The Pain of Infidelity

 

Today emotional affairs are rampant. The marriage hits a rough spot, so one of the spouses begins to share through social media or at work with a very understanding co-worker. It feels so good to have someone listen to your story. The emotional affair is justified with irrational thinking, “This person really gets me; they understand what I am going through.” All the while, these conversations are kept secret.

Solomon said, “But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself” (Prov 6:32). He asked why a man would become obsessed with another’s man’s wife when “your ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all your paths (Prov 5:22).

What starts out feeling so good turns sour when all is exposed, and the emotional pain is excruciating. Couples get bogged down with conflict, and they stop talking to each other; they ignore one another and they stop caring. That’s when they look for someone else—just to talk, someone who will listen. “Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!” (Prov 9:17).

Infidelity is the betrayal of trust and the breaking of the marriage vows. Trust is the bedrock of the relationship. Everything is built on it. Infidelity erodes trust in the way salt eats concrete. Infidelity breaks the promises made—promises meant to last a lifetime. confidence lost is not easy to regain. Just ask the couples who recover from infidelity and the those who did recover but how much they still struggle with lack of trust.

Infidelity is the sharing of intimate conversations with an outsider. Marriage is a committed relationship where intimacy can be achieved. It is what couples long for and enjoy. Infidelity takes that intimacy and throws it to the wind. Later there will be much regret and heartache.

The pain I have seen from infidelity is challenging to describe. The lie that this will be so wonderful is turned on its head. It is an utter pain for both—even the one who ate the stolen fruit in secret. Marriages are destroyed, and kids’ lives are messed up big time.

Protect your marriage by staying away from anyone who could compromise your most precious possession. I tell couples never to engage with anyone in an intimate conversation except their wife or husband. Never say anything negative about your spouse to anyone, especially your kids.

Hindrances to a Good Marriage

 

Some of the most common causes of conflict in marriage are dysfunctional patterns that disrupt harmony and rob the possibility of quality time; here are a few of them.

Anxiety: A disruption of thoughts that spiral out-of-control causing you to believe you are in a life-threatening situation when you are not. It leaves you with feelings of doom, crippling you emotionally. It robs you of your ability to interact with others. Help from anxiety comes in changing your patterns of thinking (Phil 4:4-9).

Resentment: When you get hurt and allow bitterness to fester, it prevents you from having good interaction with your husband or wife. If you have been hurt, then work on it, but don’t bury it and think it will go away by itself. It will not (Eph 4:32)!

Immaturity: This pattern can ruin a marriage—immature reactions, immature decisions that cause toxic patterns to form. The cure for immaturity is growing up and learning to seek closeness, intimacy, and passion in our marriages, but it requires hard work (Eph 4:15).

Manipulation: It is going around the person to get what you want without being completely honest. It is harmful, and it hurts marriages. The cure is to seek to be completely real (Eph 4:22-24)!

Blame: This habit deflects your mistakes onto someone else because you are unwilling to take responsibility for them. Blaming your wife or your husband for your shortcomings not only wrecks the marriage but is like trying to go forward while dragging a ton of baggage (Luke 6:42).

Lack of Acceptance: Not accepting your wife or your husband as they are, prevents them from being who they were meant to be. Accepting her personality, views, and opinions enable her to blossom and stop trying to please you (Eph 5:21-33).

Anger: This is one of the most misused emotions. It is used to manipulate people. Anger is an emotion that should serve us by helping us identify a problem and find a solution.  First, we have to consider — is there something wrong and what is it, and how can I effectively respond to it without letting my anger control me (Eph 4:26)?

Delayed Gratification: This might be one of the nastiest habits hindering so many marriages. It says, “I want what I want right now.” It is the inability to see past now. It is too rigid and inflexible to assess your spouse’s needs, only putting your needs first (Isa 40:28-31).

Lack of Accountability: It’s only when we are willing to be entirely accountable for our words, actions, and mistakes that we can build an intimate relationship with our wives and husbands (Eph 4:21).

Avoidance: This is the person who says yes to everything even when they should say no because they are afraid of conflict. However, their avoidance of conflict actually causes more conflict (Prov 24:26).

(Parenting with a Long View) https://bovdbrooks.com/

 

The Benefits of Marriage

 

 

Marriage represents the most significant possibility of intimacy on one hand or the greatest pain imaginable. Marriage can be like a gentle flowing stream providing life and nourishment wherever it flows or like a raging river bringing destruction in its wake. For this reason and a variety of others, more and more people are afraid of failing at marriage, so they refuse to take the plunge.

Why marry when you can live together? Where does the reluctance to marry come from anyway? Many have seen their parents’ marriages completely fail, so they have negative biases against marriage “Don’t want that!” Others have seen or experienced the pain of divorce and vow never to go through that again. They say to themselves, “If this arrangement doesn’t work out, then it won’t be complicated to end it.” Others want to do a trial run and see how this will work before they sign on the dotted line.

How do marriages compare to cohabitation? The bottom line is marriage outlasts cohabitation by far. Just think about it—the greater the commitment, the greater the fidelity. The greater the legal obligation, the less likely the relationship will fail—the greater the public acknowledgment of responsibility to each other, the more secure the bond.

Cohabitation brings two attitudes that hinder the relationship from achieving greater mutual satisfaction. The first is individuality. The two came into the relationship as two individuals and remained in their thinking as such. They keep their money separate and often pursue their individual interests and friends. The second attitude that hinders is a lesser commitment. The greater the commitment, the more necessary attitudes like humility, self-sacrifice, and delayed gratification thrive, and to the contrary, the less obligation these attitudes have less chance of growing.

Marriage is the safest way to live with a man or woman intimately. It expects loyalty and fidelity from each other. It is the best possible arrangement to bring children into the world and raise them in a home where they are loved. Marriage offers the best possible satisfaction for emotional and physical intimacy because this arrangement’s boundaries have been made clear to the world. It is the best way to find what every couple longs for—fidelity.

A good marriage is held together by tough love. Some couples shy away from marriage, fearing it may restrict their freedom or hamper their lifestyles. They want to keep their options open in case things don’t pan out. However, ironic as it sounds, this makes the lifelong companionship they long for impossible to achieve. No one can merely “try-out” commitment without actually committing! You can’t dive into a pool just by putting your toe in the water—it requires a plunge of your whole body. Vows can only be made when they originate from the heart, and the person making the vow is willing to stand behind the promise.

Marriage helps hold people together. When you are not committed to each other through marriage, it is easier to walk away when things get tough. When you are not committed to each other through marriage, you are far more likely to be unfaithful. The ties that bind are not strong enough to keep you together through temptation and conflict.

There are fewer and fewer models of stable, committed marriage today because divorce has become so much more frequent. Many couples cite incompatibility as the reason. I submit that most couples are incompatible—marriage is a quest for acceptance and learning to live with each other.  Many a marriage has failed because the two stopped working on the marriage. They stopping caring, stopping trying, stopped being there for each other. Some lay aside their vows and seek companionship from another, leaving a broken spouse with a sense of betrayal—they will spend years to overcome.

In many ways, our culture has come to view marriage with a consumer mentality. The primary view is gratification and what it can do for me rather than what I can do. Marriage is meant to be about us and not about me. Jesus said that his kingdom would be made up of servants. What makes marriage better is two people who have come to the marriage to serve.

 The greatest gift a wife and give her husband is respect. That affirmation will make him a better husband and father. The greatest gift a husband can give his wife is love. When he loves and cherishes her, she becomes a better wife and mother. When both husband and wife submit to each other, they come to love and serve each other, and they experience greater mutual satisfaction.

 (Parenting with a Long View)  https://boydbrooks.com/

What Marriage Was Meant to Be

In my many years of counseling couples, I have seen my share of dysfunctional marriages. After I have heard the story of what is wrong with the marriage from the husband and wife—I try to chart a course toward healing. Every couple that comes to counseling comes with hurt, and from that hurt they have built up resentment toward each other. They have stopped forgiving and reaching out in love and have chosen to live in a critical environment of contempt.  Instead of living in an atmosphere of love and forgiveness, they survive in the barren wasteland of resentment and bitterness.

This bitter cycle of dysfunction compels them to be stingy with their love and drag those grudges around every day. They tear each other down in constant strife and discord. They both are sick to death of each other and do not enjoy living together. Their children are being exposed to dangerous elements of conflict that are setting the tone for their future.

Marriage was meant to be two people living together in harmony. They know they are both flawed, so they are willing to forgive each other. They show kindness in little ways that bring happiness to both of them. When one suffers—the other shares that suffering. When one experiences joy, the other shares that pleasure; they both find ways to build each other up and encourage each other. When one is wrong, he or she does not keep track of the wrong but continues to hope for the best for the other. When a marriage works, it is the most significant relationship on the face of the earth. It produces mutual satisfaction and companionship. When it doesn’t work, it is a sad place to be. The work and effort to turn a broken marriage around is difficult, and most of all, it requires work and effort. Each person has to be willing to look at himself or herself and see what they need to change. Each has to be ready to listen to the other and see past their agenda. God is more than willing to help couples find happiness in marriage, but they have to ask for his help and then persevere in the quest to change from bad to better. The journey from a bad marriage to a good marriage is worth the journey!

A Marriage Triangle

Marriage was meant to be an unbroken circle, but when it is broken, it can become a triangle. The intimacy of marriage is compromised when one partner brings in a child and divulges secrets belonging only to the couple. Besides the harm done to the child—it diminishes the bond between the spouses. Then there are those emotional affairs where one spouse shares intimate conversations about his or her marriage with someone else. This too is a triangle, and it is harmful and deadly. It will destroy a marriage in short order.

In Genesis chapter 16, there is a marriage triangle with Abram, Sarai, and Hagar. This story vividly highlights the emotions of rejection, anger, jealousy, loneliness, which results in deep hurt for all the parties. This story is real life stuff. It is what happens in marriages and families today with frequency.

After Sarai and Abram had been waiting for the promise of a son for ten years, Sarai grew impatient. She was overcome with fear—fearing she would be barren her whole life. To be barren in Biblical times was considered a horrible tragedy. Sarai blamed herself and God for her condition. Her humiliation was unbearable. She consequently, decided to use her servant girl Hagar as a surrogate mother (Gen 16:1-16). Sarai’s solution was justifiable and acceptable in the culture of the day, but not to God.

I have watched the story of the Three Little Pigs at least 500 times with my little grandchildren. When the wolf climbs up on the roof and decides to enter the brick house through the chimney since he cannot get in the house—I say, “Bad idea Mr. Wolf!” This is a bad idea, Sarai from the start.

Today it has become culturally acceptable for young people to be sexually active before marriage. Our culture says yes, but God’s Word says no. Why is that? Does God want to deprive young people of pleasure and enjoyment? No, it is because young people are not mature enough to handle the emotional fall out of being intimately connected and do not know how to stay connected. Consequently, they go from one relationship to another, and many young people fall into depression and anxiety, unable to handle the feelings of rejection.

Sarai’s choice was wrong because it went against everything and everyone. It robbed her of her intimacy with her husband and introduced even more shame into her life. Her attempt to help God out only brought more pain to her and her family. Abram, however, abdicated his leadership as a godly husband when he accepted the offer. God had spoken to him on several occasions and confirmed his promise to him. He could have assured Sarai that God will come through if we remain patient, but he did not do this. Instead, he was passive, and he contributed to the dysfunction that only grew worse with time.

If you are contemplating how you could expedite your happiness and fulfill your own dreams. It seems God has forgotten you, and therefore, you will have to take matters into your own hands. Think before you act and do not abandon God’s promises—wait for them. If you act out of a deficit of faith, you will live to regret it all your life. Sin has far-reaching consequences.

If you are married, nothing is more sacred than the bond that exists between the two of you. Always keep your promises to each other. Always apologize and own your mistakes and reclaim quickly any ground that is lost to bad decisions. Always protect the bond between you and make sure it remains an unbroken circle. Always guard against any intruders who would make your relationship a triangle.