He replied again, “I have zealously served the Lord God Almighty. But the people of Israel have broken their covenant with you, torn down your altars, and killed every one of your prophets. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me, too.”
…
“Yet I will preserve 7,000 others in Israel who have never bowed down to Baal or kissed him!”
-I Kings 19:14, 18, NLT
Good men and good women exist. Everyone is not like your treacherous cheater.
When the cheating is fresh, it is tempting to swear off the opposite sex completely. I think this is a phase many faithful spouses have experienced.
Such a deep treachery makes it more difficult to believe the opposite sex is capable of what we once took for granted–namely, fidelity and loyalty.
Yet, if we get stuck in this phase, we are behaving like the prophet Elijah throwing a tantrum before God. He was far from the only one living in a way that honored God. Seven thousand is a much greater than just one!
The idea that all men or all women are treacherous backstabbers is a lie from the Evil One.
This is not fair to all the decent people in your life. And while your (ex) spouse carries more emotional weight for you, he or she is still just one (awful) individual.
Now, I do not believe faithful spouses ought to rush out and partner up following the divorce. We need to be comfortable with who we are ourselves first.
Part of learning to accept and value ourselves is making peace with the idea of remaining single for the rest of our life.
That does not mean we will remain single. However, making peace with this possibility arms the faithful spouse with a backbone needed to walk away from toxic relationships.
Without this peace with a single future, the danger is we will settle for a not-so-great partner like our cheater.
We give them power because they have something we want more than maintaining our dignity and emotional safety–namely, they can make us not single.
On the positive side, I have discovered having this in place works well in finding a quality individual as well. It takes pressure off the dating. And it reveals quality people as you are less likely to put up with games this time around.
Good men and good women exist. Never forget that.
I met one after my divorce. Mrs. DM is a wonderful catch, and I thank God for her plus the Munchkin.
*A version of this post ran previously.
