Hello DM,
I’m glad I found your website. It’s refreshing to hear I have an out when dealing with my wife’s adultery. D-Day is Jan. 23 for me so it’s pretty fresh.
I have a question about the 1 Cor. 13:5 passage about not keeping a record of wrongs. Nowadays, the way I cope about the knowledge of my wife’s affair is to piece together past events and things I discover in a journal. How do I reconcile the 1 Cor. 13:5 with this activity?
Thanks,
BS
Dear BS,
My heart goes out to you, BS. January 23 is a very fresh discovery date! Many of us were fighting to remind ourselves to get up and eat when we were only two weeks removed from discovering adultery. I know I was.
The point is that you are doing great as far as reaching out and finding resources to help you navigate these tricky waters following adultery discovery. Thank you for trusting me enough to reach out for my pastoral advice!
You wrote,
I have a question about the 1 Cor. 13:5 passage about not keeping a record of wrongs.
I will begin by pointing out that I Corinthians is about love among the body of Christ. It is not really about marital love even though used as such at weddings. What is important to grasp here is love looks differently in different circumstances. It is not always as depicted in this chapter. Sometimes love is fierce.
The Bible talks about God’s love for us as a motivation for why God disciplines us (see Hebrews 12:6).
True love is not unconditionally permissive or passive.
It actively seeks the best of the object loved. This is true even if that requires correction as in a parent-child relationship (which is different, by the way, than a husband-wife relationship…more on that later.)
You continue:
Nowadays, the way I cope about the knowledge of my wife’s affair is to piece together past events and things I discover in a journal. How do I reconcile the 1 Cor. 13:5 with this activity?
This, actually, is a very loving thing to do. I do not see it as in conflict with being loving.
How can you forgive if you do not know or see what wrong was committed? You can’t.
This journaling what went wrong is laying the ground to letting go of what was done to you. To forgive someone is a very loving act. Someone attuned to true forgiveness would understand the necessity of this preliminary stage of journaling.
Plus, journaling out the events is an important part of the grief process. You need to see the losses and see that they are real. Living in denial will only drive these things deeper and destroy any hope for healing in you or your marriage (if you choose to stay married to her, which is your choice to freely make either way).
If you are doing battle with “Christians” criticizing you for this, I have a question for them:
Which is less loving: lying and committing adultery against one’s spouse or trying to write out an accurate history of such sinful, treacherous behavior to make sense of the trauma and heal?
Anyone who suggests what you are doing is unloving is not someone you need surrounding you at this time. They either are ignorant or wish you harm. Neither is good for your healing.
If you are struggling with these thoughts, remember that you are healing from a deep, spiritual trauma (soul rape!) and writing out what happened is part of the journey towards healing from such a trauma. Be kind to yourself and allow yourself permission to do this so that you can heal.
I hope that helps! Remember, you are doing great in this journey by the fact that you even have energy to reach out.
With my warmest regards,
