Part 1: The Evil Trinity of Sexual Betrayal: What Not To Say To Your Friends

...a wayward [husband] is a narrow well.  
Like a bandit [he] lies in wait, and multiplies the unfaithful among men.
Prov. 23:27-28.

This post concerns a question, one that women around the world ask their friends: why does it hurt  like hell when my ex-husband is with another woman?  Perhaps it is because we are experiencing the betrayal/abandonment cycle all over again. or perhaps we are experiencing evil in real time. 

When my ex-husband helps fix something in my house or takes the children to church we experience that as honorable. In a real sense, he is "honoring" the vows he took when our children were baptized, despite his past mistakes. Hopefully, when I decide to help him in some way, he experiences that as honorable despite my past imperfections.  My ex-husband has every legal right to date and the world will not condemn that.  There is a judicial piece of paper that makes it legal.  But a piece of paper does not heal the heart, nor does it neatly sever on one day what God has joined together for decades. When our ex-husbands date other women, it may not be unexpected, but we experience that as a evil - a continuation of the breach of his marriage and baptism vows. 

He and I sat in the living room and he told me he was "seeing someone." He wanted me to hear before he told our teenagers.  In response to this news, I felt burning hot and nauseated.  I gasped for air. I cried the deep, alto cry of loss. Some well-meaning friends theorized that the pain was intense because I was losing the love of my life (no - he doesn't qualify for that title) or because this wasn't in my script (not true - I knew it would happen but I didn't know it would FEEL like this.) Another said this is only natural for a sex-addict (true, but he has disclosed other indiscretions before.)  Popular culture often portrays the experience of a cheating spouse as somewhat bad,  moderately hurtful, or a stupid mistake. Media portrays dating someone as soon as you are separated as silly, or needy, or even healthy.  Let's call it out: these are all lies. 

Our Sunday sermon discussed the "evil trinity" - the world, the flesh, and the devil. Calling evil “okay” as the world does is not the answer. The world has trivialized the great ripping apart of a one-flesh marriage. God hates it when a man is unfaithful to the wife of his youth. Malachi 2:12-16.[1]  And the flesh of my ex-husband seeking to meet his desires despite his marriage and baptism vows will have the effect that evil always has - to hurt people and damage relationships. The legs of the flesh walk in the opposite direction of repentance.

The devil gets involved too. He subtly leads the sinner away from Jesus by encouraging him to rationalize that after separation dating is fine, or by whispering to the wife that she is worthless and worthy of being abandoned.  If we care about the sinner, we care that he is allowing the world, the flesh and the devil to draw him further away from healthy relationships and further away from the possibility of salvation from his bondage. My ex-husband has been imprisoned in darkness for so long that he is blind to the effect his unfaithfulness has on others. 

I believe my ex-husband telling me of his decision to pursue and date someone a few short months after separation was something I experienced as evil.  It was another tidal wave of betrayal just like disclosures of unfaithfulness during our marriage. Maybe other wives will have a less nauseating reaction to this recurring news, but I suspect that our family will experience every woman in his life as another betrayal of his vows. 

Many Christians believe the Bible teaches that no one should re-marry after divorce, or that only separation  - and never divorce -  is proper for Christians. Some Christians believe the Bible teaches it is only proper to re-marry if you were divorced because of your spouse’s unfaithfulness, but no other grounds for divorce allow you to remarry.  I believe there is more nuance to God's law and God's love for us on these issues. But still, the reason many believe this is God’s best intent for our well-being is that marriage creates fused flesh, and when it is torn apart there is still the deep “spouse-shaped-scars" that last until heaven. This is why hearing of an ex-spouse dating or getting remarried is so painful and may feel like betrayal all over again. It hurts like hell because it is a little bit of hell; it a further separating from God and alliance with the world, the flesh and the devil. 

Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord. There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off. 

Proverbs 23:17-18.

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[1] See Blog Post of March 23, 2015, titled, "Part 2: God Hates Divorce: Fighting The Battle of Who Could Care Less."

Sexual Betrayal and Christian Communion

And [Jesus] said to them, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer."  

Mark 9:29 
'"And he took bread, and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'”
Luke 22:19

Why do I cry during communion?  I sense that healing will eventually require an answer to this question.  I learned not long along that my husband cheated on me for our entire marriage with regular pornography and prostitutes. At some point I realized that during this journey of healing I desperately needed communion, and needed it often. I am now past the years of trauma awaiting diagnosis, past the radical surgery of divorce. I am awakening from the anesthesia and the numbness that resulted from facing the truth. Perhaps my need for communion is as simple as the fact that valleys make us acutely aware that we are sinners in need of Jesus Christ's healing grace. Communion is also a reminder that when we battle the evil working against us, we are fighting as children of the King and we are humbled to be assigned this task. [1]

 
The night I awoke from a nightmare and prayed, begging God to toss the demons out of my husband, out of our household, out of our marriage, out of the marriage bed [2] I had no idea how wrenching and yet how necessary would be God's great tossing. He answered by driving my husband out of the home and marriage - not at all what I had imagined or hoped for. 

A husband bringing home the diseases of prostitutes or throwing something in my direction is very small suffering compared to what Jesus suffered for me.  Yet it is deeply comforting to be reminded in communion that the Savior who loves and accepts me also suffered abuse and physical brokenness. This fact alone should excise my sniveling, self-pitying heart tendency to wonder if anyone understands what it is like to be betrayed, despised and rejected by a man. [3]  The words of communion remind me that Jesus has been there, done that, and redeemed the heck out of it.

But even more than this amazing gift of His body broken for me, I now find communion overwhelming; often I can hardly swallow. Why is this?

I have written in previous posts that when one spouse is engaged in such a persistent pattern of evil, this opens the marriage and home to the demonic in no small measure.[2]  Like Count Dracula, evil enters when welcomed into the house by one, but affects everyone in the household.  But let me be even more graphic than the authors I cited: sexual unfaithfulness opens the wife's body to evil. The wife of a sex addict takes the "dis-ease" into herself. Newlyweds join together in many areas of life - finances, households, parenting. But in the marital act, we wives take our husbands into ourselves. The "in-ness" and oneness of intercourse is tangible, symbolizing the "in-ness" of the Holy Trinity and of Christ in us, Christ through us, Christ over us.

In contrast, sexual unfaithfulness is an act of betrayal, dirtying, and disdain. When we hear details of it in any context we want to vomit, or at least take a very long shower. In communion, I experience the jarring contrast between sexual betrayal and Christ's sacrifice.

During communion I weep silently as I swallow the bread and wine. Perhaps taking Jesus' body into myself in communion is the only act of sacrifice, cleansing, and acceptance sufficient to counter the evil acts of betrayal, dirtying, and disdain that comprise sexual unfaithfulness.  Perhaps communion is a symbol of the only thing on earth powerful enough to cleanse me from the inside out.  

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[1] Tim Keller, The Reason For God (unknown page.)
[2] See Blog Post May 15, 2014 " Part 8: Sex Addiction Opens Marriage to the Demonic", citing,  L. Hall, An Affair of the Mind, p. 117, 121, and also citing, Dr. Ron Miller, “Personality Traits of the Carnal Mind” p. 53.
[3] Isaiah 53:3 "He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem."