With the cold weather now reaching where I live, my initial inclination is to stay buried under the covers and not get out of bed. Whether or not I want to get up, I find myself surrounded by cold, wet noses inches from my face reminding me that “it’s time to go outside”.
Although I get up and take them, part of me desires to return to my warm bed. That desire of returning to warm, comfortable, familiar surroundings is natural.
This brings me to the question of the day sent by a reader last week. “My husband states he’s in love with his ex-wife from 10 years ago. They kissed, and now he’s wanting to throw our marriage away. What do I do?”
The whole dilemma of handling ex-spouses is touchy, more so when there are children. They are messy situations and often leave people torn up inside with intense emotions, guilt and torn loyalties.
These situations challenge your morals and emotions. They force you to face what your real value system is. Not what your preferences are, but instead, what you really believe.
When it comes to the question of what to do when your husband professes love for his ex-wife, there is no easy answer.
First, as a counselor, going back to one’s ex after you have married someone else is never a good idea. Tossing your present marriage so that you can go back to a previous failed marriage is bad idea. You are stuck in a situation where there are no “good options”.
Leaving your marriage for your previous one amounts to dropping potential successes in order to pursue past failures. Although some politicians have made careers of such policies, it does not work with marriages.
Ex-spouses present unique challenges. When sex occurs, the cheater can rationalize what they have done and deny what happened as an affair. The bottom line is that sleeping with your ex-spouse when you’re married to someone else is an affair. You can attach all kinds of labels, it doesn’t change what it is.
It’s time to face the truth. Affairs are never good. They always have negative consequences, for both the person who cheated and their spouse. If you’re willing to jeopardize your marriage for a chance at happiness with your ex-spouse, then you are in for a long, rough road.
That’s part of the sneakiness of this kind of affair. It’s an affair that doesn’t look like an affair to the cheater. It looks like true love. It’s “true love” that just happens to be with their ex-spouse.
But the bottom line is that you don’t leave your comfortable marriage for a relationship that has already failed once. They tell themselves “It’ll be different this time”.
From a moral perspective, the Bible makes clear statements prohibiting going back to one’s ex after having married someone else, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. From my perspective, when I see a principle repeated like that, I take note of it. (Since my focus is on restoring marriages, I will hold off on the Scriptural references. If you want them, write to me and I’ll share them with you).
This amounts to a HUGE neon sign saying “Don’t Do It!” accompanied with a warning about how you are taking an unnecessary risk. I mention this because I know there are some spouses that will ignore the signs, stumble into a mess and then pray to God for a solution, when they had already been warned.
I mention the moral aspect since many times, spouses return to their ex-spouses out of a sense of guilt. It’s as if they feel like they need to atone for something. The time for that is past. When you remarry, the relationship that needs your attention is the marriage you are in.
Returning to the old, familiar relationships, like returning to a warm bed is enticing, but filled with dangers. The ex-spouse often knows the triggers and weak points. They know what to say and how to say it in a way that lures your spouse away from you.
If you are facing challenges from ex-spouses, you’ll want to prepare yourself. The best preparation and preventative is the “Overcoming Affair Relapse”. It’ll equip you with what you need to know to identify when your spouse is at risk and what the two of you can do to reduce the urges and risks of ex-spouses making a play for your spouse.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
