seeking positive advice

[bee88]

Thank you! Yes agreed we can be so weak specifically when we dont have our eyes on Christ!

 

[dabodab]

Thank you so much for sharing your testimony about your marriage. It blesses my heart and gives me hope when I hear someone report they have chosen to forgive to make your marriage work! God bless you ... Further... To realize how much your choice will be a blessing and, actually, a legacy for your family. Please believe that. When you have pangs of disappointment and unforgiveness, please rest assured of your gift of that legacy to your family, of your trust in God to complete the good work HE has begun in you, and rest assured that God will see you through. Our feelings are so fickle. Don't trust them. The truth is we cannot love for even one day on our own power...well. Your husbands unfaithfulness will now cause you to live in Christ and depend on Him for your worth. Proverbs 31:10-12 "A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband has full confidence in her and lacks nothing of value. She brings him good, not harm, all the days of her life." Many desire to be this woman. I do. You are on your way!

I didn't follow your path. I sought relief from my unforgiveness toward my cheating husband by running far away with our two young children. Got rid of that cheater. Kids will be better off without a lying cheating father, I thought. I could take care of them myself. He never did anything of substance anyways. Mostly because I didn't believe he could or would, so I did everything. Now I just have one less child to feed. I believed so many lies!

We divorced and I continued to love God and go to church. But poverty and loneliness caused me to seek comfort in men and the longing for a second marriage, so the story didn't go well after that. 20 years later I and my children suffer for the mistake I made chasing my 'right' to leave a cheating spouse and never come back. I didn't even try to forgive. Now, after being back in God's love and basking in His goodness after 20 years of playing the prodigal, I can honestly say that trying forgiveness would have been a much better road for me and my children. And for their father. Not to mention the implications of living a life without God's love and direction. And on and on! You get the gruesome idea. It was awful.

Thanks again for your story of hope and healing, and try never to give up on our forgiving and gracious God! HE will compete you, and see your marriage thru. It's what HE wants and therefore HE will do it.

 

[bee88]

I can't thank you enough for your kind word...that truly meant a lot to me. I pray that I am blessed with all of those things. I see so many marriages fall apart it breaks my heart. This world is crazy and we have to guard our hearts. Thank you for sharing so much with me it was truly a blessing !!

 

[Michelleks]

Do not forgive, does not do any good. The harm is done, if we do not forgive, the healing will never begin!and the harm will be going on and on.
let the healing start, with peaceful and loving daily life.
Love, with no fear, no doubt.
Believe in The Lord, what he gives us, is the best for us.

 

[tourist]

I too had these same feelings. A lot goes into staying or leaving a marriage, it's not as easy as saying well you cheated on me so I am leaving you. This was my first response and I did leave and I stayed gone for awhile. My mind set changed when I prayed to God to help me forgive not to be with my husband but to forgive him because even if I divorced him he would be the father of my child ( second one was not born yet) forever... so at some point married not married id have to find some grounds of forgiveness. I never thought I would stay if someone cheated on me ever... If you could have felt my pain and been in the room the first time we met with a therapist you would have know my intentions was to hear its okay to leave him..I could not drive in the same car with him on the way to the therapists house and I told him to never touch me ever again. When I sat in that room with him for the first time after he told me...The only thing I could do was cry. The only thing I wanted was my husband to comfort me but I could not stand the though of him...yet I yearned to be with him. You have to understand we had both fell away from our "christian" life style and even though we both has "excepted" Christ we had never committed our lives to him or lived that way. My husband deserved me to divorce him..he deserved to lose his family...just as I DONT deserve Christ and the gift he has given of forging ALL of my sins. God calls us to forgive...I believe I could have left him and that I would have been doing nothing wrong if I did. The first things the therapist said to me was " you have every right to divorcee your husband you have every right to not listen to what he has to say...BUT what do you want out of this" Thats something I had to ask myself and be very honest about...I spoke with the therapist the next day on the phone and thats when I knew I wanted to try atleast try not go back or say yes this will work but try and this is what I told my husband and the therapist...I believe I can leave and Christ will heal the damage you have done...but I also know that God hates divorce more than anything and he calls us to forgive as he has forgiven us..I know this will be the hardest thing I will ever have to do but if I don't try how will I know if God can bless this marriage he has never been given the chance to. Three months later I put my wedding ring back on and gave my husband a new wedding band as a gift. If you could just have seen the look on his face...he cried ... my husband does not cry a lot .... when he took the ring out of the box he looked me in my eyes and said I WILL NEVER be that man again that hurt you I will never dishonor you or my family again. I believed he meant that... I deal with forgiving him every day... but one thing I do know is if I had to do it over id make the same choice...I know its not a choice that every women would have made and I don't expect that... cheating is a reason to leave and a good one. But its not as black and white as loyalty... God bless

This story is amazing. I appreciate that you were able to share this despite the harsh memories and the continued pain and sense of loss in your heart. God Bless You.

 

[Jamal]

Yes, it's commendable to have stayed in the relationship. Forgiveness is divine. I don't know if this helps, but when a man cheats, it's probably much more of a superficial physical thing than if a woman would cheat. Don't look back, only look forward.

 

[bee88]

Yes that does help my husband has told me over and over when I'm having a hard time that it was a lot of "talk" about how great it would be and in the moment it was a major let down . He says it does not come close to what we physically / sexually share. I hope and pray he is telling the truth. I believe he is because I know even for him some days it would have been easier to not deal with the heartache he caused and be alone but he has worked hard to help me heal and trust is building slowly .