“I could tell my father about how, a month after we separated, my ex called me up and told me through tears that he’d slept with someone else, and it wasn’t good, and could we still divorce but be friends with benefits?”
-Hännah Ettinger in “Ending an abusive marriage is hard. Ending one in the evangelical church is harder.”
When I was reading this opinion piece from the WaPo and posting on it (click here), I was struck by this statement about a cheater’s tears.
Cheater tears.
I bet many here have encountered these sort of tears described here by Ettinger. They are not the tears of true remorse. Rather, they are tears cheaters shed over facing consequences for their sins.
Cheaters hate consequences.
They much prefer faithful spouses roll over and do their bidding. Some cheaters might even shed a tear over how the public exposure of their dirty deeds will make their image management task much more difficult.
Strange how sympathy dries up once others learn the spouse complaining about their marriage was banging strange on the side the whole time!
That realization might elicit a tear or two from cheater. The poor, misunderstood “marriage martyr” is going to have a harder time convincing others now of their hard life. Sniff. Sniff.
Can tears indicate the softening, remorseful heart of a cheater on the path to repentance?
Perhaps.
But watch their actions:
Do they give up the affair partner(s), go to counseling, spill out the complete narrative of what they did, and engage in ongoing transparency with the faithful spouse?
No? Then those tears were tears shed for the cheater himself (or herself).
They wanted pity so that they could get off the hook for repenting and repairing what they destroyed with their sins.
Cheater tears.
Don’t be fooled. Cheaters are adept at crying for themselves!
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*A version of this post ran previously.
