I recently attended a conference where the speaker, Pastor Joel Brooks, said something that got me thinking.
He was talking about the difference between the two kingdoms: God’s and Satan’s kingdoms. In particular, he pointed out ways humans engage in behavior that is opposite love.
In one of the contrasts he drew, Pastor Brooks shared how lust is the opposite of love in a relationship. He defined lust as engaging in a relationship to serve ourselves–i.e. to get our desires met.
Pastor Brooks explained that the king of Satan’s Kingdom is self. People choose to serve themselves and get caught in the snares of sin.
This made me think:
Maybe our cheaters never truly loved us but only lusted for what we offered them at the time?
They approached marriage as a contract where “goods” were exchanged. When they decided that the deal wasn’t good enough for them anymore, they bailed. That is lust, not love.
“Cheaters always were worshiping themselves, but we mistook their interest in us as love when it was really lust. We were just useful to them.”
This makes sense. Though my cheater told me he never loved me, I believe he thought he did and it was likely just the excitment/lust of new love. (we were only 18).
Then as the marriage matured, I did things for him to help him get the life he wanted, because I loved him. He didn’t really recipricate, though I didn’t think much about it at the time. I was pretty busy.
Anyway what I suspect happened is while my love through acts of service made my love for him grow and mature, his lack of love actions for me made his affection/excitement for me wane. Then other women started exciting him. I doubt the woman he had the exit affair with was who he would have chosen, but unfortunately for him she was his direct report and I am pretty sure he could not get rid of her as easily as he did the previous ones. In other words he messed all over the place he ate.
He went on to cheat on her per my daughter in law multiple times. He even confessed this to my DIL. His whore made the show of leaving him, but of course she never would have because she needed his paycheck to survive. He eventually gambled them into bankruptcy. I assume as his health got worse he couldn’t keep up the adultery, so he turned to gambling big time for his dopamine hits.
Sad… As they saying goes: “We cannot out run ourselves.”
Agreed.
I had no idea this would be the end result for him.
In my pain and confusion, I assumed they would happily dance through his life with the ow. If only I had known, it might have made it a bit easier.
My dad did tell me when I told him what happened that soon and for the rest of his life, he would stare across the breakfast table at this woman and know what he had given up. (not just me, but his whole life style that I had worked to help him build.) In fact I would say only his life style and power, because that is what he truly valued.