Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
-2 Corinthians 6:14, KJV
Whether one is abandoned or cheated on or both, the reality for faithful spouses is as stark as this verse from 2 Corinthians paints it.
Light cannot fellowship with darkness.
Essential values–like fidelity–were not shared. Just look at the cheater’s actions!
This is hard to assimilate as a faithful spouse for who marries someone knowing such values are a mismatch?! Perhaps, they were not mismatched when we married our (now) exes, but they became that way over time as life’s inevitable pressures exposed the cracks in their character.
Recognizing this mismatch, I find is helpful in the healing process after being discarded or ending one’s marriage.
Oil and water do not go together. Neither do darkness and light.
Those are metaphors for what it is like trying to build a fellowship between two people where one does not value the other’s fidelity. Fidelity in marriage is a basic building block. If both parties are not on the same page as to how precious fidelity is, then they might as well be trying to mix water and oil or forcing the fellowship of darkness and light.
It simply won’t end well.
At that point–i.e. where the spouses are on opposite pages in valuing fidelity as God demands (e.g. Hebrews 13:4)–it is wise to acknowledge that reality. Seeing that reality helps take the sting out of being cheated on and divorced.
That reality is a reminder that the essential common value building blocks were not there. And without such a foundation of both valuing fidelity as precious, the marriage would never survive or heal.
True repentance was not in the deck of options.
It is best to walk away and accept a biblical divorce. Wasting time trying to mix oil and water serves no one.
I like the way you phrased that, Divorce Minister, the cracks in their character are “exposed” over time.
That has been probably the most difficult aspect of the adultery to deal with. I thought that my ex husband and I had the same values. To be a faithful spouse, a good parent, an honest person with integrity. He certainly pretended to be those things because he knew I wouldn’t want him otherwise. He and his girlfriend must have a screw loose because they managed to convince each other they were Good People, while being in an adulterous relationship and lying continuously. That kind of thing is the work of Satan right there.
It did cross my mind that my ex-husband’s affair partner was a better match for him than I was because they were both okay with adultery.