Although the pain of cheating cuts you deeply, the time will eventually come when you have to consider
whether what happened is forgivable. This is a question of concern to both the cheater and the one who was cheated on.
Although there are times that it’s treated as an ‘unforgivable sin’, the reality is adulterers can be forgiven. Although the adulterers can be forgiven, adultery as a particular behavior is another matter.
Many of you haven’t managed sorting out the difference between the behavior and the person. Perhaps that’s why you continue struggling with forgiveness. You’re trying to forgive the wrong thing.
Although you have treated them as one in the same, they’re not. The person can be forgiven. The person can acknowledge their wrong, and work toward making things right.
You can also choose to forgive, even in cases where the cheater is unrepentant. Forgiving is more about you letting go of the grudge, than it is about erasing what happened.
You can forgive and choose never to have interaction with the cheater again. The refusal to interact with them does not mean that you never forgave them, it’s about protecting yourself from being exploited by them again.
You learned your lesson and choose not to be taken advantage of again. Forgiveness doesn’t mean you have to be a perpetual victim.
For the cheater, once you are forgiven, you still need to ‘make things right’. You have to turn from what you were doing and make some changes.
Forgiveness includes accountability. You don’t automatically give up accountability because you forgave someone.
In each case, what those changes are will vary. Affairs are a messy business. There are often many things that have to be cleaned up, physically, relationally, emotionally and spiritually.
Many times ‘forgiveness’ issues crop up related to inadequate cleaning up of the messes that the affair created or spawned. Inadequate or improper clean up leads to affair relapses.
Not only can the cheater be forgiven, they can learn how to be a loving and committed spouse. Although they can be forgiven you will have to decide whether or not you want to forgive them.
This choice brings consequences. Choosing not to forgive gives you a sense of power, but forgiving gives the opportunity for healing. You have the choice of healing or power, depending on what is more important for you.
Do you want power over the cheater or healing between the two of you?
Back to the question. Can adultery be forgiven? The answer is “No“. Can the adulterer or adulteress be forgiven? The answer is “YES“.
If you want to know more about forgiveness and how it can work for you, the video, “Forgiveness: Stop the Pain, Tear down the Walls and Remove the Roadblocks” guides you through the whole process. Just click the link, fill out the form and within minutes, you can start the process.
Best Regards,
Jeff
4 Responses
I Was Cheated On He Says He Didn’t Cheat Because It Wasn’t Sexual. He had a private number for her, listed her name as a guy and never talked to her while I was around at least on the phone but maybe texted. I am trying to work things out with him but it is difficult when he doesn’t acknowledge how what he did effects me and my self esteem. Could you give me steps on how to recover and not be hunted by what believe could’ve happen. I go to counseling but still suffer from thoughts of him cheating. Example when he’s with me is he thinking of her, or is he still texting and calling her. I want so badly to forgive and move on but my mind needs closure or its not going to work. He has apologized for hurting her and promised that he learned his lesson and won’t do it again. Helo me please and thanks for the emails they are good .
April,
Thank you for your comments. When cheaters do not validate or acknowledge your pain, it leaves you hurting with no relief. Many cheaters, like yours, excuse their unfaithfulness by claiming that it “wasn’t sexual”. They also do not understand that your pain is real, the betrayal is real and you want to be validated. When they deny cheating due to it not being sexual, it often sends the message that your pain is not real or valid.
If you try to persuade him that it is cheating, it will lead to many arguments. You may want to focus your talks with him on how you feel betrayed by his sneakiness and deceit. Since he hid the true nature of the person he was connecting with, he knew at some level that it was not the right thing to do. There would not be a need to hide it if everything was innocent. When cheaters hide things, they know that what they are doing is not right.
In terms of your own thoughts and fears, those will only go away when you forgive and let go. Recall that forgiveness is more about you than him. It is about you letting go of the fears, desires for revenge, etc. Forgiveness is not an approval of what he did, nor is it a ‘get out of jail free’ card played to let him off the hook for cheating. It is about you moving on past what happened.
I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
If my husband had a sexual affair with me I might be able to forgive him. But our scenario was somewhat twisted. We agreed to have a second wife in an attempt to have a polygamous marriage. It ended up being a three way relationship that was very messy. It was hell on earth for me in fact. I hated seeing my husband having sex with her, and we all forced ourselves to try to get along sexually in order to balance the scales so no one was left out. It was most unnatural and I am disgusted by what I ‘consented’ to (alcohol was initially involved).
About 6 months into the three way relationship, I checked the other woman’s text messages as I was suspicious that she wasn’t telling me something. I found emails between her and my husband that predated her coming into our lives. I lost the plot, screamed and cried and wailed uncontrollably over the night. This continued intensely over the next month. My world shattered.
I confronted the two of them and the truth came out that they had been having an affair for about 10 years – my relationship with my husband was 9years and we had two kids together. We always talked about the importance of fidelity and viewed ourselves as a strong healthy loving family. I think I died.
I had to resign from my high pressure job and move towns and went interstate for a while. I fell into a trauma and couldn’t cope with loud sounds or speaking with anyone for months.
The worst part of it for me was that my husband deceived me into thinking the woman was just some separate third party. He made me trust her. I even trusted her to look after our kids and on a couple of occasions she got drunk while they were in her care and we turfed her out. So dysfunctional considering I valued healthy living. The threesomes were from hell itself and somehow I thought I wanted them, that I was bisexual, but now I know it was just pure evil.
I continue to have horrible memories of our sexual intercourses, and my sexual intercourse with my husband is near impossible without flashbacks of what he was doing to her and to me. Unfortunately my thoughts of him cheating are actual real memories that I witnessed and encountered in my own marital bed with my kids sleeping innocently next door. All of it was so out of character for me. I think our lives were so highly stressed as we were isolated and financially strapped, and in terrible workplaces, that I ceased to be able to make good decisions.
The only good news that came out of this is that I tried everything to heal myself – meditation, counselling, moving houses, cleansing, talking to friends. Nothing healed me until I spoke to some friends who said the only thing that can heal us is our Heavenly Father through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
It was true for me.
It has only been a month since I have been following God’s word and praying and I am starting to feel better. My husband has also turned to God and prays every day. We go to church as a family. We are conducting the spiritual clean up that Jeff writes about
The religion we are investigating values family unity above all, and teaches us that Satan tries to split families up through affairs. This is what brought me back to my husband. We have always shared a strong love, and my boys and he have a great relationship – I am adamant not to let Satan succeed. But it is hard, because I think back to what happened and think it is truly unforgiveable. The trickery and abuse of my trust – bringing of the woman into my house and bed.
It hurts less now though.
And my husband has shown a full responsibility and remorse. He cut the other woman of immediately and confirmed I was his only love – that she was a trap, he was weak, he was very very stupid. It has taken some time to break through his initial excuses and pride. But now he completely understands what he has done and why it was all wrong (at first he justified it and this hurt like hell).
He has cared for me and accommodated me during my healing. He has been patient and heartbroken with me. He went through a stage where he was suicidal because of what he did. He is now humbled by accepting there may be a Lord (he never believed before).
My friends have explained that I need to forgive him unless my anger will eat me up inside. I know this is right. But I think about our situation, and feel it is so extreme, so out of the ordinary and reached the limits of disgusting-ness (if that’s a word) that I can’t forgive it. Or at least I want someone to understand what I huge ask it is to forgive such things.
Our lives are gradually getting back on track, with our growing faith being what’s gluing us together again. But we still have fragile moments. Just last Sunday after church my anger filled me again, after 2 weeks of seeming calm.
I read your emails each time they arrive. The affair is always lodged in my subconsciousness even if I am progressing with other areas of life again. There were articles about the dark side of swinging which really struck a chord. I now truly believe that the only holy and peaceful union is that of one man and one woman. Our emotions are linked to our spirits which are connected to the truth and the gospel. When we do things that a wrong, they cause emotional turmoil. I experienced intense emotional turmoil during the whole 3 way relationship, even though we plastered smiles on our faces wishfully hoping that time would make the monster work.
Are you able to give any advice as to if it is reasonable to forgive this type of adultery? I think I do love him, I always did, but since this hurt it is really hard to access the love buried under mountains of pain.
I am so grateful for your articles and your insights. I wish we could see you in person.
Mummy,
Thank you for sharing your story. It took courage to get through it, leave such a lifestyle and talk about it. From what you wrote, you now have hope that you did not have before. In reading through your letter, I felt a sense of being trapped or stuck in a sticky mess. It is good that you found the way out. Your story reminds me of the verse about how the Bible says in Psalm 40:2 “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.” Miry clay is that stuff that sticks and clings to you even though you are out of it.
There are things that stand out in what you shared. One is that it started with alcohol. Many times such threesome situations start over alcohol or drugs. Those that I have worked with talk about how they had to be ‘drunk’ or out of it in order to do what they did. They claimed needing to numb the feelings associated with the unnatural aspects of it all.
You also mentioned the suicidal ideation. Threesomes have a way of spinning out of control emotionally and taking people to their brink. Suicidal ideation and affairs are more common than is often reported. If that ugly truth were to get out, there would not be the glamour associated with them. When Ashley Madison advertises “Life is short…”, they are hitting on a subconscious truth about ‘the shortness of life’ and alluding to shortening one’s life. Having this idea coupled with the idea of having an affair (e.g. “Life is short, have an affair”) sends a powerful double message. Since those not in affairs do not catch onto the deeper double meanings, they miss the powerful message embedded in their slogan. Bear in mind that those whose minds have not been warped by the dark side do not catch this. When one’s mind has been transformed by the dark side, those hidden or subtle meanings are more apparent.
The “disgusting-ness” can be overcome. It will take time. The stain it puts in your memory will fade over time. Forgiveness starts the process. The process continues as you help others through their struggles and you are able to share your story. The story changes from being a source of shame to being one of healing. The meanings associated with what happened changes.
You have learned a powerful truth in the lesson, “Our emotions are linked to our spirits which are connected to the truth and the gospel.” That connection will provide you with the resources beyond your own abilities to bring change into your life. It provides a power source that can energize and transform the meaning of the uglies in your life and memory. Your letter shows me that you have seen the need for forgiveness along with the next step of transformation. That is encouraging to hear.
In answer to your question, “Is it reasonable to forgive this type of adultery?” It is reasonable and possible. You will need the added resources of spiritual transformation to do it though. Trying to forgive (e.g. let go) of what happened through your own resources and reasoning will be challenging. It takes time for your thinking (mental processes), and emotions to heal. Under good conditions this can take 6-18 months. The deeper the wounds, the longer it will take. Start with the big ones first, then work your way down. Doing it the other way by starting with the little ones ends up creating a perpetual pain machine.
It would be nice to see you both in person as well. It is my goal to have retreats for couples like yourself where such issues can be worked on in an intensive/relaxing setting. –
Feel free to write back with any future questions.
Best Regards,
Jeff