Who may stand in his holy place?
Only those whose hands and hearts are pure,
who do not worship idols
and never tell lies.-Psalm 24:3b-4, NLT
What struck me this morning as I read this verse out of the New Living Translation was how seriously God takes lying.
Lying is named right next to idolatry as behavior God will not tolerate having in His Presence!
It is impossible to cheat without lying. Often times, the lies are what do the most lasting damage to the faithful spouse.
God hates lying for good reason!
Ultimately, God decides the fate of each soul. However, I would say someone has much to worry about if he or she is living a lifestyle of lies like many cheaters do. These verses serve as such a stern warning.
My ex lied to me even before we got engaged (he was writing love letters to another woman while he was dating me). I believed him when he told me they were “just friends”. My ex lied so much over the course of 24+ years we were together. He lied to his family and his ex-girlfriend, which I knew about at the time. I heard him lie about stuff that most people would tell the truth about. He lied by omission a lot. The last couple of years before I finally caught him cheating (out on a date with a newly divorced woman), his lying was really starting to get to me. With each lie he told, I just couldn’t stand that part of him. I can now see why he lied about all his female “friends”, but all the other lies — I’ll never understand it. I now realize he’s been doing it for so long, that it’s a big part of who he is. And I think he’s to the point that he believes his own lies. You are right. The lies are what have done the most damage to me. The lies drove me to the brink of suicidal thoughts as I truly thought I was going crazy, because my mind was having a very hard time processing what was real and what was a lie. I know we all tell white lies at times, but what my ex has done and continues to do — lie — is truly evil. He started off his new relationship lying, lied about me to her and anyone who would listen to him. The foundation of their relationship is lies. But he continues to go to church and the church is cool with him and think he’s great. I’ll never understand it.
Oh my, my Ex told so so many lies to keep his affair going. Really unreal when I think of it.
His judgement is in God’s hands now.
I am no contact. Truly the way to heal from his awfulness.
I am still really struggling with all the lies my husband told me although he swears there was no affair. The hardest part honestly was after he tried for 10 months to convince me of no affair, I discovered he was hiding our entire savings. Thousands!! I left him but came home as he promised we would get counseling.
He won’t go. I’m still here a year later. His work ledgers from when he worked with her have disappeared. He threw out our bank statements that showed his withdraws. Why does someone do that if there is nothing to hide?
They don’t. A little too convient that the evidence has “disappeared.” Have you looked at online statements? Financial cheating sadly goes hand in hand with the other cheating.
Yes. I discovered it all. At first he tried to tell me he paid bills. I knew that wasn’t true. All of the money is accounted for now. He admitted at one point that he was going to leave me but swears not for another person. He didn’t do it though. I honestly would have been one of those people who would have been completely blindsided! No clue whatsoever. He was putting on a good act.
I keep close track of all finances now. They have always been open and available to me before but I trusted him. It was the last thing I checked.
Speaking from experience…
Like your husband, my husband also lied extensively. I never caught him in the act nor did he confess but it was apparent there were indiscretions during our marriage.
Two years prior to him filing for divorce, he became increasingly focused on our finances and began saying odd things like “my money” as where before it was referred to as “our money”.
It is wasn’t until after our divorce, did I finally learn the magnitude of his deception. All those years, I was completely unaware my life was being shared with a diabolical, malevolent, and evil stranger. That stranger not only managed to hide a six figure amount of marital funds, he had placed a 2 carat diamond engagement ring on the hand of a woman who patiently waited for two years before the word divorce was ever spoken to me. She then waited an additional year during the divorce process and became the strangers 3rd wife just a few months later.
I had no clue this person existed. He was smart in staging situations to slightly arouse suspicion and send me in the opposite direction…all to insure his other life remained undiscovered. There is no question of the sadistic enjoyment he derived from all of this especially when weighing in other factors I haven’t mentioned.
I made the mistake of believing I knew who I was married to. Never would I have imagined I was married to a psychopath.
SCK, M – I hear how awful this was/ is for you. I’m so sorry you’ve experienced this.
I was financially dependent on my cheater (in lieu of working outside the home, I tended our huge veggie/ fruit garden, helping to feed us for years). When the affair began, suddenly ex cut me off from our shared funds (with bonus new vocabulary of “it’s MY money”), supposedly channeling it into affair-partner’s “ministry” (read: their “holidays” away together – hundreds of dollars spent on accommodation/ fancy wine/ fine food/ car hiring etc – things we’d gone without, in all our years together). Ex said that affair-partner paid for it all, but then refused to show me bank statements. So much for “nothing to hide”; that they were “just friends”. And yet hiding so much – financially, emotionally, socially, romantically, spiritually from me. Is it any wonder we struggle to trust that God cares for us?