Just because a cheater agrees–and is even eager–to attend couple’s counseling with a therapist or pastor does not mean the cheater is interested in working on themselves.
In fact, I would pay attention to how eager the cheater is to attend the counseling session.
It might seem counter-intuitive but over-eagerness to attend the couple’s counseling might be a sign that such is not helping. The cheater is too comfortable.
They cannot wait to have a professional fawn over them telling them how “misunderstood” they are and how their spouse is such a failure.
For any faithful spouse who has made this mistake, you know how it feels going to those visits. They feel like emotional beat down sessions.
The cheater and pastor/counselor take turns attempting to convince you the marriage is in trouble because of your “issues.” Cheating is effectively ignored.
For someone who enjoys power, the cheater is going to eagerly attend such sessions, of course. The counselor/pastor is wrapped around their little finger.
In my opinion, such pastors/counselors are complicit in the cheating abuse of the faithful spouse. They are giving cover for the cheater to keep bludgeoning the faithful spouse emotionally and spiritually.
In fact, sometimes these pastors/counselors give the cheater the psycho-babble/spiritually abusive stick with which the cheater beats up the faithful spouse!
So, beware!
A cheater eager to attend counseling sessions with a pastor/therapist is probably not eager to attend for the sake of the marriage. They are there most likely for their own agenda–e.g. punish the faithful spouse, protect their image, control the narrative, etc.
Doubt me? I will leave you with this last question then:
Would a lazy, selfish person who would rather cheat than work on the marriage or file for divorce really suddenly change to eager seek to do the hard work he or she chose to avoid? I doubt it.
My ex-cheater saw my now ex-pastor the day after (about 12 hrs) I caught him out on a date with a newly divorced ex-coworker. Pastor spent close to four hours with the cheater and when the cheater came home, he still really didn’t think he did anything wrong!
The next week we went into counseling with the pastor and right away the pastor wanted to give a homework assignment for “what we could do to improve our marriage.” I’m not normally a “big mouth” type of person, but I said, “Whoa! Cheater just got caught out with another woman and he has a pattern lying and seeing women behind my back.” If I knew what I know now, I should have grabbed my purse and hightailed it out of there right there and then. For the next two months, I watched my ex charm the pastor and also he was lying to the pastor the entire time. You see, just as soon as I caught my ex out on a date — within a week or so he started the narc smear campaign against me to his coworkers (I found this out from a trusted source). He was starting to talk to coworkers about wanting to divorce me, because I was so “crazy.” But then he’d go to counseling with me and charm the pastor and act all concerned about our marriage. The entire counseling session was all for show. The cheater wanted to show the pastor and the church guys that he “tried” marriage counseling. My ex went up to the altar at least six times and got hands put on him, anointed with oil and prayed for. Most of the times I went up with him. I thought he was praying for our marriage. He wasn’t! It was all a big show for the pastor, Ranger leaders and church people. Behind the scenes at work, he was gathering up divorce information and attorneys names.
I 100% agree with Divorce Minister about this topic. I got played! One or two years before this, I caught my ex doing something else (I can’t remember anymore what it was). I said to him, “How about we go to Pastor and talk with him about all this?” And I said it in a nice way as I just felt like we needed help! And my ex got enraged and all defensive and said something like, “Sure! Let’s go tell Pastor what a horrible sinner I am!” That shut me down as that wasn’t my intent. He DIDN’T WANT TO GET HELP or CHANGE! He likes his favorite sins as they work for him.
Going quickly into counseling was a trap set just for me, but I didn’t know it. And then about a year later I heard from my “source” that my ex told a FEMALE coworker who was committing adultery (I don’t think he knew she was at the time) that “counseling is a waste of time.” Sure it is if you don’t want to change! And the FEMALE coworker is bff’s with my exes girlfriend — the woman I caught him out on a date with. And my ex is this holy Christian man, but the friends he hangs out with outside of church are liars and adulterers.
One “reason” for cheating that I got during/after counseling was that “Satan had me in his clutches” or something similar. I’ve never got a good answer as to why, and I don’t think I ever will. My question is, do you see this as gaslighting? I mean, who am I to say that Satan didn’t tempt her into her actions?
The book of James has something to say about this:
1:14,15
“Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. 15 These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”
Thank you. Very applicable scripture.
I always regretted attending marriage counseling as it has enabled my husband to claim he “tried to work on things.”
In reality he was seeing AP entire time – continuing to lie and betray.
Only later did I learn from an individual counselor that most therapists believe you can’t work on a marriage when one partner is not “present” e.g.
in an affair – suffering untreated depression – or addicted to alcohol or drugs.
Those are individual issues that have to be “fixed” or worked on by the partner before marriage can be improved.
My ex was still seeing her affair partner while in counseling with me. Despite an explicit promise not to. When this came to light, my therapist said it was a gift. Now my suspicions were verified and I could let go knowing she was a lier and manipulator.
Seemed like the worst day of my life, but it saved me from a life of misery…
I could tell three separate stories in which the adulterous partner coerced the faithful partner to go into counseling just so the faithful spouse would grow to accept their marriage was ending and the affair could continue without reprisal.
It’s important to understand the fact that the faithful partner will be blamed, even by other bystanders. For example, they will be told they were too jealous and that was why they “imagined” their spouse was unfaithful despite the mountains of circumstantial evidence.
The faithful partner will be told it was because they didn’t connect enough with the wandering spouse, they didn’t have sex enough, or be adventurous enough. Sometimes the person could be available for sex with their spouse and to connect, and even be adventurous and try very had to remain attractive and the cheating spouse could still decide it is time to step out despite all the efforts.
I’m not a feminist. But I also think most of the time a woman will be blamed if her husband does selfish things like looking at porn or cheating. She’ll be told it’s because she aged, got breast cancer, or gained weight or maybe was a nag and so her husband was justified in cheating. She was supposed to look air brushed at all times.
This scripture helped me a great deal, in my situation. God REALLY spoke healing in it, to me. We need to remember a deeper truth here, always. The adulterer was in deep sin trouble with God before he or she fell into the pit of the actual adultery. God had me read this carefully…
“The mouth of an adulteress is like a deep pit; the one against whom the LORD is angry will fall into it.”
Proverbs 22:14 NET
Notice God is ALREADY angry at the cheater, even before they acted it out. Something was bad wrong in the heart. Fill in the blanks, for your situation…but there is a pride, entitlement deep character flaw, rebelliousness, etc that is angering God ALREADY! So when so called friends want to insist on fixing the faithful spouse, they aren’t even close to the foundation of the problem. Let this sink in and find freedom.