After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has….”
-Job 42:7, NIV
Over and over, I see two common pastoral errors in “helping” faithful spouses. They are errors rooted in a distorted perspective regarding the infidelity and the damage marriage infidelity inflicts.
First, pastors may mistake the faithful spouse’s troubles as difficulties with forgiveness when they are actually struggling with grief.
I want to be clear: I believe forgiveness is part of the healing process. However, I believe this is a minor part of the process when compared to the grief work required for true healing.
Grief needs to come before forgiveness. We have to name our losses before we are capable of handing them over to a good, just, loving God.
Calls for forgiveness from pastors often look like the old saw where the pastor has a hammer and everything looks like a nail. If the pastor uses this “hammer” on the delicate heart of a faithful spouse, they will likely find that they are breaking their hearts. Please avoid this pastoral error.
There is a time for everything.
The forgiveness talk is a much later talk in the healing journey. It can and only should be done in relationship with someone who has demonstrated an unswerving willingness to see the injustice and pain while refusing to minimize it all. Only then is it safe to have that conversation.
If you are unwilling to unpack that much pain and validate the injustice of it, then you probably should not be the one telling them to forgive.
Second, pastors fail to approach adultery situations as trauma situations.
I think a lot of the errors in helping faithful spouses could be rectified if pastors understood and believed this biblical truth: Adultery is soul rape.
This ought to change how they interact with the victims of soul rape. They may be less likely to hammer them with exhortations to forgive or push them back into the arms of the ones who violated them.
Trust me that this is both a biblical and true to experience truth.
When a spouse cheats, they inflict soul-level trauma. So, I would recommend treating the faithful spouse with tenderness and kindness as opposed to treating them harshly and labeling them “bitter” over feeling anger towards their abuser.
