I wrote this on another infidelity forum I belong to, but feel my message is important enough to re-post here for wider dissemination.

I'm writing this with the knowledge that my words will never likely reach the target audience. Those are the unfaithful spouses who continue to cheat or will not participate in the healing of a person you once professed to love more than anything in the world.  My wife has been involved in an affair with one of her (our) employees for almost 2 years. I've known about it for over a year, yet it continues.

The things I've learned in this past year have been a painful, scarring example of how low somebody can go to hurt their spouse.How can I describe the pain, the fear and the unwelcome changes your actions have caused your spouse.

I'm told my reaction is fairly common, so let’s go with what happened to me. I will wager the reaction of your spouse is not all that different. I have been a very straight forward confident guy my whole life. Fear for the sake of fear and indecision were never my problems. I was always one of those "glass half full" optimistic type of person. Nobody else’s problem was too big for me, I would step in, take charge and help anybody at any time. I was no saint, but believed that God put us here to help others.  After the betrayal of my wife, I am reduced to the almost 24/7 thought of why, when and how. When I have to make a decision at all any more, I second guess myself into paralysis. The simplest task is now too difficult for me to complete because I cannot keep my mind on it. Reminders are everywhere.

These are some of the things my wife is doing. I hope if you see yourself in this, the realization of how your actions affect the people you claim to love will wake you up and move you to getting help. First, my wife completely rewrote the history of our life together to justify her affair to herself and her "new" friends. I say new, because most of our old friends know the history of our life and will not validate her, so she needs to go gather a new group with no history.

Let me put this as clearly as I can to the unfaithful partners. It does not matter how bad things were before the affair, or how much you rewrite history. The affair is YOUR fault, not your spouses. Nobody in the history of the world has done anything to deserve the life YOUR actions have forced on us.
Second, the unfaithful spouse develops blinders to reality. The reality of the harm they cause their spouses and their children. The harm to my daughters affects me the most because as the man, the father figure, the "family protector" I am powerless to stop the downward slide my kids perceive in support from their mother. Kids NEED two parents, working together. Satan is waiting to grab them and it takes both parents working as a team to protect our kids from Satan’s influence. If Satan has one parent already, it just makes the faithful parents job that much harder.

As the unfaithful dives deeper into their fantasy world, the need to cover up their actions develops the third item.Third, the stress of covering up what you know to be wrong in the eyes of God, your family and your friends becomes almost insurmountable. In the case of my wife, paranoia has begun to dominate her actions. In the past two weeks, I've been accused of bugging our house and our business, tapping the phones and the cell phones and monkeying with the network at the business we own this week. All this despite the fact that I have not been near a computer in that business since June. Apparently, I have a spying budget as big as the CIA's and unlimited time to do all this despite being essentially a single father, spending all my time with my kids because my spouse is far too busy putting her boyfriend ahead of our family.

To all the unfaithfuls out there, does this statement sound familiar? "I don't have a family" or "we haven't been a family for XX years (add your own number)" or the biggie "I've never loved you". These are all lies you tell yourselves in the fog of infidelity to justify to yourself what you've done. Finally, abandonment. Abandonment felt mostly by your children, your spouse and your family. You are not there to see the pain; you have better things to do. Fun people to see and an exciting life to live. We are left at home picking up the broken pieces of our life. I put my kids to bed every night while they are asking why Mommy won't come home, or crying that they want Mommy. Mommy is to busy living her new life, leaving me sweep up the debris.

I'd be willing to bet it is much the same at your house. Did you leave your wife or husband to make excuses for you, lying to the kids so you won't look bad in their eyes? I was talking to my mother a few weeks ago. Her mother left her father for another man when my mother was in college (I was never aware of this until this conversation, I'm over 50). My mother told me it took her over 20 years to get past the pain of her mothers betrayal. I ask all the unfaithfuls who are unwilling to work to heal their marriage, are you really ready to put your children and families through that grinder? Is the loss of respect from your children, your family and your friends worth whatever joy you get from this fling?

I have been trying to figure out Gods purpose for allowing Satan to grab my marriage in a stranglehold and not let go. I see a good purpose in all this in my redemption. The adversity I have faced in the past 2 years has brought me back to my Savior. I spend a great deal of time praying. Constant prayers asking for the Lord to make this stop, protect my children, or just make the pain go away. God will not give us more than we can handle, I know this to be true. I just didn't know how far below my pain threshold I was living until my wife started cheating. All this brought me back to God, but will I end up bitter and mean if He doesn't also get through to my wife? I sincerely hope not.

So now it seems I have no other option but divorce and the consequences of what comes with that. Divorce has never been something I wanted, nor sought, and still isn't. That said, I have to protect my children. I can not allow them to learn that their mothers’ behavior is acceptable or normal. This is a fine line I walk, as I have vowed never to allow a negative comment about their mother pass my lips to their ears.

I seem to be on this journey myself, hoping someday to heal and be able to forgive. I know forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, but it's hard to remember that when your whole world is falling apart.As I said in the beginning, this will probably never be read by the people that need to read this the most. Unfaithful spouses like my wife who are either still involved in cheating or are in denial of the harm they have caused. If by chance you are reading this, remember that not only will your spouses journey to heal be longer unless you participate, but you also need to heal. You just don't realize what you've lost yet.

Macyr,

I appreciate you sharing this with us. I have friends going through this and it's very, very difficult. I also think that one of the deceptive things about an affair is that the person feels a form of "love" for the person they're cheating with. Those warm, loving feelings are hard to call sinful or wrong which makes it easier for the adulterer to continue. And the adultery is often an attempt to escape some sort of pain so in the mind of the adulterer it's often a choice of intense happiness and intense feelings (emotionally and physically) or what they perceive as misery.

Macyr,

I think you misunderstood me. I should have communicated better. What I was saying is that for the person cheating it's difficult for them, after a certain point, to call it what it is--sin. As I said, that's what makes it so deceptive. Something that is good --love-- is being used inappropriately. If someone is committing adultery and they "love" the person they are having the relationship with it is very difficult for them to realize that it's a bad thing.

Trust me Macy, I've seen the effects many times and I'm on your side. I'm just saying that what makes the sin of an affair so sticky and difficult to overcome is that sometimes the majority of the battle is actually getting the cheating person to see that what they are doing is sinful.

I don't question whether it's sinful or not. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Lee,
I understand what you are saying! To the adulterer the "love" ( although a lie) justifies the behavior. My husband and his lover , who he has been  involved with for almost two years now, feel that because they are " in love", after our divorce is final, they will not be in sin anymore.... so, basically, they are waiting it out. Crazy, I know, but this is how the deceived mind works. I often tell my husband that when he talks, he makes perfect sense to himself but what comes out of his mouth is like a different language! But, that is how the adulterer rationalize their behavior. In their spirit they KNOW what they are doing is wrong, yet they choose to go against what God has written on their heart. So, what comes out of them is nonsense!

My affair was an off and on again thing that resulted in a child being born outside my marriage.  This affair ended almost two years ago and since then I have remarried and rededicated myself to my wife of  ten years. Our lives were blossoming and our love for one another had strengthened beyond anything we had previously had.The women I had an affair with had moved out of state knowing she was pregnant and then returned after the child turned a year old. Two months ago she notified me that her new child was mine. I laughed at the idea thinking it wasn't possible only to find out it was true. My wife and I cry and struggle daily. She wants to divorce me thinking things will be easier. We already have 5 kids one of which I had before I met her. I truly love her and even though this has happened I believe she knows I'm  not the same person I was. However, this child, my child , which is so hard to say, is a constant reminder of my sin. I solicite your prayers and christian advice. I hurt, she hurts, and if we divorce our children will too. God bless you all

macyr1958

Your situation is almost identical to mine. My husband began his affair and even though I knew there was something going on, his appaling behaviour toward me and his children were the inital reason (even though the affair was a root I'm sure) that was just over two years ago. My children and I lost our home and everything we had worked for when he refused to pay the mortgage or support us.

Two years later the affair continues although he constanly lies to us telling us he has nothing to do with the woman. (she was the one who originally contacted me to tell me of their 'relationship') she initally lied about when it started but later the truth came out. And even though he swears to my children's faces he loves them and wants to be back home with them and has nothing to do with her, she continues to contact me practically telling me to keep away from my own husband (her fella as she puts it) last week she informed me that she is 5 weeks pregnant although I'm yet to know if it's true as she's lied about this before (he also 'made' her have an abortion to cover up their affair).

I can relate to what you are saying about the pain, yes for me and my children it's pain like we've never felt, I feel ugly, old, used, scared alone, God only knows what my kids feel. My little boy constantly cries asking me why his father refuses to stay away from this woman.

You are right in saying that it is the excitment, and yes it's apparently all my fault, I could on but would take hours.

What I really wanted to tell you was that just as I was reading your letter, my husband came in to my house, he asked what I was looking at and with tears in my eyes I turned the laptop his way and let him read, the results yet I don't know we all have to remember how deceived adulterers are to begin with.

I continue in my walk with God, I have started divorce proceedings as I feel that if he refuses to repent and allow to God to heal and change him, there's little I can do, I pray that God allows me tro move on and be happy again and I pray that for you too, well done for writing what you did and I pray it continues to reach those who need to hear it.

Macyr, I am so sorry that your wife would bring "him" into your home! I cannot even imagine what that must feel like!! I notice that you said you "cannot  get the divorce paperwork filled out fast enough" while I understand why you would want to do that, I URGE you to consider attending the LovePath 911 workshop first! I don't know if you've already attended it or not, but if you haven't and if you can get your wife there, I truly think that it will be of so much help to your marriage! At least give it a shot before you call it quits all together. Do it for your daughters if nothing else.

The next one is Nov. 13-15. Go to http://www.MarriageHelper.com or call 866-903-0990 for more info and/or to register! It's a lot cheaper than a divorce and if it saves your marriage then it will be worth more than you can ever imagine.

LKLD,

Let me start by saying what breakinfree said is true, the bible does say all that. But even if both of you divorce each other, it doesn't matter b/c your ex's have already married other's so therefore it wouldn't be right to break up that family. It get's complicated. Yes, it's bad all the way around of how all this came to be, but you can't go back and change what has happened. As for the kids that have been brought into your family, raise them! Thank God for them! It wouldn't be right to break up families to try to put old relationships back to how they were...probaby wouldn't happen anyway.

You know what you did was wrong, you admitted to that. And from the way you worded things, you weren't a christian when all of this happened. Is that right? You've repented and asked forgiveness...you did what needed to be done :)

I know God has forgiven you! So, I have no room to judge. Not that I would anyway!

I hope that your marriage now is a great one! I pray that it always will be :)