A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
-Proverbs 17:22, NIV
Much of the suffering faithful spouses experience is spiritual in nature.
Writing this blog for a couple of years, the questions I encounter center around deep spiritual pain and confusion. These are not so much the nuts and bolts of therapy.
These questions cut to the heart of sin, evil, forgiveness, grief, reconciliation, and–generally speaking–right relationship to God.
People want to know if God will hold their divorce of a cheater against them.
People want to know if God is fine with the cheater because the cheater says God forgives them (without evidence of the cheater’s repentance).
People want to know what to do with those telling them that they have to take their cheater back like Hosea did Gomer.
These are questions for true pastors. Just reflecting back, “What do you think?” is not good enough!!
I created this blog to be a forum for such shepherding of souls. Pastors with unbiblical divorce prejudice are still too common. These are those who treat divorce as always wrong and push “The Shared Responsibility Lie,” which means they blame faithful partners for the sins of cheaters.
And some well-meaning pastors simply are not equipped or informed to provide the vital help faithful spouses (and cheaters) need.
They recognize that they dare not enter this world, which is much better than those who think they know something and project further damage upon the already traumatized spouse.
I write this simply to remind my brother and sister ministers that faithful spouses need your voice!
They are suffering on a spiritual level. A good therapist can only go so far with them.
They need someone who understands God’s heart towards them. This is a confusing time and having someone who can spot destructive lies about God (and others) is critical to healing.
Being cheated upon and divorced by an adulterous partner are not simply emotional traumas. They cut to our spiritual core. So, such experiences need to be processed at that level.
DM and anyone suffering,
This is the perfect post to write a warning about a popular pop icon/therapist. *Never* watch Dr. Phil in topics regarding adultery. He claims to be a Christian. I don’t know, his actions seem to be dictated by snark and hawking his wife’s skin care line.
BUT….he had a show recently and I was in bed from an injury. Adultery- the wife was the cheater. Therefore, the Husband had done all of the frantic Sherlock (ing), investigating and being enraged. The cheating wife sat there, smug as a bug, and played the “He’s so out of control” card and gave Dr. Phil the big eyes….See how crazy he is?
She even had a boyfriend come on and they, with the assistance of Dr. Phil, brow beat the man. It was evident he was still enraged about her adultery…which she admitted to.
This was NEVER ADDRESSED. Not once. What was addressed was the wronged partner’s anger. He was “inappropriate”. The cheater wife was characterized as blameless and the victim because he dared to express outrage at her adultery.
Takeaway: So few people truly get it. Even Dr. Phil, who paints himself as a straight shooting truth teller….does not get it.
But this is the central point. Stop relying on PEOPLE to get it. They are flawed. Even pastors, preachers, rabbis. Because they are human.
A life wrecking of this magnitude can only be fixed with a supernatural power. Not people. Not snark. Not goals. But G-d. It is the only path that has worked for me, and I was broken beyond hope.