Cheaters are broken.
However, this does not mean that they are any less responsible for their own behavior. They still need to do the hard work of finding good help and changing.
They must be broken in some sense–i.e. not functioning as they ought.
How else can you explain a human living a double life and harming himself or herself as every cheater does being one with their spouse?
A whole and healthy person cannot keep up such a double-life. We were not made to work that way.
People who are able to live lying without conscience are generally not considered healthy but disordered.
I have hope for cheaters who choose to face whatever is broken within themselves and work to heal that brokenness.
However, I have zero hope for cheaters who persist on pointing at other people–like the faithful spouse–and circumstances for their sinful behavior.
They say pedophiles often were abused as children themselves. That piece of awful personal history still does not make them less than fully responsible for their own sins and crimes.
The same applies to cheaters. They might have an awful history. But they chose not to face and heal from that history. Instead, they chose the path of sin–lies and infidelity.
They are fully responsible for choosing that path of sin.
My hope is that the cheater awakens before it is too late to get off the path of destruction and instead engages in repentance taking full responsibility for their own choices and actions.
My husband is a broken man. He really is a different man. He still swears he didn’t have an affair. For ten months he worked hard to convince me there was no affair after some pretty set circumstantial evidence. I discovered our savings missing after 10 months and left him for a couple of weeks.
Only came back to take our youngest somewhere that had been promised and he swore we would get better counseling, after two disastrous counselor’s. He won’t go.
He is so accountable for everything now but still… I have no reason to even suspect they have any contact but in the year since the money thing….
She has given three sermons at her small church. They are online and all three sounded like she is convincing herself she’s okay. Weird, strange and New Age.
After running into her at the same hair place( I realized it was her after she walked out the door and I’m thinking she must have realized the same as the next day she put up this entire thing on getting fit and if people need help they can contact the trainer she knows. She then puts up frames of a person as they shrink from heavy to slim with… Just do it. She’s a workout queen and 10 years younger.
Also, at Christmas…. I pass her in a slow school zone and I’m in my husbands vehicle that is very recognizable. I saw her. She saw me and I’m pretty sure I had a smirk on my face. I check a few days later and she puts up this entire post about looking for Christmas music and running across this old favorite song. She says that and than says…. Ha! The memories!! Such great times!
It was a song about sex in the summer! It was filthy and even described what they liked. ( the affair would have happened in the summer). ShIt was put up on the day we saw each other in the school zone. Just what every good Christian woman puts up at Christmas time!
The next crazy one was a movie she recommended . She gave it a high recommendation. It was rated R. It was about a family ( same amount of kids as us) and they homeschooled. Yep. Us too.. Except the mother was crazy and killed herself. Nope. That will not be me!!
She truly loves herself and puts up all things flattery except for her crazy posts that I’m sure were directed toward me.
M – you need to stop following her on social media. We all suffer slip ups, but the peace you get in the long run outweighs stalking her and trying to piece together their times together. As DM said, cheaters are disordered.
Let God handle her. You handle you and yours.
Sounds like you need to decide if you are going to stay with your husband or leave.
I’m of the leave a cheater, gain a life camp – get you a forensic accountant and a good lawyer and start your path to recovery.
I am honestly waiting on the Lord for this decision. He didn’t leave me for her and still swears that throughout this mess that there was No affair!
That’s what makes this so hard. I have to be 100 percent sure because although my kids are grown, I still have some young adult kids that are living here. They have heard my husbands apologies and believe him.
They have lived their entire lives in a Christian household. The hypocrisy of it all will hit them hard and while yes, they are adults and would learn to deal with it, I know it would get really nasty because households would be split and money and dividing assets would be an issue.
I’m honestly not willing right now to lose relationships with my children until I’m one hundred percent sure. I hope that makes sense. Keep praying for me!
M, I ditto everything what limon b said. You are spending way too much time thinking about her. And thinking about her and him together. If you have good evidence that he cheated, then he did. Trust your gut. Your gut never lies to you. And the money missing? There’s another big red flag.
It looks like limon b is a reader of Chump Lady. I’m not sure if you have heard about her blog, but she’s very helpful when it comes to cheaters and “leave a cheater, gain a life.” I found Divorce Minister from her blog. I needed Chump Lady A LOT in the beginning stages of my divorce, but now that my divorce is final, I need Divorce Minister. Hopefully one day I won’t need him either. 🙂 (((HUGS))) to you, M. I know it’s hard, but me kind and good to yourself and stop stalking her. She’s not worth your precious time! Use that time for you!! 🙂
Yes, I have known about chump lady. It helps. DM honestly helps more. Something about the Christian perspective. I am trying to decide if I should stay. It’s hard because time has gone by and I can see that he is really making the effort. Sometimes I just think he wants me to just forget that any of that happened. I can’t. I also still have so many unanswered questions.
M,
Can you tell your husband that you need closure before you can move forward? Part of that closure means that he has questions that he must honestly answer. You cannot make a decision unless you have ALL the information. Otherwise, it is manipulation and not your decision.
Is he willing to take a lie detector test and provide all the money information?If he is truly repentant, loves & fears God, I would expect no less of him.
If he committed adultery & is not confessing it to you, than he is refusing to give you the God given right to divorce him on biblical grounds & have God’s peace about it, if you so choose.
I think that you deserve to know everything he wants you to forgive him for if he wants to work toward restoring trust & your relationship as husband & wife.
Praying for you!
I would agree that requiring complete openness and honesty is a bare minimum for any hope in marriage restoration.
He clearly cheated on you financially–i.e. was dishonest financially. Sadly, these sort of things often times go hand and hand (financial plus sexual cheating).
-DM
Nyra, I have told him that. We have had many long talks about many details of all of this and he has told me many times that if I have any concerns to bring it out in the open. It took me two weeks to tell him about passing her at Christmas and the filthy song she put up and when I did, he literally sobbed and told me how sorry he was but still swore no affair. He knows about the other weird posts because I did tell him and he acts like she is so weird.
The funny thing ( really not funny) that he did a really good job swearing to me and convincing me things were fine for a solid 10 months before I discovered him hiding our savings and confronted him. We even had a lovely graduation party for our youngest son before this discovery. It just made me sick but honestly I knew something was about to come out as the Lord has brought many things out into the light. I am now trusting him to continue to do so. I’m keeping track of things very well and also taking steps to care for myself.
M:
Is he willing to do the lie detector test?
DM, I know that the financial cheating can go along with adultery. That is one of the hardest things for me right now as I have no solid answer for the hiding of that money.
He has given me his reasons but he didn’t remember telling me certain things that still to this day, just don’t make sense.
It also doesn’t make sense that he recently threw out the bank records that show the withdrawals. He has kept meticulous records always and for him to do that was so obvious to me. I did confront him but lame excuses were made. I’m also aware I can get copies.
Thanks for listening when I write. The Lord really does help me. I have been wrong about certain things and than the Lord has brought out things I needed to know. I’m trusting him to continue to do so!
M,
I would listen to your gut about things not adding up. Please follow up with those feelings. Have you run his credit report? That might tell you some significant things if you haven’t already done so.
As I write here, I encourage you to follow what you feel God telling you to do. Don’t violate your conscience, in other words. That said, please be certain this is God speaking and not fear over the unknown (or some demonic condemning voice shaming you into staying).
-DM
He will never do a lie detector test. Also, there is no voice shaming me into staying. I feel no shame whatsoever! Sadness.. no shame!
So yesterday morning as I prayed and spent time in the Word, I once again turned all of this( once again) to the Lord. If you can imagine that the last year has been semi normal because I have gotten back into the groove of life I guess you could say. I guess about as semi normal as life can be when it’s been a year since the discovery of the money, my brother commuting suicide, my husband who didn’t leave but gave me his sorry excuses for hiding the money ( which I don’t really believe) and husband almost to the point of smothering me, making every effort to try to prove he is committed to our marriage ( now 35 years). So with that said, here is what happened yesterday.
I went our laptop( I rarely do) as I have internet on my phone. I saw that my husband had been looking at real estate site in Georgia. It wasn’t on the normal history. On something else. I started snooping a little on the computer. I don’t know what made me check the recycled file. I did and I saw things that would make sense that had been looked up and deleted.
I also saw many cabin homes that he had been looking at last summer. He had kept them on his favorites for several days before deleting them. I’m not sure how that all works but they had gone into the recycle file( I think that’s what it’s called) and I saw them. There were several. Some he’d looked at in May and deleted in mid June, some earlier and some were looked at in June and deleted later. ( hang in there as there is an important purpose in explaining)..
In Dec of 2015 ( in the beginning months of all this tearing up) I had been scrolling on strange woman’s FB page
And discovered that in September, she had made a reservation for a cabin in Georgia for her family to stay at during Christmas time. She even shared pictures of the place and when I read some of the comments and where it would be, I clicked on the pictures. My husband and I had been looking for almost 2 years in this same specific area so curiously I clicked on the pictures. I recognized the cabin because two weeks before I had walked in our study and my husband was looking at a cabin on our computer. It had a destinct kitchen and decorations that I remembered. It was the same cabin. I sat there trying to let it register in my brain. I said nothing to him that night. We had been going thru this drama since Sept and we were now into Dec. He was on the computer the next night so I asked if he would pull up the pretty cabin that he showed me two weeks before( when I had walked in). He started looking on our favorites and couldn’t find it. I knew that because as soon as I saw it on hers, I spent four hours on our cabin favorites to see if it was there or connected in any way. It wasn’t!
So i watched him try and pulled up a chair and shared my discovery with him. I even asked him if he wanted me to show him the cabin pictures on her page. He said no. I asked how this was possible and he said he had no idea.
I let it go and walked out of the room. I know that sounds crazy but that’s what I did. I was tired of it all and it was close to Christmas and we had grown kids coming home for Christmas and I wanted it to be nice for kids. That was truly God’s grace!
The first week in Jan. he got a text from the woman for possible work. I responded to that text but as a result of that I told him I was still struggling with the cabin thing and wanted an explanation. He got mad and told me he’d tell me the truth. That yes, they had discussed cabins together and had discussed going there.
We didn’t speak for three days until we went back to counseling on the third day. Of course he told the guy he said it because that’s what I wanted to hear. I had never said the words or asked!! He apologized for that and the counselor acted like I was crazy. I knew at this point something wasn’t right with the counselor and found out 2 weeks later his wife left him for physical abuse. He was a real counselor and friend we had known for years. So pathetically sad and they are now divorced and he’s remarried. Creep!!
I was actually at peace when we left there and it didn’t take long for more to come out but always husband denied any affair. It wasn’t much longer before I discovered the missing money and the rest of the story picked up above. So he has spent the last year with every cent accountable now and groveling for our marriage.
Then yesterday I see that last summer, right before I discovered the missing savings that he had still been looking at cabin houses in that area. After we had taken a trip the year before and picked out a totally different area to move to. Supposed to do this in a couple of years. He had told me well over a year ago that he didn’t ever want to move to the Georgia area. I told him I didn’t either. She and her family did go to that cabin at Christmas. She put it all up.
So, imagine my surprise when I see in the recycle file, all the places he had looked and deleted. I showed him last night and asked him flat out why he had been looking in that area when he had been telling me (we had already taken the trip and picked out a completely different Area and state.) I could see the dates he had looked and saved each house and the date he deleted it. There were several in that specific area. You know…. the one he had told me he didn’t want to move to.
He got mad and defensive. Reminded me how the last year had been and how he hadn’t left or spent the money. Reminded me that I had been the one to leave last year, not him.
I reminded him that I had no choice when I discovered the money gone because I knew he was still lying and had only showed me a third of it. He really let me think the rest was gone from bills and I knew that was impossible. Finally became slightly broken and admitted and showed me the rest before I came home with the promise of counseling. Throughout all of that we were still at our church. I had gone to two people in leadership and told them we desperately needed help or my marriage wasn’t going to make it. We had been there 11 years and Never had asked for help. Not… One… Phone… Call!!
When I left him how the gossip started. I didn’t care. Even went there for a few more weeks
after my husband talking to our pastor( didn’t tell everything) and the pastor not even being able to recommend a counselor. He gave him a book. Seriously?… lol
We’ve been gone from that church for a year and I’ve not spoken to anyone about this. Other church had some serious issues that affected all of us in other ways.
Husband told me last night that it’s not odd that he should still be looking at these cabins( hasn’t recently) but it was still after we had decided to Not move to that area because he’s trying to get ideas for when we do move. My question wasn’t he looking in the area we had decided on? Keep in mind that some of these were being looked at a few short weeks before I discovered the money gone!
I am really a praying woman. I don’t feel my life is in any danger. I just know if I walk out of here after 35 years of marriage…. that it’s going to be really messy with the hypocrisy of all this slapping my kids in the face and him still not telling them the truth. If I leave, I will tell them all of this.
There is a counselor at the church we attend now and am seriously considering going to her myself. He won’t go. I probably should do this I know but after two disastrous counselors already( there was a second one- you don’t want me to even explain that one) I am Leary but I know I need help.
I have honestly prayed and asked the Lord to help me go by what he brings out. Bringing the wrong out into the light and I really feel the Lotd did that and my husband try’s to twist it again instead of not being humble. I’m aware of that and not fooled.
The tough part. For 33 years we had a lovely marriage and life. I still love the man but I don’t think I can live like this anymore.
He had said he started looking at porn. He asked forgiveness for that and did talk to a couple of other men about it. He says that’s why he wanted to leave. He hated himself. He told me he had stopped looking at it months before I discovered the money.
He also told me he didn’t leave because of our kids. His dad had done this to them but our kids are grown now. I told him that in my eyes the only reason a man would leave would be another woman. He of course says no.
I feel that I have proof now that he was still looking at homes in that area ( when he told me months before he didn’t want to go there ever). He says he was looking for ideas.
I asked why he would never show me then or discuss it. Not one word about any of those homes he had saved and deleted.
My theory in all honesty: He backed out or she backed out at some point. He got caught hiding the money and realized he wanted to save the marriage. He has busted his chops for the last year and then I discover this. It helps to share. I realize I just need to go to counseling without him.
Yeah, that is too convenient. He clearly is hiding something. His anger is a clear sign that he knew what he was doing was wrong, too. Whether or not he actually consummated the relationship is up in the air but he clearly wanted to do so. He spent all that time planning, and that planning was not for you, his wife, or he wouldn’t have hidden it or gotten angry when you exposed his deception.
-DM
Let me know if the rest of it didn’t go through..
Only got part of the story, M.
Thank for the input DM. I pretty much agree with what you stated.
DM, if finally showed up. You have to scroll above my last comment and read the rest and give me your honest input. God Bless you today!!
Yep…found it and rescued it.