Dear Divorce Minister,

I was married to a minister for 21 years. I knew after a year of marriage that my marriage was over as he was cheating on me with a high school student. When I confronted him, the narcissistic abuse began and continued until he asked for a divorce after he got caught with his church secretary.

4 years after divorce, he still abuses me emotionally. When he was fired from the church, I was shunned.

Why is it that former church members still support him- even knowing the truth. Yet, I was shunned and not one single church member EVER reached out to me?

Sincerely,

Unjustly Shunned

Dear Unjustly Shunned (USH),

My heart goes out to you! This is very wrong on so many levels.

It is wrong in how your ex-husband treated you. It is wrong in how he exploited others for his sexual gratification. It is wrong in how your church community shunned you in this situation.

Just. Wrong. Ungodly.

You wrote,

4 years after divorce, he still abuses me emotionally.

Why does he have such access to your heart in order to do this? Perhaps you have children together? If so, they make software to coordinate drop offs and pick ups so as to minimize these sort of situations.

Sick cheaters often like getting a rise out of tormenting the faithful spouse. Do not give him that satisfaction. 

Set up boundaries that minimize contact. Use the software if contact is still necessary.

As to the church, you wrote,

When he was fired from the church, I was shunned.

Why is it that former church members still support him- even knowing the truth. Yet, I was shunned and not one single church member EVER reached out to me?

Why? Well, they do not want to face the truth is the simple answer to that question. They are choosing not to obey God in this (see I Corinthians 5).

There may be many reasons for that. However, the point is they choose to believe a lie about him–e.g. he was a good pastor–and ignore their Christian obligation to care for you, his victim.

This behavior highlights how cheating is a community trauma. It is far from a private affair. You are experiencing the associated loss of your community because of your ex-husband’s sins. 

It is not right, but that is how things are.

This is not unlike the pruning process of losing “friends” through the infidelity discovery and divorce. We discover who really are our friends. And we discover who is comfortable with us being abused by our cheater–i.e. non-friends and fleshly “Christians.”

You clearly are in grief over the loss of this community. It is okay to grieve a community that you clearly invested in deeply. You have every right to be upset about the situation.

However, I hope you find a new “tribe” that loves you like Jesus: a group of people you do not blame you for your ex-spouse’s sins and acknowledges how unjust plus cruel such treatment is/was.

I started this blog for people like yourself. My hope is that you can see pastors and people exist who will love you like Jesus and not like the hypocrites of your (soon to be ex?) church.

Blessings and brotherly hugs,

Pastor David (aka Divorce Minister)