“And whosoever will not receive you, when ye go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet for a testimony against them.”
-Luke 9:5, KJV
Some cheaters are unfit company.
The best we can do is limit or end our contact with some individuals who refuse to bend the knee to Christ and repent in deed. However, some Christians will never understand this.
They have unrealistic expectations:
Imagine a victim of embezzlement being expected to throw a party and pretend to like the remorseless man who swindled them out of their entire life savings?
Stated this way, we can see how ludicrous this expectation is. However, many Christians will expect the same thing from faithful spouses as “proof” of forgiveness.
They fail to see the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. The cheater may truly be forgiven. However, that does not mean the relationship she destroyed is restored or reconciled.
For reconciliation to happen, the cheater needs to repent and work at repairing what she destroyed.
A cheater maintaining his innocence and blaming his woes on his ex-spouse is not a candidate for godly reconciliation anymore than that remorseless embezzler.
And some cheaters will never give up the blame game or care to reflect upon how awful they treated their (ex) spouses.
As much as a faithful spouse might want to end the hostilities and have a peaceful relationship, the cheater may refuse this as an option unless the faithful spouse agrees to accept they deserved being victimized by them.
With such cheaters, reconciliation is not on the table as a real option. And that is because of their choices. It is not the faithful spouse’s fault. That is not a failure in Christian duty per the faithful spouse.
Some people will choose to reject God’s path. Jesus understood this. That is why he gave his disciples specific instructions.
Jesus told them to shake the dust off their feet. And I suggest the same as it comes to such cheaters literally hell-bent on rejecting the righteous path.
