Discovering your spouse was unfaithful is an earth-shaking experience!
When this happened, the faithful spouse who can come to terms with reality will be able to navigate this awful experience with some safety and sanity. They will save themselves some unnecessary suffering, in other words.
Here are some important things to come to terms with:
1. Yes, they cheated, and their cheating is in no way your fault.
The first stop is to acknowledge reality. It happened*. They did, in fact, cheat on you.
Then comes the next part: Their actions are not a commentary on you or your marriage. They own their actions (see 2 Cor. 5:10) and will answer to God for them. Do not accept responsibility for their sin in any part!
2. You do not control whether or not they repent of their sin and seek to rebuild the marriage that they torched.
Many of us wanted our cheater to repent and recommit to rebuilding the marriage at some point. I wanted the nightmare to go away. So, I was willing to forgive the cheating and possibly take on blame (in violation of point #1) if it meant that I could get out of the nightmare. Mercifully, that was not to be.
This is a hard reality to accept. However, as long as it is denied, you run the risk of being manipulated and further abused by your cheater. They can use your commitment to the marriage to take further advantage of you even as they continue cheating and pursue a divorce.
3. You have no good options here. Sometimes, divorce is the best of bad options left on the table.
As Americans, I suspect we think there is always a good option. Sadly, this is not true to life. Sometimes, the options are between pains of different degrees. That is the reality for faithful spouses who must decide what valley of pain to endure after being thrust into one by their spouse.
That said, you DO have a choice here. You get to decide whether to stay and endure the adulterous abuse or to end the marriage via divorce. If they are divorcing you, you get to decide how you understand this. As Chump Lady has stated before, the discard could be seen as a compliment as the cheater realizes you won’t tolerate their abuse ultimately.
These are important realities to accept. All are difficult ones. This is hard situation all around.
However, the wise faithful spouse (and supporter) will embrace these realities in order to minimize the suffering this trauma inevitably brings.
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*Since it happened, please go see your doctor for an STD check. Your health and well-being is the last thing on your cheater’s mind when they violated their marriage vows.
