. I take full responsibility for the sin, and the fact that my decision and choice was wrong. It should not have happened in a million years. The devil had a field day but the choice was mine. I also became pregnant. (I am now 26 weeks)
I first told my husband 3 weeks after it started but was so consumed by it that it continued.Then, just over 10 weeks ago, God moved hugely in my life. I felt conviction of the Holy Spirit like you wouldn’t believe. I realised the devil’s lies had convinced me that I didn’t love my husband when in fact that was so far from the truth. I had still been doing his washing, tidying the house etc, buying him bits and Bobs that he needed – all signs of still caring for and loving someone. I couldn’t ever fully abandon him. I cut off all contact with the other person and placed myself under the discipline and spiritual authority of the church leadership under a repentance process.
My husband, who had originally said that he would fight for our marriage and that he would never give up on me, had given up 8 weeks after I left him. Genuine repentance meant nothing to him. He had made his decision to divorce me before I repented. He has filed for divorce and only spoken to me twice about anything to do with ‘us’ – once to tell me he was divorcing me, and once to tell me he had filed the papers.
We have three children who are 8,3 and 1 and they are stuck in the middle knowing that mummy is truly sorry (they know I did wrong and that God has forgiven me for it – I don’t think there is anything wrong with them knowing that adults make mistakes too!) The main thing is that daddy told them he would have mummy back if she didn’t see the other person, and they can’t understand why that hasn’t meant our family can be together again because they know I’m not seeing or contacting him.
I love my husband so incredibly much, in a new way. God has taught me so much the past couple of months and I am a new person, a new creation and have been cleansed and redeemed by the blood of Jesus.
Is divorce really the first option? Reconciliation was not even tried I completely understand his hurt, anger and betrayal but am worried that he has rushed into a decision about a divorce when he is (in his own words), ‘close to the edge’ our family will be torn apart as a consequence of my sin, yet I do not feel God telling me to give up on our marriage. We are one.
If he has read your blog, and I’m sure he must have, he is following your seemingly embittered advice about spouses who are unrepentant and applied it to myself. The church leadership have no reason to doubt the sincerity of my repentance because it is genuine – the fruits are evident. There is nothing still hidden in my life – I do not want to devil to have any kind of foothold!
I just wonder if you have ever considered the other side… Is divorce with no attempt at reconciliation the right thing to do? Are marriages really decimated by one person? Is one spouse always perfect and the other horrendous? I have no doubt that your ex wife hurt and betrayed you deeply, but had you really never ever hurt her? (I’m really not condoning what she did I am more questioning you!)
Forgiveness bears fruit, just as repentance does. I wonder if you have been able to forgive your ex wife, because setting up a blog called divorce minister implies that you feel that is your identity. Actually, we are all sinners and God loves each and every one of us. He has forgiven your sins all the ones which are past and the ones in the future (and mine) ! He loves you so much and does not want your identity to be found in your divorce but in the life he has planned for you….
Every blessing…
Dear Redeemed,
To say I am bitter and suggest I am unforgiving (among other things) is to attempt to discredit my voice and suggest what I say is not worth heeding because it is just too twisted and distorted by the author’s–i.e. my–alleged pain.
I suppose that is one way to handle disagreement:
Attack the person and not his/her arguments or reasoning. In philosophical circles, we call that a fallacy–or error in reasoning–the ad hominem (translated as “to the man”). That is to say this is not a healthy or wise way to deal with disagreement or discord.
As to why I write this blog, I write this blog because God has uniquely equipped and called me to do so. Part of the writing this blog is sharing my personal experiences with others so that they can learn as well as feel less alone. It has nothing to do with bitterness or where I am at on my forgiveness journey concerning my ex-wife. Sometimes it sounds bad because what happened was bad. And sometimes I sound angry because I have a righteous anger about adultery and lies. This is healthy. God is angry with the unrighteous as well (see Psalm 7:11, KJV).
Furthermore, few divorced pastors who were faithful spouses are brave enough to speak on these matters because to speak on them opens them up to such false charges as you level against me–i.e. you are bitter and unforgiving. The safer route for such a divorced, evangelical pastor is to crawl back into the shame cave and never speak of the whole affair again. Too many have done that and left the sheep shepherdless on these matters. I am unwilling to add to that number as many need to hear the message God has given me to share. And the shame is not mine to bear.
With those pieces clarified, let me tackle your questions:
Is divorce really the first option?
No, I do not consider divorce the first option in dealing with marital problems including infidelity. However, I am not afraid to counsel divorce when full repentance from adultery is not evident. Also, I do consider it permissible for your husband–as Christ gave your husband permission–to divorce you, an admitted adulteress (see Matthew 5:32 and Matthew 19:9). It is completely up to your husband whether or not he wants to exercise this permission as granted by God. I am not going to try and take away that God-given option by saying shaming things about your husband for choosing it.
Some pastors might.
I won’t.
Permission is permission.
And let’s not miss that his choice to divorce you is very far from a “first option” response. You wrote that you had told your husband of your infidelity three weeks into your adulterous affair that lasted nearly five months. He did not actually file for divorce until eight weeks after your abandonment of him (three months later?). That is minimally eight weeks where he did not file in the face of your admittedly unrepentant adulterous ways. And if I understand what you wrote correctly, it is likely actually several months he held off from filing the papers while knowing of your treachery. That is not a first choice response to adultery. And calling it a first choice minimizes your betrayals of him over that extended period of time.
To be clear: a first response to your infidelity would have meant he filed the very day you told him you were having an affair with his (former?) best friend. He did not do that but held on to the marriage through your numerous betrayals of him during a significant period of time. You would do well to try and empathize with what you put him through during that long period of time.
….Is divorce with no attempt at reconciliation the right thing to do?
You abandoned your husband for months cheating on him with his (former?) best friend! It is hard to reconcile with someone who is running away and giving you the proverbial middle finger. That is what you did to your husband leaving him and sleeping with his (former?) best friend. Even so, I would not be surprised if your husband would have reconciled with you during the period prior to your abandonment or even in that eight week window if you had come back truly sorry. But that window is now closed. It does not mean it was always closed as your first question suggests.
And I will challenge you further on this point.
Remember, you chose numerous times to reject your husband and God over an extended period of time. You said, “No” to them. Your husband really is simply accepting your own poor choices here by filing for divorce. Yes, he is choosing divorce, but you chose to reject the marriage over and over again. I suspect Israel regretted their repeated adulterous choices to reject God and their covenant with Him when the Assyrians decimated them (see Jeremiah 3:8). But they chose against God and their choices had consequences.
Sometimes we regret the choices we make. However, our regret does not erase the consequences of those choices even if we are repentant and forgiven. King David still lost his first child by Bathsheba even though he was genuinely repentant and forgiven.
Are marriages really decimated by one person?
Marriages are decimated by one spouse all the time. One spouse can choose to walk away for whatever reason they want. In other words, if one party chooses to end the marriage filing for divorce, here in the USA that means the marriage is over legally (after a period of time determined by the local state). Absolutely, I would call that decimating the marriage by one party. This happens regularly.
And one spouse can choose to have sex with a third party raping the soul of his/her spouse. That does decimate the marriage unilaterally. God called adultery evil (see Deut. 22:22) and proscribed the death penalty for such behavior in the Old Testament. That is how seriously God considers adultery. Clearly, God sees this sin above all other sins in marriage as worthy of ending the union.
Thankfully, we do not put people to death these days over such behavior. But the principle remains that God did not put both parties–adulterous spouse and faithful spouse–to death for the adultery of one.* No shared responsibility there. And no sin inquest took place about the faithful spouse either in this decision or even when Jesus pardoned the woman at the well (see John 8).
Is one spouse always perfect and the other horrendous?
This question sets up a false dichotomy, which is another fallacy of reasoning. It is not a matter of either being perfect or either being horrendous. No one is perfect (Romans 3:23). So every spouse is sinful including the ones who remain faithful and married to their deaths.
The question is not over who is perfect and who is horrendous. It is over who was faithful or who wasn’t. In other words, it is a question over who committed marriage ending sin and who did not. All sins are not equal in their consequences and the devastation they cause. Our legal system understands this treating a murderer different than a motorist who speeds five miles above the speed limit. It is important we do not collapse such distinctions in dealing with adultery and say, an errant harsh word. Both are sins needing forgiveness, but both do not work the same level of relationship devastation.
I have no doubt that your ex wife hurt and betrayed you deeply, but had you really never ever hurt her? (I’m really not condoning what she did I am more questioning you!)
How your question is written implies that I deserved to have my ex-wife cheat on me. Nothing justifies it. I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt this time and chalk it up to your misunderstanding of me. See above for my comments regarding this ad hominem attack and the unforgiveness accusation.
Now, for some more general remarks:
Redeemed, I am very skeptical about the genuineness of your repentance. Your post suggests that you are acting from a place of entitlement by insisting or insinuating your husband owes it to you to not divorce. That is not humility. While your husband is called to forgive you, he is not required to stay married to you after what you have done in committing adultery for over four months (e.g. Deut. 22:22, Jer 3:8, Mt. 1:19, 5:32, and Mt 19:9). A repentant adulteress recognizes she deserves to be divorced by her husband that she contemptuously violated. That is just. She does not demand mercy and accepts it if she does not get mercy.
The language that you used erroneously suggesting divorce was “the first option” says to me that you don’t “get it.” The level of devastation and damage you did to your husband has not fully registered as I read your post. You are minimizing your own sin by suggesting your husband acted rashly and impulsively by choosing divorce eight weeks after you left him for his (former?) best friend! A truly repentant (read: humble and not-entitled) adulteress would recognize she deserved to be divorced the moment she chose adultery over her marriage vows. Any day divorce was not enacted by the faithful spouse is a gift of mercy to the adulterous spouse. Your husband gave you many of those days before he finally accepted your choice to abandon and reject him choosing adultery. I don’t hear any gratitude about that. What I hear is that he owed that to you and more. That’s entitlement.
Crying over him choosing divorce at this point is like foolish young man complaining about the consequences that befell him for choosing to sleep with an adulteress (see Proverbs 5:11-14). And it is like an embezzler crying over former clients refusing to trust him with their money after they learned he stole millions from them.
In other words, saying you are sorry does not erase the catastrophic damage you have already done. You are reaping what you sowed for nearly five months. It is tragic–I agree–but the real tragedy is that you selfishly and repeatedly chose adulterous sin over serving your community, your children, your husband, and your God.
Dragging the kids into this is especially awful. Were you thinking about them while cheating on their father and leaving him (and possibly them as well)? If you had, you might have chosen otherwise. Likely, you would not be in this situation of facing divorce if you had not cheated on your husband (their father!) for months and abandoned him.
You suggest your children are confused about why dad isn’t taking you back. It really is simple: You destroyed your marriage by choosing another man as a “boyfriend” and abandoning the husband of your youth. A repentant adulteress owns her choices and their effects even with the kids. She does not blame-shift the end of the marriage onto her faithful husband as if she had no direct hand in the sad state of affairs before her children. A humble and repentant adulteress lets the children know that she does not blame their father for not taking her back after what she did to him.
Finally, I understand you find my blog hard to read. Good. It ought to make someone like you uncomfortable. This blog’s tagline is “Taking Adultery Seriously,” and I mean it. You can find plenty of platforms out there–online, radio, and in print–that will turn a blind eye to incomplete repentance because they are more terrified of divorce than the damage done to faithful spouses and the damnation of the unrepentant’s soul. This is not one of those places.
I care too much to minimize adultery or its consequences.
But I understand if the truth is too much for you, this blog isn’t for everyone.
Servant of Christ,
-DM
PS Stay tuned for Mrs. DM’s response to Redeemed….
*Derek and Ruth Prince make this point in their book, God Is A Matchmaker on page 150. By the way, I don’t endorse all in this book, which has some rather unhelpful and rigid gender stereotypes in it. Here’s the full citation:
Prince, Derek and Ruth Prince. God Is A Matchmaker: Seven Biblical Principles for Finding Your Mate. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen, 2011.
Such bold truth! Excellent!
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. (Colossians 3:1-17)
As what I had written to you was written from a place of compassion and you have not taken it as such, the above is how I have felt and been trying to live for the last few weeks. My words won’t stick with you, but maybe His will.
Jesus said ‘he who is without sin cast the first stone’ to the woman who was caught in adultery. She was forgiven by grace.
Where is your grace and compassion? When one sinner repents, there is a PARTY in heaven! ☺️
Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.
(Psalm 51:1-2, 7, 10-12)
I’m not sure you quite understand what sin is…. It’s entrapping, controlling and takes conviction and a flipping determined decision to run the other way to get out of… And to run into God’s wide and loving arms of grace, and love.
Having made the decision I am fully aware of the human consequences….I am living them.
But that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t believe in restoration (he restores Israel all the time…!) and it also doesn’t mean that he isn’t a God who could resurrect a dead marriage.
Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing— grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten— the great locust and the young locust, the other locusts and the locust swarm — my great army that I sent among you.
(Joel 2:13-14, 25)
After all…he specialises in resurrection!
Thank you to both you and your wife for taking the time to respond to me.
Redeemed,
I see a confusion in your writing over the difference between forgiveness and marriage restoration/reconciliation. To be fair, teaches from the pulpit on these matters is often muddled. It is hard to grasp these fairly abstract concepts.
Here’s an analogy:
Say you have an egg and your husband has an egg. You like smashing eggs. So, you smash your husband’s egg without asking. Forgiveness in this situation means your husband does not smash your egg as would be fair. He does not take revenge. However, forgiveness does not un-smash your husband’s egg. It is destroyed by your willful action. And while your husband may forgive you for smashing his egg, he might not like you and want to avoid being around you so that you do not smash any more of his eggs in the future. That does not mean he has not forgiven you. He does not trust you. And it takes more than just his forgiveness to restore the relationship damaged by your egg smashing. Reconciliation or restoration of the relationship requires work from a humble and contrite egg smasher who tries to make amends for their wrong rebuilding trust. But even in that scenario. The egg will forever be smashed.
I understand you are desperate for your marriage not to end in divorce at this point. I recognize the panic of powerlessness in what you write. And I have been there myself. But you are at this place because you betrayed your spouse for months telling him you despised your marriage covenant by your words/actions! You smashed his egg. He may forgive you–and I hope for everyone he gets to this place someday as I am sure he is aware of the necessity from going to seminary–but he can still forgive you and divorce you. Forgiveness does not erase the consequences of your actions. It is not the same as reconciliation or marriage restoration. The egg does not magically become whole again after he forgives you. It is still smashed. And you smashed it.
God does specialize in resurrection. But He calls His followers to die to self and put others needs before their own.
When you are feeling powerless and wishing something else is happening use that feeling to empathize with your stbxh. What pain he must have felt knowing his wife was having sex with his (former?) best friend? How powerlessness he must have felt watching you abandon him for another person? Maybe through doing this empathy work you will start to realize how viciously you smashed his egg.
-DM
Once again, thank you for taking the time to reply to my comment. Every blessing.
Redeemed,
Do you understand the amount of pain you have caused your husband and kids? Can you put it into words and actions? I will tell you when your spouse betrays you it feels like they nearly killed you, left you for dead and didn’t care one bit. That is really what it feels like. It is worse than the death of a loved one. Do you get this??? When you truly understand this then you are moving toward repentance but just spouting out bible verses is not true repentance. Please keep trying to understand how your husband and kids really feel.
BHB
Dear DM,
Been keeping an eye on your site for a while now.
This is one of the best answers I have seen to a question so I felt compelled to let you know.
Please keep bringing the truth and keep up the good work
Believer UK
Thank you DM for your very well thought out and astute answer to Redeemed. IMHO she is falling on her Bible to give justification to her actions.
She has no concept of the pain she has inflicted upon her husband and children. The trust and the vows have been shattered.
One of the major issues here is what constitutes *true* repentance. We seem to get that repentance includes some type of sorrow… but repentance extends to the *restoration* of what we have taken away, and the humility to accept the consequences of our actions.
Here are some texts, with my comments in rounded brackets.
“Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner…”
— 2 Corinthians 7:9
(Feeling sorry is a (necessary) part of the process; but repentance involves more than that.)
“And Zacchaeus stood, and said unto the Lord: Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.”
— Luke 19:8
(Restoration is a the outward fruit of true repentance.)
“Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry;
But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.”
— Proverbs 6:30, 31
(Not only are required to restore much more than we stole… we are required to disadvantage ourselves in order to complete the restoration.)
* * *
There are many other things to be commented on here, but I’d like this comment to center on what is at the root of the problem: genuine repentance. True repentance accepts consequences, restores the other person – even at pain to oneself, takes all responsibility, does not blame another.
Excellent verses about restitution, TheUpwardWay!
I believe that true repentance on the part of the adulterer would acknowledge that the betrayed spouse had every right to divorce them, and would accept such a decision with grace. Yes, it would be painful, but just as David had to accept the loss of his son after his affair with Bathsheba, so an adulterous spouse must accept that this might be a consequence of their sin against their spouse.
It’s great that you mention David pianomommy, because he’s one of the best examples of repentance… but his story also teaches us that consequences accrue to us even when we are truly repentant. His house was divided because of his sin. His sons warred against each other, and David himself was almost usurped by Absalom.
“Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the Lord, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
“Now therefore the sword shall never depart from thine house; because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.”
— 2 Samuel 12:9, 10
So DM or UpwardWay… question. If my whenever tobx has deliberately thumbed his nose at God (didn’t kill me but did try to put me in jail for something I didn’t do…) and the children are not careful about their walks, is the destruction my husband modeled going to follow the children? I cannot control them – they are young adults. They seem to understand that their dad did numerous bad things of which adultery is only one – I say “seem” because some of what he did very directly impacted them. One example – threatened suicide because the kids wanted to see me after I got a hideously unfair restraining order revoked; they ended up in foster care for six months. And… they still talk to him. I just pray that one day they are free of him and his manipulations.
The children are responsible for their own choices and actions. Hopefully, they learn from their father’s example and do not follow in his footsteps. However, we will all be held accountable one day for what we choose–whether good or ill (2 Cor. 5:10). That said, they are NOT accountable for their father’s sins (see Ez. 18:20). And it makes sense that they would want to stay in touch as he will always be their biological father. But perhaps, they will learn to set healthy boundaries with him as it sounds is needed.
DM,
Wow….YES! I am printing this one out. I have loved many of your posts, but this response. Awesome! So complete and truthful.
The audacity of the unfaithful is shocking and never ends.
My marriage was decimated by one person – my unfaithful ex-spouse.
You go DM! while I too initially thought you were “in your feelings” when first reading your blog, I feel your frustration and hurt over what occurred and the lack of empathy out there for the betrayed. While I may be accused of judging, let’s hold Redeemed s’ feet to the fire a little…where was the love for your spouse and kids during the mutual seduction between you and this friend of the family? Where was your respect when not only did you have sex with another man, but you let him plant his seed inside you? Your cuckold husband’s supposed to be good with that? Raw, unprotected sex? God only knows what else went on…yuck. after my ex had her affair, I had no use for her. None. Still don’t.
Amen DM! That has to be one of the most profound writings I have seen on the topic. I wish my WW would bother to read it. Sick of that entitlement mentality. No gratitude for the 3 years I’ve been dealing with deceit, multiple discoveries and trickle truth. I get “God has forgiven me, why can’t you.”. They don’t know forgiveness does not equal reconciliation, let alone rug-sweeping, This is definitely one for the book!
DM, very compelling, bravo to you! And what about the pregnancy that resulted from the affair? Is the husband supposed to accept that as well?
Indeed Irene, and having the affair partner around in his life for the next 18+ years should he accept her back. Something the OP does not seem to have considered. Was it about the time that your pregnancy began to show that he decided to divorce you thus freeing you to stay with your affair partner, and did that give affair partner second thoughts about whether he wanted to continue stay with you and raise a child. I am sure thre is more to your story than the bare bones you have told us
My husband told me that when he was considering going off with his affair partner he heard the passage of the woman taken in adultery read in church and took it that God would be fine with him going off. Must have stopped listening before the bit about going and sinning no more .Shame he didn’t think that it meant do not sin in the first place. Just shows what harm scripture can do if the devil explains what it means to you
Give ’em hell, DM.
I would just add to the chorus that the woman who wrote is still deep in an entitlement mindset — I’m entitled to reconciliation! I’m entitled to as many chances as I want! I’m entitled to his good opinion of me!
She left HIM. She abandoned her family and presumably her three children for another man. And she got pregnant by her affair partner. It seems to me the rejection was very one way.
And when that poor man had had enough, and saved himself from further abuse? When cake was out of grasp? Now she has the come to Jesus moment?
I would also suspect that the OM dumped her before she had her big a-HA moment and discovered her “love” for her husband. Can’t imagine why… her getting pregnant and all and having three kids already…
Love is shown through actions. Cheating, abandoning, blaming — that’s not love. Or at least a “love” that is good for you.
If she loves him, she’ll have the good grace to let him go and work on herself and her considerable issues.
Hi DM
Thank you for such a thoughtful, faithful response! Your writing and voice is so very needed today–particularly for us clergy who continually are confronted with the pervasive attitiudes expressed by redeemed. I also want to thank redeemed for posting her questions and comments. Your marriage may never be reconciled….but the Lord does discipline those whom He loves.
Finally DM is there anyway I could contact you? We do know each other. I will be preaching from 1 Corinthians soon on divorce and remarriage and would like to discuss a few things with you…or perhaps have you come up to share with the church.
One thing I have learned through my own experience with a cheating spouse…those who demand forgiveness and restoration are not repentant, they are just trying to make THEMSELVES feel better.
So grateful for this. My husband is “repentant” to anyone who will listen, and fighting me on the divorce. I’m finally filing this week (after several years), but tenuous about whether I’m doing the right thing in the face of his “repentance”. This is an amazing reminder of what to look for in repentance.