“It is not adultery. We were living apart at the time,” says Cheater.
A cheater trying to avoid responsibility for violating their marriage vows might attempt to use the “geography excuse.”
This is the one where they excuse their behavior as “acceptable” since they were living apart from their spouse. The separation might have even been sold as a step for helping the marriage!
I take a very dim view on this lame “geography excuse.”
You are married until you are not (i.e. divorced). When you engage in sexual relationships with someone who is not your spouse, that is what we call adultery.
Geography matters not.
Plenty of marriages have endured through geographical separation without one spouse deciding to unilaterally disregard the fidelity aspect of their marriage vows. For example, many military spouses remain faithful through numerous deployments.
Cheating is not a geography issue; it is a character deficit issue.
This is what Cheaters often fail to grasp. They think they get to discard their vows whenever those vows are inconvenient for them. Then they make up lame excuses trying convince others of the lie that they may have bought themselves–i.e. it wasn’t cheating because we were living apart.
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*A version of this post ran previously.
My adulterous estranged H has a woman now and I think he’s been with her since at least April. We are awaiting the result of my application for annulment from the Church, but for the time being, we are still presumed married in the eyes of the Church and the State, so he is still committing adultery. I don’t love him anymore though so it isn’t hurting me, I’m getting ready to emigrate and am too excited about starting a new life for it to hurt. It’s just made me have even less respect for him than ever and , as it shows how little his vows to God, never mind to me, EVER meant to him, I am hopeful I will be granted the annulment and be spiritually free of him at last. I am sad he is putting his immortal soul in such grave danger of damnation and I still pray for him, but other people and situations have taken priority in my prayers now. Only God Himself knows whether or not H will ever repent and be truly contrite or not and I have to focus on my own salvation and that of my loved ones. May Our Lord have Mercy on him but soon he won’t be my problem anymore and he can’t hurt me anymore!
When spouses break their vows to God, it shows they are not truly submitted to Him, and it could be argued that it’s the Deadly Sin of Pride as well as Lust, so we shouldn’t envy them, we should pity them. I pity my H in a way, he’s a lost soul!