In order to be a successful cheater, you need a particular set of skills. That skill set includes being able to compartmentalize parts of your life, lie without hesitation, present half-truths in a convincing manner, be charming or sexy and use controlling techniques in manipulating people and situations.
You’ve probably become very good at sensing what people want to hear and telling them that.
The longer you use these skills the better developed they become. They become second nature for you.
Not only do your skills improve, the energy you exude attracts those like yourself. It’s like a magnet attracting those on the lookout for people like you.
One of the problems is that those very skills that insulate you from pain also cut you off from connection with your spouse.
The longer you continue using these skills, the greater the risk that they become habits. At first you may have to think about them, yet over time, they just occur without any second thoughts.
When the habit continues over a long enough period of time, it becomes a ‘lifestyle’. Once your skills are part of your lifestyle, you are blind to seeing them as problems. You may even view those skills as ‘positive’.
One of the hidden dangers of the cheater lifestyle is that by the time you’ve reached it, you’ve shut down a sizable portion of your sensitivity and heart. Some would go so far as to say you’ve incrementally lost your soul.
I think your soul is still in there, it’s just that you’re out of practice on accessing it or allowing others access to it. It could be that with all the drugs and alcohol you’ve consumed, that you’re no longer sure how to reignite that part of you.
When your spouse tells you they feel ‘shut out’, it’s something you should listen to. They live with you and can tell when you move into your own private little world.
Getting back to the ‘old you’ will take more than just ending the affair. It takes more than just reconnecting with your spouse. Not only will your relationships need change, so does your skill set and your thinking.
This is where the video “Help for the Cheater: Starting the Road to Recovery” comes in. You mind needs help in getting your head turned back around. Typically your heart gets turned around long before your head does.
Best Regards,
Jeff
3 Responses
James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
James 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.
Psalms 119:9 BETH. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word.
Isn’t it amazing how the Bible always defines things perfectly by its own usage of words….in repeated use and context!
Here we see the God breathed definition of a mind divided and life’s choices and decisions based upon those “compartments”
I was thinking of several of the past indications of how rejection of Gods Word and rebellion encouraged by our “present evil world ” as the Word of God has defined our fallen planet under the systematic plans of the devil , that old serpent who is also defined as “the prince of the power of the air”
When my husbands double life was discovered he lamented and actually charged God “why did God let you marry me if He knows everything and He knew I would cheat on you?”
Sinners always want freedom of choice until the consequences arrive on their threshold!
When people are feed upon Gods existence and His having provided His will in a book they know where to go to find out what His wisdom and will is .
When people marry with an attitude of needing to learn a few basic things about God , marriage and each other they can be mikes ahead of the devil with the equipping of how they can avoid heart ache and suffering of a broken life
The Bible tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God preached .
We are to study and rightly divide the Word we read so that we will not be ashamed before the God whose only begotten Son suffered and died so that we are saved by hearing and believing in Jesus Christ whose death , burial and resurrection was so much more than the fulfillment of Prophesy that the Jews might recognize him as their prophesied Messiah but as the majority of them rejected Him at the time He came to them ….Paul the apostle Bowen by the resurrected Jesus Christ revealed that now all have been exposed as in sin and needing a savior
The mystery gospel Paul was given by Jesus was to make all men see the fellowship of the mystery which is salvation offered freely to all without having to go through the nation Israel which was the program we read in the Old Testament and the new covenant made with Israel
My husband married me with the understanding of the salvation and much of the Word but decided as he went into the world of finance he didn’t need any further instruction from the Bible
He also declared that he didn’t need to speak to people about the salvation we all need but that he would lead by example
Perhaps you have heard people say with some pride ….I’d rather see a sermon than hear one!
Surely the speaking of the Word does bring about some rejection and mockery among those who are most even as the Word tells us so…that does not change the truth that it is our responsibility to learn from diligent study how the Word divides itself and how God has progressively revealed His will throughout the recorded history of His Word we find in the King James Bible
All of these truths in our contemporary culture have reached a fever pitch of arguments against the preserved Word of God found in the King James as now we have had several generations under the tutelage of ministers taught by the unbelieving Bible correctors and scholars who have approached the Bible with a fleshly lens of “higher criticism”
Destroying many who don’t realize their “Bible ” experts and commentaries wiggle away the confidence of the many who rely upon them without knowing the insidious effects of so many “sincere” men who have chosen to have ministry as their “vocation” for many reasons that are not the desire for the truth but rather a business to become the leader of men !
So my husband in his refusal to be the “head” of our marriage and refusal to learn what that jurisdiction required of him chose to lead by “example” which was by his own fleshly ideas and distinct rejection of any wisdom that Reading his Bible might have imparted to him
He went his own way …and sadly his leading by example was as defiling of any who knew him as if he determined to teach people to enjoy sin and seek after it
I chose to keep going in reading and seeking teachings of the ,Word ….probably because I know I am not as able to get things right all the time and I know I need more of the Word …I expect I need the wisdom and that what I don’t understand right away will eventually become taught by the continued reading and asking the Lord to provide for me the understanding over time and through many areas of life which caused me to go back to the Word to learn more and more
I certainly didnt regard myself as any kind of authority or having attained as Paul the apostle said….on the contrary my sinful life was quite efficient to get May attention as to how I needed the wisdom of God and the strength of regard for what God said to untangle many of the things I had encountered in life
With all of that I didn’t want our children to be vulnerable to things I had because I had lacked the knowledge of God I found so helpful and useful in making decisions in my own life going forward from my first real reading of the Word and seeing salvation alone in Jesus Christ
Not only to avoid the ultimate loss of my soul and he’ll but the necessity to avoid harm as deceitful sins hurt both the sinner and those their lives effect !
So I asked my husband upon discovery of his long secret life how his “sermon” of living by example was fruitful for himself and everyone else he interacted with
We have yet to see the outcome as he has been in relationship with the children he had from Adultery
Sometimes the way the world encourages sin so that those who live in it doesn’t allow them to experience the impact of their willful choices to engage in it …while those who walk after righteousness suffer those consequences and the adulterer goes on ….being accepted as the culture formed by many who surrender to their flesh are lured deeper and deeper into the abyss of darkness …sinful lives normalized so there is no sting until suddenly …..no remedy
The “remedy ” is the salvation bought and paid for by Jesus Christ so that those who believe in His offer of salvation from the judgement and wrath of God which will occur after this dispensation upon all who have rejected the gospel of the mystery of salvation wrought in Christ’s completed work on the cross
Raised when we were justified ….we are complete in Him without rituals and a whole variety of fleshly practices that are no longer the criteria ….this dispensation of grace ….a pause for the cause of all who will receive it
I daily did whatever I could to continue in learning and study of my Bible because I knew the way the lack of knowledge of it had been my downfall
My husband not only didn’t participate in this activity and instead “lead by example” a complete disregard and neglect of not only the Bible but of the leadership opportunity he had to example respect for God …and the Word we are told directly to study each and every day for our good !
His example has led many who I had spoken to among his acquaintances to mock what I was trying to share with them as they witnessed the disparity between their daily observance of my husband’s life I knew nothing of and what I proclaimed
I was often asked by those I shared these things with “Does your husband believe as you do?”
I thought that was an odd question but now I realize they saw the difference in his ways and what I spoke of
His “sermon preached by his way of life” was a confirmation of what God tells us about sin and those who indulge willfully in it
Knowing the Word of God as the Truth I shudder to think of the destination of those who live life by the lives they observe around them
Scripture tells us comparing ourselves among ourselves is not wise ….and also that the sinner knows not at what he stumbles !
So many truths are there for us to learn how to avoid the snare the devil has set up for people to stumble over and fall into the pits laid out that the unwary and foolish step into of their own accord
The Bible tells us we are not our own but we are bought with a price …we are not sensitive to sin any longer but to reckon the old man dead …that “old man” ignorant of the truth of Gods Word provided to protect us from the waves ifnsin which is death according to the scripture !
I asked my husband which example would he want our children to follow ….the Biblical wisdom that I had tried to learn and teach our children …or his own life choices and those taught by a random number of teachers with a curriculum designed to indoctrinate generation after generation …inoculated against the God who created us
Yes the sinner discovered will fail against God …”why did you let me choose that way?!!” But this question is even a false one ..because they ask it of a God they did not believe nor want to interfere with their decisions when sin inflamed their rebellious heart
There is a way that the unsaved will resent and reject and curse anyone who tries to warn them…their way will end in destruction as a world which lies in sin encourages the rejection of the simple yet emphatic command for those who believe to study and learn how the word is to be rightly divided in order to live a peaceable and godly lifespan
My husband chose to live his life “compartmentalized and defended it …even to this day
He has become blinded and his heart hardened by his own decision even as he was warned ….in Romans one it declares those that do not like to retain the knowledge of God in their thinking become reprobate ..minds devoid of making wise decisions and the result is God gave them over to a life that is filled with inconvenient actions.
My husband scoffed at the suggestion he continue to learn how to lead and be a husband and father ..he was confident he didn’t need the Bible to know what it said….He said he didn’t want to be the head ….all this after walking away soon after we were married …all this after he declared his love and loyalty to me and the Jesus Christ and did walk…for a while ..until the world , the flesh and the devil became more important to him
I thank God I was given the opportunity to teach our children and never felt I was sufficient and as great an example as I would have liked in all things
I think many who come to faith in the finished work of Christ on the cross and His resurrection would love to be able to walk as righteously as some unbelievers think we should ….but we are to grow up in learning in to walk and to learn how we can grow and how to walk takes some time…thank God our righteousness is not in our performance but in His finished work
Having said that we are not to walk carelessly either but to be transformed over the time we grow by the renewed mind on the rightly divided Word as 2 Tim 2:15 tells us
The Word “study” refers to diligent effort in how we study…to learn and to put on the mind of Christ
The world and the unlearned who don’t know this are often happy to look at the outward appearance and judge according to their own preferences of sinful thoughts and actions ….as I once did before I sought after learning about my own condition of the flesh …it will never be perfected but we are to learn how to shit down the sinful thoughts and urges by “mortifying ” and “putting to death ” the way flesh is apt to draw us away from the process of the renewed mind living
The way the Bible puts it that when we believed the Holy Spirit puts us into the BODY of Christ …a totally new creature….not a nation such as the plan for Israel is for an earthly kingdom yet to come but ours is a Body created and seated in the heavenlies …destined for the heavenly kingdom
Two kingdoms …intended from Genesis 1;1
The heavens …and the earth …two kingdoms with God over all ….the kingdom of God
Two programs ….Israel a nation for the earthly kingdom and the Body of Christ for the jurisdictions in the heavens
Two programs separated …one known from the beginning and Prophesy as its communication with signs and wonders
One spiritual and hid in God from the beginning ..revealed to Paul after the other program was on the wane for the “pause ” that this grace dispensation. Is now functioning to prepare a people for the heavenly kingdom
No signs and wonders but to life not by sight but by faith
The eternity of every soul hinges upon hearing this gospel and believing it for the saving of that soul for the God of creation is not only love but he is Just and righteous and holy and without the cement of the righteousness only Christ could provide through His death , burial and resurrection no man can stand in his presence and there is no justification apart from being in Christ
Our lives do not “preach” …only the Word of God is The Truth who is Jesus Christ
The deception that WE and our behavior can “preach ” is an unbiblical and ungodly doctrine
We are not saved by performance
We are to believe and our lives will be transformed to the degree we know and understand Gods Word
But the unbelieving will reject even the perfect one who walked perfectly …even One who rose front the dead as they refuse any authority but their own sinful thoughts as they accept them and act upon them
The Devils greatest achievement is to get people to believe they ought to do whatever they feel and want to to. E happy and comfortable “just the way they are”
We are experiencing the consequences of my husband’s choices to serve himself and the sad thing is that many women believe the lies some men are willing to tell to get what they want …no matter who suffers
This is exactly what the Word warns us of when the flesh becomes he idol of our lives ….and the systematic encouragement of the god of this age….the devil only has to set up the sinner to believe neither he nor God exists and there is no hell ….today we see a gross amount of evidence the devil has deceived many who know not the Truth
A double minded man ( or woman ) is indeed unstable in all their ways!!!
No one should boast in such a “skill”…it destroys both those that practice it and those who are unaware of it being practiced upon them
Oh dear so many typos..again …I have no laptop or larger screen and the words are so tiny as I write on my phone ….sorry I hope what I wrote can be understood …sigh
Zaza,
Not to worry. I went ahead and edited the spelling errors. 🙂