Only leverage

The wicked flee though no one pursues….

-Proverbs 28:1a, NIV

Disturbed people only see a history of cheating as leverage in a marriage.

They could care less how the cheating has damaged and harmed the faithful spouse. The bigger problem for them is that they fear the faithful spouse “forever” holding it “over the head” of the cheater.

In a sense, they are correct:

The marriage is never going to go back to a place where infidelity was not part of the story. Forgiveness does not change history.

A repentant cheater accepts this. They also accept full responsibility for this as they were the one who cheated. A cheater wanting out of this reality is a cheater who is still unwilling to accept the full impact of their sin.

Cheaters or cheater apologists who deny attempts to rebuild a marriage following infidelity, because they don’t want the history forever “hanging over their heads” are truly disordered and cold-hearted.

It is a tone-deaf response to the victims of their infidelity:

They do not get to choose whether or not they have to deal with the trauma. That was inflicted on them by the cheater! It would be nice not to have that “forever hanging over their heads.”

A more compassionate response would emphasize the victim’s perspective on the matter. However, if you have a cheater (or cheater apologists) mostly worried about the infidelity being played as a trump card forever in the marriage, then you know how deep their sorry is–not very!

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*A version of this post ran previously.