When it comes to dealing with affairs, one of the hurdles you will face concerns ‘friends’. An affair not only impacts you, it puts your friends in tough places as well. Since they often care about both you and your spouse, they may find themselves torn between saying something or minding their own business. You want them to be honest with you, yet when all they know about the affair are rumors, do you want them to bring you into the rumors? Dealing with direct knowledge is very different from dealing with rumors. Since they want the best for you, they need to deal with facts instead of possibilities. That means that if all they know about an affair is rumor, they may need to stay silent, since they do not know what is ‘true’. When they know factually that an affair is happening, they may need to say something to you. Even that is a tough call. When they know that such news will hurt you, if not devastate you, it forces them to deal with ethical dilemmas that people should not have to face.
Cheaters often do not consider the moral and ethical dilemmas they put people in. They are often oblivious to the chaos they have spawned that surrounds them. They are only interested in ‘being happy’, even if that means doing you wrong and putting a weird twist on your friends. True friends do not seek to put people into ethical and moral binds. Cheaters on the other hand, often create the traps that they fall prey to. The very people they put into binds are those that they have to depend on. When the cheater can not be depended on to be loyal or honesty, it is presumptuous to for them to expect their friends to show those same qualities of loyalty and honesty toward them.
The bottom line is that cheaters will end up using their friends, using you and anyone else that meets their needs. In their paradigm, SELF is king. In some cases, it is self-preservation, in others, it is self-gratification. Either way, self is a problem for them. Their selfishness impacts more than their relationship with you, it often touches their friends and yours as well.
A good friend will stick with you through all the hard truths, the deceptive lies and the games played to hide the ugliness of what is going on.
Best Regards,
Jeff Murrah
7 Responses
I cannot say I would welcome the information but I know that if the one person I KNOW knew about this would have spoken up that my husband would not now be the father of two children by this adulteress and our family might have had a better future .
I cannot help now of thinking when we were guests for dinner at his home how he looked at me with seeming wonder if I might know and just be ignoring the sin or just was stupid ….I had spent so much of the time with those who worked with my husband sharing the Word and the faith with them as they would ask about our home schooling …and I recall them asking if my husband believed as I did.
I now feel that there was a possibility that my husband and this woman who worked as business partners after he hired her after he began the adultery with her …effected the depth of how people were receptive to the Word …If they had inklings as I cannot believe they did not ….I do not doubt they thought I knew or what just plain stupid.
I wish I had been told by someone …Even now after many moves we have had some dear close friends who actually began to work in the office while the adultery was going on and now I cannot even see them. I don’t know if they know and I find it too difficult to pretend . I don’t want to ‘out’ my husband so I not only do not have any new friends in our new area but we have not had ANY interactions with these who were close to our family in the past and now are living close by!
His decisions to cheat and lie have really put a wall around our lives.
Zaza,
Cheating puts friends in a bind, with no easy solutions. In hindsight you can catch the subtle cues signaling that they knew something and were trying to inform you, yet at the time most people are not tuning in to such cues.
So, am I saying that cheating is a bigger problem than just between the married couple? Yes. Cheating may start as something between adults, yet quickly becomes a social and community problem. It puts stress on everyone who comes in contact with it. It was not by mistake that Scripture addresses it as a community-wide issue.
Yes people always seem to wonder why the faithful spouse didn’t know what was going on ..the thing is that when you love and trust your spouse the various things that some might think scream’ adultery don’t come to mind. My husband had a very useful way of making his work seem very demanding ..He was manager of two very large offices for a National company. This seemed to be his privilege in each area he was moved to to take on his position which called for him to reorganize and hire new people.
He used the way it seemed to me to be a HUGE responsibility which I believe it was …but I had no idea how he worked within a network of designated responsibility so I thought he was stretched so far to do his work I often felt empathy for his being so tired at the end of the day and thought his weekends should be for him to R &R .
He took advantage.
Zaza,
You are not alone in not knowing what was going on. As spouses, you often think the best, rather than the worst concerning your partner. With the ‘thinking the best’ and taking them at their word, you tend to believe what they tell you. That mindset helps things to run smooth, but it also blinds you to early warning signals. One of the tragedies of affairs is that it teaches spouses that they can not trust each other like they once did.
Two things come to mind.
One …until you are cheated on you don’t KNOW the kinds of ‘signs’ that are published ad nausium in books, sites etc on this subject. You are going along …in my case thinking things God tells us to think and such and busy being a wife, mother and any number of good things that life in Christ and being a homemaker involve.
If your a guy who has married a woman who have proven to you that she is one you can trust you are not informed either about what will be an indicator.
I was not a TV watcher so I did not have various scenario’s like some tell me are shown on some of the soap opera stories that may be part of what alerts someone or maybe even encourage them to think along those lines.I was too busy being involved with study how to be a better wife and teach my children what they needed to know so they would grow up to know how to live according to the way GOD tells us …because I believed it was not only the best way to live but also protective.
The other thing is that I am not trusting my husband as I once did but I do not have the time and energy to let that be my consuming focus…the worse thing is that I am doubtful I am capable of trusting my own ability to tell when I am being lied to by some slick person who has a yen to do so.
The Word has been useful to help me learn how to discern among those who share whatever from the Word and I am growing in knowledge about how to discern a person of godly character ….this for my children too ….THEY have to wonder if the great guy or girl they begin to care for is REALLY going to live in the faith going forward ….Their father was not outwardly the ‘type’ of person one would suspect of this kind of CRIME.
I frankly do not think if I were ever to become a widow I would ever trust anyone again to become close to me ….I guess we will see.
Zaza,
You are onto something when you mention the programming/training that often occurs with television. Many shows are designed to train those watching them. If you assumed that television was about entertainment, you will be disappointed. Television is about delivering an audience to an advertiser and training people’s thinking. It is not by accident that politicians often work with television programmers to introduce or change people’s attitudes through their shows.
You are wise in using the Word to help you develop discernment. It will help you develop an awareness of what to look for (e.g. the signs) of someone lying to you, deceiving you, etc. You can tell a lot about a person by who they hang around. Hanging around the Word puts you in good company.
Yes but even so ….there are some pretty crafty people out there who use scripture as well…Must be why the Lord told us about tares and wolves in sheep’s clothing …I makes it difficult because one who loves the Lord does not want to suspect everyone …and often are giving the benefit of the doubt not to give snap evaluations …however …at some point we have to face facts. Meanwhile we can be sucked in ….argh!