With the swirling whirlwind caused by the Ashley Madison adulterous spouse information dump, the blogosphere has been full of articles talking infidelity.
Relevant Magazine recently reported that the Ashley Madison data dump may have caused up to 400 church leaders to resign their positions last Sunday due to these individuals using its adultery facilitating services.
Infidelity has truly hit the church.
And hit it hard.
In response to this scandal rocking the church, a notable Christian blogger posted some thoughts from his wife on these matters. I have seen this article swirling around my Facebook feed and have decided to offer a few of my own reflections on it.
The influential Christian blogger is Tim Challies. It is his wife, Aileen, who penned some thoughts on the recent infidelity scandal. These thoughts were published this past Monday, August 31st, on challies.com under the title, “My Wife’s Plea to Christian Men.”
Without dissecting each piece, I have just a few general comments to make about the post:
A) I appreciate how Aileen Challies does a good job highlighting the agency of the men choosing to cheat in the article. She calls them to make better choices. She calls them to stop. This is good, and I applaud such calls. Adultery and infidelity is not about the marriage but about the sin in the heart of the adulterous spouse (see my thoughts on here).
B) The post bothered me as well. Ironically, an admitted former unfaithful spouse–Alise–highlights some of these issues in her post entitled, “How Complementarian Views of Sex Lead to Infidelity.” I do not agree with everything Alise has to say in the article. However, I do agree she is right to point out the problem is broader than just men with porn problems. She points to an evangelical culture whose teachings about sexual desire are broken and leading to more brokenness.
My biggest problem with the article is how it makes faithful husbands invisible. Hence, I have entitled this post with an important reminder:
Mrs. Challies, Women Commit Adultery As Well!
Infidelity is not just a male problem. Both men and women commit adultery. In fact, it is impossible to commit heterosexual adultery without both a willing man and a willing woman.
My heart hurts as I read articles like the one on challies.com.
It hurts because the author treats faithful Christian husbands as footnotes at best. The article continues the evangelical narrative that infidelity only really victimizes Christian women and thereby presents faithful Christian husbands as practically nonexistent–or worse–as responsible for their wives’ infidelity (see link here).
I know it is not “just” Christian wives devastated by infidelity. Christian husbands are, too.
The article actually angers me for committing this major oversight.
To be fair, the Ashley Madison scandal hit mostly men. Also, the post’s author may not have much contact with faithful Christian husbands. I get it.
But I do have that contact.
In fact, I am actually one of those faithful men whose former “Christian” wife committed adultery against. I do not appreciate being treated as invisible. Nor do I appreciate this issue being treated as only a sin issue caused by cheating Christian men. Women cheat as well.
Infidelity is a heart problem.
And such sin is an equal opportunity employer. It is not a problem unique to women or men.
This is a human problem.
A sin problem.
And it ought to be addressed accordingly.
Amen. My children are slowly recovering from the pain of their home being busted apart their dad. At one point in the sordid exercise he tried to basically eliminate me and place the OW in “my old shoes”. It caused the children a lot of grief. They were conflicted because they weren’t polite, and I raised them to be polite. When my children tried to tell me that the OW “was nice”, I calmly informed them that this woman participated with their dad in breaking up their home and bringing about all the changes and turmoil they have experienced. I told them that she had full knowledge that their dad was not only married, but living with all of us when they started “dating”. No “nice” woman continues to participate in breaking up another person’s home. What I didn’t tell the kids was what my husband and this “nice” OW did to her husband. They were successful in getting him thrown into jail after setting him up. They were successful in cleaning him out financially. And both of the adulterers are seriously overweight, very dowdy looking people. So not only are adulterers male and female. They are everywhere. Do not judge the book by it’s cover. Read it, prayerfully.
Yes DM, I agree! My Ex husband was in an adulteress relationship with a married woman. She blew her family of nearly 30 years apart. Her now Ex husband wasted no time filing for divorce from her. I envy the fact that he flew back home and didn’t waste a moment on this wretch of woman. I suspect he had been down this tired path with her a few times before my Ex came along. This wasn’t her first time at the rodeo so to speak. But yes, men get the really short end of the stick if the wife is an adulteress. They often end up paying alimony, only get the kids part-time and then have to add child support to all that! It’s unfair totally! Many people use the masculine when talking about adultery, but these cheaters are usually in bed with a woman. And many times it’s someone else’s wife! We must bear in mind that fact when discussing these issues. A betrayed, crushed spouse is betrayed, crushed spouse no matter what gender, but I believe a betrayed husband gets run over more than once. Once by the adulteress and then again by the courts and again by the attitude of society! It truly is the cruelest of all!
Precious DM,
While it is true that sometimes the affair partner of a married person is unmarried themselves & hence is considered ‘fornication’ rather than adultery on the part of the unmarried one, there is still an ENORMOUS number of so-called married ‘Christian’ females (can’t call them women!) who do indeed commit adultery.
After I did a quick scan of your article, I did a quick count of the number of faithful Christian MEN in JUST my immediate family who were betrayed by females who claimed to be ‘Christian women’. Came up with six right ‘off the bat’! Yes, six faithful MEN who had to deal with wh____ wives. And that does not include extended family & ones who I am not aware of. Just the closest ones. Among them is my own father & my own Precious Son!
Yep…I know a ‘little’ about the devastation adultery causes! (PS: In the case of my father, it was his FIRST wife, NOT my precious Mom, who my Dad was so very blessed with marrying 10 years after his betrayal)
Therefore, I am so pleased you were willing to deal with this head-on & bring out those very important points!
LOVE all the work you do. Is so obvious your heart is ‘right with God’! Forge on, my friend………ForgeOn!
I agree with you on this one. It is so sad to me as a faithful woman to see faithful men getting run over by unfaithful wives. I remained faithful when I was being treated badly. The thing that gets me is a lot of these betrayed men were nicer to their wives than my ex would have ever been to me. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if all of us loyal people had met and married each other instead of our unfaithful spouses. Perhaps, our unfaithful spouses could have married other unfaithful spouses and really had some fun destroying each other. Then, those of us who are more loyal could have lived in peace.
SueB,
I agree with your last line and it brought chuckles, because – well you are right. Leave us in peace. Best wishes as you continue to heal.