This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.

-John 3:19, NIV

Family Rule: Keep up appearances!

I wonder how many of us, faithful spouses, married into families where appearances were of the utmost importance. Our Cheaters were conditioned from the earliest age to “keep up appearances.” That is a nice way to say to lie–in a socially acceptable way.

Our Cheaters got good at “keeping up appearances.”

Plus, they got extremely upset when you dared state the truth about their cheating or pending divorce piecing the thinly veiled veneer keeping them looking “fine.” That was the great “sin” to them. 

What is maddening about this is how Cheaters will blame the faithful spouse for “forcing” them “to live a lie.”

I suspect they are doing this as it is safer in their mind to blame the faithful spouse than to face the reality that their family programmed this in them.

They can’t face the harsh truth that they lie because it serves them–i.e. either to cover their own infidelity or to avoid being “disloyal” to their family rule of keeping up appearances.

Of course, faithful spouses were not forcing them “to live a lie”–in fact, we might be the ones most in the dark based on their nasty lies. Cheaters stuck in this mentality have no hope of being repentant as they are failing to own their own actions and sin.

Restoring a marriage to such a Cheater is not recommended by me as it does not bode well for the future. They have lived a life being taught how to lie and valuing the ability to “fool” people with appearances. This is not walking in the light but rather a family rule teaching a love for darkness. Such a habit does not change over night.