“I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust at a young woman.”
-Job 31:1, NLT
Looking back upon old emails around the time of my marriage’s demise, I am struck by how little was made of–what I now consider–my (now ex) wife’s emotionally inappropriate relationships with other men. And it was not unlike she hid all these relationships from others.
I count–IMO–three such relationships prior to the one that was confirmed–by her–as sexual in nature.
People were quick to pile on me about what I was doing wrong and what my husband-flaws were. However, the extent of their issues with my (now ex) wife was that she did not point out my flaws earlier.
To my knowledge–towards the beginning of the end:
No one–including myself–truly took her to task for cheating.
No one–including myself–exploded her excuses that such cheating was because her marriage was so stressful.
No one–including myself–was willing to treat her as having majorly transgressed the marriage covenant.
I attribute many of these serious oversights to an unhealthy worship of the marriage covenant. In other words, we were not willing to let go of the marriage even when that was the spiritually right thing to do.
After all, when divorce is always unacceptable, then all sort of abuse like cheating is acceptable.
Now, years removed and remarried to an absolutely amazing woman, I have perspective on those years. Communications from (ex) friends that used to put me into a rage at the time are now just sad memorials to their foolish siding with an adulteress.
What was treated as paramount in those communications are matters that I see as really unimportant compared to the cheating that had occurred (and was occurring) back then.
These days I am of the pastoral and personal opinion that Christian couples are wasting their time talking to a pastor unless they address the cheating first and foremost–i.e. the cheater works on repenting.
I am thankful to God for where I am today. My point is not to say I regret these things or to blame those who genuinely tried to help me.
I write these things to share lessons I have learned the hard way through my own personal experience with a cheater. May you be helped through them.
Certainly, these are lessons they did not teach us at seminary.
