…and be sure your sin will find you out.
-Numbers 32:23b, KJV
All those emotionally cold counseling meetings.
All the finger-pointing and fault-finding sessions.
All the anger over what seemed petty yet was treated as “life and death” marriage problems.
…then the cheating is uncovered, and it all starts to make sense.
While it is truly awful to discover a spouse’s infidelity, it is not less awful to experience the effects of said cheating without ever knowing about it definitively.
Knowledge is freeing.
Knowing your spouse was cheating all this time frees you to understand what all the finger-pointing, anger, and coldness was really about. They were trying to offload their guilt upon you.
They had given another (or two) a place in their hearts that rightfully belonged to you.
It is no surprise then that they acted in a way reflecting such a reality. They worked to shut the emotional doorway back into their heart.
All the nastiness was not really about you.
It was about them and their sin. That is what knowing the truth about the cheating can do for faithful spouse. It helps us to put the meanness in context.
And that is freeing.
Amen.
I believed, until the very moment up until when she confessed to the affair, that she wasn’t cheating. Looking back, I was living in a forest of red flags, I just didn’t want to think she was having an affair. But the moment she confessed, I felt my sanity return. I had the key that translated the crazy code I’d been dealing with for almost a year. My heart shattered but my mind became much clearer. My appetite came back as well. I could sleep again. Still painful but things made much more sense afterward.
Erik, I am right there with you. Went through several years of undeserved scorn, bizarre mood swings and drinking binges. My teenage son even wrote a letter to his mom questioning why she was so mean to me. (She wanted ME to punish him for it!) I walked on eggshells when awake and dreaded the confusing dreams I had at night.
I discovered that she had multiple affairs and slowly it all started making sense……….
But to her, I had “ruined her life” by shining a light on her behavior.
Been divorced for 15 years but I can barely be in the same room with this psycho as she acts as if nothing ever happened.
I’ve lived that nightmare as well.
According to X, I am “the cause of all the stress in his life” for the same reason.
Make that four of us. Mine started five years ago and I’m still in it. It may be fading slightly, but much of the craziness still exists. I don’t know if it’s continued denial, cognitive dissonance or just plain narcissistic delusion. It is incredible. I attend individual counseling to try to deal with/come to terms with it because she will not go, and has not gone for over 2 years. Improvement seems to have stopped, contempt remains, hopes are diminishing.
Make it five. My husband was the same way, all you all described…married 32 years, and about 25 at least were filled with lies, neglect, blame for everything, horrible name calling etc etc etc. and of course I was crazy and insulting if I ever suspected anything. When all was exposed, the light filled the room…clarified a lot, and it was immensely freeing, but excruciating at the same time. No one who hasn’t experienced this will comprehend. God freed me from a prison and has rewarded me for my obedience. He hates divorce, but oh how he hates adultery more. He opened my prison door and said be free. Still recovering.