Getting honest about the affair is tough. It is often hard to be honest and to have others be honest with you. When you and your spouse decide to be honest, you need to carefully consider what you want the focus of the honesty to be. Demanding gut honest answers to questions about where the affair happened, what you did in the bedroom and other such details often brings more pain and hurt than it does healing. Yes, you may have honesty, but that kind of honesty amounts to cruelty and making things more difficult to forgive. Honesty in such areas will not bring a good transformation in the relationship.
You may want to instead focus on honesty about what you need from your spouse, what they need from you, what changes are needed in your relationship. Honesty in these areas will take you and your spouse forward, rather than leave you mired in past horrors churned up by details about what happened in the affair. Honesty about where the relationship is and what is needed can bring transformation to the relationship. If you want the relationship to change, you will need to do something different, rather than re-hash past sins. Re-hashing past sins is akin to a septic system pump that churns and churns waste. You have to decide whether you want to churn the old waste material or take your marriage in a new direction that better meets the needs of you and your spouse?
Sure, you may be curious about what happened in the bedroom, but will knowing that bring healing. It may satisfy your voyeuristic curiosity, but it does not bring healing. Many spouses have told me “But I have to know!” and insist that it is necessary for the healing of the relationship. After they find out, they then ask me how to get those images of what happened and thoughts out of their head. That is why the key question to consider is “Will it bring healing?” If it will not bring healing, that is not an area you want to demand honesty in. If it will bring healing, then that is where you want honesty.
Best Regards,
Jeffrey Murrah
4 Responses
I think people begin to care a lot more about the aspect of honesty in life when they realize how important it is for us to live life in truth …it is actually rather stupid for us to want to ‘get by’ with anything because it cheats our own lives of living fully….To live deceived steals so much from what life is intended to be
Think of making a cake and having the wrong instructions …too high heat burns it and wastes the ingredients and time used to prepare and leaves one without the results intended to provide for dessert
In all of life anything that takes our time should make us want to do what brings the best results,…living in a lie rips off the better experiences that might have been had we lived basing our thoughts and choices on truth …AND it the end results are not what could have been so much better
Not to mention the rip off of eternity ..which is what False teachings and doctrines do ….never be satisfied with hearsay when it comes to living life…always go to HE who is the source of truth and become instructed by Him.
Truth leads to a life more and more in focus with our Creators best intention for our lives for His glory and our fulfillment. Win win …!
Zaza,
Thanks for your contribution. Living honesty has many long term effects. Since living honestly often means having your boat rocked, many people choose the option of living peacefully and with lies rather than living honestly and having your life filled with ups and downs.
I taught my kids ..if you want all your memories to be great ones….make all your thought coincide with the Truth ….living authentically is also less stressful ….less to have to remember in order to cover up
One reason probably the cheater once ‘outed’ …’cannot remember’ things….they either do not want to …because they KNOW what they did ,…or they have too many lies to figure out what WERE the actual true things that went on …..In our case it involved 14years of lies to all …family , friends,business….such a terrific legacy !
I believe the LORD would help him recall so he could fully confess…which I know in my walk I have experienced…over time …because I asked the LORD to make me a ‘vessel of honor’ …which means being cleansed of ALL unrighteousness…and without seeing it we cannot confess it …
We are not saved by “works’ of confession but to realize more and more sensitively what SIN IS …will result in our more and more becoming sensitive to what GOD views as those things which defile our temple…/ body ..HIS HOME …so we should want to be more aware of what we need to avoid…which includes getting God’s world view of what we were led to accept as :”normal ‘ in our past ….by influences of the world upon our understanding …
Zaza,
It is good that you have taught your children to live with truth. I like how you used the term ‘authentic’. That is a popular term that captures what living truthfully is about.