When you have a cheater engaging in a series of affairs, you have someone who is trying to fix the internal with the external.
This is not about the marriage. The affairs reveal a heart that is in need of spiritual and emotional healing. It is an internal issue within the cheater needing addressing.
A compassionate pastor understands this and does not allow the cheater to point to the external.
This sinful behavior will continue to repeat until the cheater is willing to do the work to deal with their heart issues (see Mark 7:21-23). Blaming a faithful spouse is the opposite of doing that work.
Pastors need to grasp this basic truth:
They are not helping the faithful spouse OR the cheater by allowing the cheater to continue looking outside himself or herself for the affair cause.
Such an investigation leaves the cheater stuck in their sins. It does not free them or their victims. Repentance and restitution are the only ways out of this mess.
-The cheater needs to learn how dysfunctional and wicked their affairs are.
-They need to understand such behavior is never justified.
-Then they need to learn to take full responsibility for their sins and address them.
That is when healing can take place.
As long as the pastors in the cheater’s life allow them to blame external things and people, the cheater will be stuck in the sinful and maddening cycle of treacherous, sinful behavior. The series of affairs will continue as the root issues are left unaddressed.
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*A version of this post ran previously.
