God is an honest judge. He is angry with the wicked every day.
– Psalm 7:11, NLT
What if I want him/her to burn in Hell…
for what he/she did to me (and the kids)?
Anger is an appropriate response to evil perpetrated against one. And I think God is understanding of this strong emotional response to the wickedness known as adultery (e.g. Deut. 22:22 and Jer. 3).
However, I do not think staying in this place is wise or healthy.
The anger does subside in time. I can remember a time when my rage towards my former Father-in-law was close to homicidal rage–not that I would act on the feeling. It was just that angering the role he played in destroying his daughter’s marriage to me.
It took a lot of time and practice to let go of that anger.
Practice in reminding myself that I had chosen to forgive or hand him over to God.
I still think what he did was wrong. But I am not consumed by rage towards him anymore. He is God’s concern.
For you, your homicidal rage may be towards your ex or the Other Man/Other Woman. Maybe it’s towards the interfering in-laws? I do not know.
My encouragement to you is to first acknowledge the strong anger is there for a reason–i.e. they actually did something very, very wrong! It is appropriate and understandable that such a violation made or makes you angry.
Don’t act on the rage, though!
Write it out. Talk it out with a trusted friend, therapist, or spiritual leader. Pray it out.
What did he/she did that makes you so angry?
Then you have to make a choice…will I:
A) Hold on to this and allow what they did to me define me turning me bitter
OR
B) Give them and the grievances over to God for Him to handle while not denying I was wronged?
It is okay if your emotions have not caught up to your choice to let God deal with your violator. That is where practice and time are needed. I assure it will come just as it did for me even if it does not feel like it right now.
And cut yourself some slack.
My greatest rage was toward the people I pastored for spreading rumors that I condoned the affair and toward the OM who was a ministry mentor. They are now married. You are right. It is a process. Unfortunately, one size does not fit all. Everyone’s process and story is so different. By God’s grace, I live in another state so I don’t encounter the people I pastored. However, I do have to face her and the OM on a regular basis. I praise God for how He sustained me when I was ready to give up. The pain is real, but the Healer is greater!
My marriage has not seen divorce yet. There hasn’t been any actual adultery. However, I have had a long marriage to a woman who withholds emotional connection, used to withhold physical intimacy, refuses transparent communication, has subtly implied that I abuse her so others would punish me, and is far more loyal to intrusive in-laws than to me.
It has taken me a long time to even admit how I’ve been controlled, gaslighted, and regarded with contempt. It really began the day we were married (at least). So, as I finally put this together, I learned about C-PTSD and emotional abuse (most of that part only came about in the last couple of years). Then, whereas I used to get angry about the feeling that she didn’t care about me or love me, I now see the big picture clearly. I felt (feel) completely defrauded and discarded. What I wanted more than anything else was a sincere, passionate, loyal love. That has been stolen from me, and my youth and the opportunities to find real love are gone, too.
I had to leave a church because I had been trashed. Finding work has been very difficult, but I pulled weeds, and did dirty work as I could. I make very little now. These people didn’t know me when I was making good money in IT. They didn’t respect me even thouh I had described to several of them how deep my depression was.
We tried a new church with elders who were part of the faculty at a local conservative Christian college, but this ended even worse. They not only insist that my forgiveness must be automatic, but claim this is how God does it, too.
Several people ignored my request for help with my crushed spirit. I’ve become quite isolated, and don’t receive validation. One in particular would pressure me to forgive, and insist that I am required to not be angry after the sun sets. He also acknowledged that anger is not a sin, but he was talking out both sides of his mouth. He said that as a man who is not Jesus, I am not strong enough to be angry without sinning. This, I discovered, is what all the elders believe. This was not initially obvious when I tried to determine if they were safe.
The elders apparently think I am constantly angry. But the anger they saw was almost always the result of their willingness to twist God’s means of reconciliation, and show my wife that they won’t let me off the hook for automatic forgiveness. I /want/ reconciliation. I /used/ to forgive her freely and automatically. But, when I told them I wanted repentance, I became a heartless, mean, sinful, domineering man in their eyes. They actually told me that I can’t ask for, let alone require, repentance… because I’m not God!
The deck is already stacked against me because I’m a man, and It’s hard to prove emotional abuse. I didn’t know that churches were so messed up about the basics of repentance and anger.
Jesus is very clear in Luke 17:3 that repentance is the condition for forgiving another believer who has sinned against us (and that includes a spouse). That said, I don’t know the specifics of your situation, but if she has wronged you, then you have every right and are directed to point that out expecting repentance FIRST BEFORE forgiving. Also, I would encourage you to find–if you haven’t already–a good mental health provider who might be able to help you with your depression. Depression is no joke, and God gave us mental health providers with skills plus medications that can help tremendously. I am NOT one of those, though. Just a chaplain/minister here.