QUESTION: I have only been married four short years this December. I just learned my husband committed adultery on at least 2 occasions with a prostitute. He says he is sorry and wants to salvage the marriage. I have conflicting emotions from moment to moment. If we as Christians are supposed to forgive others for their sins, why does God allow for divorce when a spouse is unfaithful? I find it hard to believe that a marriage can survive infidelity and I am wondering how one ever trusts their spouse again after this type of betrayal? We are both Christians. He was saved three years ago, no religious upbringing. We do not have a Church home and share no Christian friends. We sought counsel from a Christian and that counselor told me that I had approximately 30 days from discovery to either remain, forgive and never speak of the adultery again or divorce. He says that the 30 days is biblical. I have never heard of this nor have I read it in the Bible. I think if I choose to stay within the marriage it should be based on my spouse’s behavior. I appreciate any information you may have and I thank you for your time.
Answer: I am so very, very sorry for the pain you are experiencing. Your conflicting emotions are totally normal and to be expected.
The biggest thing you need to know is that there is a difference between forgiving someone and trusting him again. They are not the same. When we forgive, we release the other person from our desire to exact revenge on them for hurting us. We let go of their sin against us into God’s hands so that He can deal with them. But broken trust is another matter; it needs to be earned back, and that takes time-a good amount of time, consisting of one faithful, responsible, caring choice after another.
In order to understand God’s allowance for divorce, consider what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 19:8-“Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.” The Lord allows for divorce as a matter of love and grace for the one being hurt by a hard-hearted spouse. In the case of infidelity, when a spouse is repentant and truly wants to mend the marriage, God’s desire is that He glorifies Himself in the marriage by demonstrating His power and grace in the relationship.
There are many spouses who will attest to the fact that there is indeed trust after betrayal if the unfaithful one truly repents and commits to faithfulness. But it takes time, like I said. Probably close to a year minimum.
I disagree with the 30-day ultimatum. I see nothing in the Bible that says that. I do agree that if you choose to stay in the marriage it would depend on whether your husband shows remorse, demonstrates repentance, seeks accountability and is willing for his whereabouts to be checked on at all times. People who are hiding nothing have nothing to fear from accountability.
Here is a link to the Midlife Dimensions website, which offers help and resources for dealing with an affair: www.midlife.com/html/resources/articles/category_affairs.htm. I am concerned that you two are not plugged into a church home and therefore do not have any support system. This is going to make recovery unnecessarily difficult.
I would hope that one way your husband could show you he’s serious about mending your marriage is to find a church home and get connected to other people who will help support your marriage. God never intended for us to be “Lone Ranger Christians.” His intent is for us to be knitted into the body of Christ for support and as a way to receive His various kinds of grace.
You are cheating yourself and yourselves to not be connected to an important source of life and strength. I want to strongly suggest that you make this a priority.
I hope you find this helpful.
Sue Bohlin
P.S. You might also poke around the New Life website (www.newlife.com) and educate yourself on sex addiction. If it were me, I would want to know what drove my husband to a prostitute. I would also want to know if my actions played any part in it. (For example, this is one reason the apostle Paul tells married people not to deprive each other sexually.) It sounds like you have an opportunity to each look at your own “stuff” and see what you can both do to build the marriage, as long as he’s serious about it.
© 2006 Probe Ministries
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker with Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 30 years. She serves as a Mentor Mom and speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers), and on the board and as a small group leader of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. She is also a professional calligrapher and the webmistress for Probe Ministries; but most importantly, she is the wife of Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two grown sons.
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We’d like to direct you to an article that where the author, Amber Arlene tells her story of how she finally came to a place of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness after she found out her husband had been having sex with prostitutes. To read this web site article, please click onto the link provided below:
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(USA) Is there a blog for Christian support?
(USA) I don’t know of any blogs giving Christian support for this off-hand, but maybe someone else does that will see your comment and will post it here. I know that we would greatly welcome those that would use this web site as a starting place to support each other in Christian love, when it comes to dealing with their husband’s adultery with prostitutes.
We have heard from quite a few women in the past who have had to deal with this heart-breaking issue in their marriages. Sadly, it’s not as uncommon as one may believe. Please know that our hearts are with you. We pray the Lord will comfort you and give you help and hope as you look to heal your heart after being betrayed in this way.
If you or anyone else would like to use this comment section to pour your heart out or pose questions to others, please feel free to do so. This is a safe place where no one has to know your name or specifics. It’s also a place where you can deal with this in community with others who can help you get beyond the devastation that can occur within your heart and your marriage.
(NIGERIA) My husband is a Pastor and is constantly having emotional affairs, with people I do not know. When we first got married (8 years ago), the pattern was to mention if we made a new friend and give each other the details.
He stopped doing that long ago. 2 weeks ago, he said he had some things to tell me, but thinks by the time he is done I will not be fit to go to work. He promised to tell me last Friday but did not. I keep seeing strange text messages from him and to him.
I have mentioned that it will be nice to clear his heart so the coming year can be started on a fresh note. This is not the 1st time he will confess he is doing something inappropriate. I never know the details of the affairs. I don’t know anything about these ladies.
I want him to stop. The suspense is killing me. I have constant pain in my heart/chest.
I am thinking of bring in a common friend, who will ask him to take me to another room and with just 2 of us… he should tell me anything he wants. The person’s role is not to know what I am told but to manage the impact on me. Will that give him confidence?
Please help me. Can a man who has had an emotional affair tell me what he would want if he were my husband? He has indicated interest in talking but is has not come around to it.
WHAT SHOULD I DO? I AM BREAKING UP. MY HEALTH IS AT STAKE.
(USA) Dear Tito, I’m sure there are many who have read what you are going through who, along with me, truly hurt for you. It must be an unimaginable pain to suspect your husband of this type of betrayal. Please know that we weep and hurt with your tears.
As far as what you can do, I have to say that because you aren’t exactly sure how deeply your husband is involved in sexual temptation and sin, it makes all of this more difficult to deal with. I will point you in a few directions praying they will help. But somehow, you need to talk with your husband about this so you know exactly what you are dealing with and what he has done. Whether you do this with a friend in the other room or not, it’s something you need to pray about. I trust that God will reveal this to you.
But you need to talk to your husband somehow, sometime soon. Often times the imagination can take you places that are untrue. The Bible tells us to “cast down” false imaginations because they can lead us astray. You can’t cast down what is false, until you know what is true. Often times, what we don’t know CAN hurt us worse than knowing the truth because that which is allowed to grow in darkness can become all the more sinister and difficult to overcome. It appears your husband has a lot of activity that is growing in the darkness right now.
Obviously, you and your husband need help. The Bible says, “the truth will set you free.” And in your case, as difficult as facing the truth may be, you will then be free to grieve through that which you KNOW to be true, and you will be freer to find the help that is needed. It sounds like your husband is deeply involved in that which is keeping him a prisoner to sin. I pray that as you talk together, God will help both of you to find a way out of that entanglement.
If you notice in the article we have posted above, I added an additional link to an article on working through the same type of betrayal. Because you aren’t sure if you are dealing with emotional and/or physical affairs, cybersex, prostitutes, or exactly what… you need to find out so you can get the right type of help.
Because you are a pastor’s wife, I have additional help to point you towards. Those who are in full-time ministry have a special target aimed at their marriages and personal walks because the enemy of our faith knows that when we fall, potentially many others could fall as well. That is one of the reasons we have a section for “Pastors and Spouses” where we have articles posted as well as testimonies, and links to other ministries that can help you.
Please go through the links provided and see where you believe God is leading you. Two that come immediately to mind are: Parsonage.org as well as Pastorswives.org which reaches out to help pastor’s wives in one-on-one ways. Pastorswife.com gives you a newsletter– which can be good, however Pastorswives.org appears to go beyond this to give you personal attention. You will see other web site links in this section could help you as well. I’m not sure which ones exactly you will need, but God does.
If you are dealing with “Pornography and Cybersex” we have a section on this as well, that you could find helpful. The link to the ministry of “Faithful and True” might be helpful — especially if you are dealing with prostitutes because Dr Mark Laaser dealt with that in his own life. Also, “New Life Partners.org” helps women “whose lives have been impacted by husbands caught in the web of pornography and/or sexual addiction.” I’ve recommended this ministry to other women and they have given me good feedback as to the help they are receiving.
So I believe you have some good places to start as soon as you know exactly what you are dealing with, concerning your husband. In all of these sections, as well as the sections on “Extramarital Affairs” and “Emotional Infidelity” and “Surviving Infidelity” there are links and recommended resources and articles that can help you AND your husband, if he is repentant and open to it. I pray he will be.
Please know that you aren’t alone in this. You may feel alone because you may not feel like you can talk about this to very many people –especially being a pastor’s wife, but please don’t allow the enemy of your faith to fool you into thinking that you are alone. There are many of us who will be praying for you. And God is only a whisper away.
Sometimes the enemy of our faith tries to deceive us into thinking we are isolated from those who would care and could help. But that is a lie. We are “surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses” even when we don’t realize it. I pray you will know that you are loved and cared about by many others that you may not see. God Himself, will never leave you nor forsake you — no matter what your perceptions will try to do to fool you otherwise.
The links and articles I am pointing you towards, will also give you another avenue of outreach to find healing through which God can breathe hope, and give you added help. I pray you take advantage of all that is available. May God help you in every way that you need it!!!
(USA) Indeed, Satan and the demons will attack severely the marriage of true servants of God because their downfall would lead also to more downfalls of the believers or lead to the backsliding of other brethren.
As a wife, we know that we become ONE in marriage with our husband. That is why as long as we are doing the will of God, we want our husband to do the same, since we love our husband.
Before, once my husband backslid, I felt like the whole blame was put on me because I am the wife. I started also to question the kind of wife I was to my husband and why he committed such sins. But when I read the Holy Bible that says each of us should work well with our own salvation, then that’s the start where I became less affected by the backsliding of my husband –especially since we are both Christians.
My husband is my responsibility in all aspects except SPIRITUALLY, especially since we are both reading the Holy Bible daily. It is his own accountability to God if he does not apply it to his life in order to be saved. In order to be saved, he must be strong against temptations. His will power must be strong. Strength against prostitutes or pornography does not come from the wife but from the husband himself.
We should all be reminded… "Many were called, but FEW were chosen" — depending on our faithfulness to God. The road to heaven is too narrow. So wives, don’t die thinking you will go to heaven alone or without your husband since there is no more marriage in heaven. We will just be glorifying the Holy Father alone.
Therefore, let not the INFIDELITY of our husbands pull us down to unbearable jealousy, self-pity, depression and immorality as well. GOD the Father in heaven should be our FIRST LOVE and TRUE LOVE so that we could survive any emotional pains that our sinning husbands will cause us.
(USA) This is an area where I believe one should be educated before speaking or offering advice. Her husband’s use of prostitutes does not fall under the same category of adultery. It isn’t even remotely close. He is a sexual addict. The writer of this article should go back and do some research on this topic before trying to offer advice for something she knows nothing about. That’s the problem with all these websites, they all mean well but most people writing them don’t have a clue as to what they are really talking about.
If your spouse’s "adultery" includes, porn, strippers, prostitutes, fetishes, etc you are not dealing with the good old American affair. These are all signs of a sexual addiction.
I am appalled that a christian counselor would have the audacity to say: "If it were me, I would want to know what drove my husband to a prostitute. I would also want to know if my actions played any part in it. (For example, this is one reason the apostle Paul tells married people not to deprive each other sexually.) It sounds like you have an opportunity to each look at your own “stuff” and see what you can both do to build the marriage, as long as he’s serious about it."
The lady was not to blame in any way, to tell her that withholding herself could have let to this is appalling. Educate yourself before you try and use God’s words to inflict more self blame on someone who is going through the most devastating time in her life.
Most likely as many of us "partners of SA’s" experience, we suffer from codependency or are co-addicts. We know something’s not right, but just can’t put our finger on it so we either go above and beyond to try and fix, repair, save, rebuild by doing things most spouses wouldn’t dream of. Either that or we shut down emotionally to keep from being hurt. Right or wrong doesn’t matter, so even if she had been withholding from him, it wasn’t to just be mean or selfish, it was probably the only thing she knew to do, but don’t you dare tell her it may be her fault.
She is not to blame in anyway, her husband is emotionally immature and this is the method he has chosen to hide and cover his emotions to make himself feel better.
The only part of this article that I even remotely agree with is that yes, with the right help and counseling and her husband’s willingness to make it right, it is possible to rebuild and heal. But only if he is truly sorry for what he’s done.
In my own experience I can honestly say that it is not an easy road, because chances are there has been much more than just the 2 he confessed to. That’s the way the addiction works. The best piece of advice I ever received was the person who wrote. "Don’t be surprised if there is more". If your husband came to you and confessed, you have hope. If he just got caught, well that’s a tougher road to take and I wouldn’t be so fast to believe him.
There are several online programs that can help, as well as books that are available. You can try http://www.settingcaptivesfree.com they offer a biblical approach to healing for addicts as well as partners, although I didn’t agree with some of it, it did help in the initial discovery phase if you use the information. There is also http://www.recoverynation.com. This site is not biblically based but it is a good site that will help you to understand addiction and it’s causes.
There are many good books, but the best place to start is Out of the Shadows by Patrick Carnes. I would also recommend Don’t Call it Love and Contrary to love. There are Christian support groups available for partners at Yahoo groups. And you can also do a search online for partners of sexual addicts support, many will come up.
(USA) I am afraid that my husband is an addict also. He got caught, initially he lied, I even asked him to swear on my life and he did. Once he realized that he had no way out, he finally fessed up to two incidents with strippers. He paid them to take him in a private room where the man lays down on a bed and the prostitute has only a g-string on. I don’t need to go into what she does to him in there.
I’ve also caught him on porn sights and a dating website. He will not allow me to have access to his email. He said it is about privacy. I also caught him telling an old girlfriend that he was unhappy with me and other friends that he was going to leave me.
Now he professes his love, sends flowers, says he is so sorry and wants to prove his love and work on our marriage. Now I have reason to believe that he is back to his previous behavior and he is lying about it again. He lies about all sorts of things needlessly. For example, he got a phone call from a police dept asking for a donation and he did not want to donate, so he told them that he would but the poor soul lost his job. Big fat lie! I am numb from so many emotions now and I feel that the best thing for me is to break away and try to have a better life.
(USA) I have been married for 18 years and have had a difficult marriage from the start. My husband has mistreated me emotionally and physically (years ago – not currently physically), and has withheld himself from me to the point that I lost all confidence in my sexual nature. Getting older and having a hysterectomy hasn’t helped that at all. I walk closely with the Lord, but although he calls himself saved, he does not. He is not submitted to the Lord at all in the way he spends his time, money, or anything.
However, until recently he has always been faithful to me. He has come to me and told me that he is not happy, and wants more. Upon more questioning and many lies, I finally discovered that he is having an affair with a girl almost half his age, who is a stripper. To complicate matters though, he met her because my son was friends with her son. He has brought her son here to spend the weekend before and of course I didn’t know about what was going on at the time. My son has also spent the night at this woman’s house.
When I discovered everything, he claimed it was already over, but I saw some messages on his cell phone and confronted him again. He admitted that he’s not sure what he wants and when I asked him flat out if he wanted the marriage or her, he couldn’t answer me. He has told me that this is all my fault because I no longer drink (before I walked with the Lord I drank heavily) and I am no longer the “aggressor” in sex. This is apparently what he wants. He has gone so far as to say that he liked me better when I was drinking. She is also manipulating him by saying things like, “I’ve never let my children meet any of my other boyfriends”, and he said to me today, with tears in his eyes, that he can’t “leave those children”. After having spent 16 years ignoring our son, he suddenly spends a lot of time with him – because this friendship is his ticket to seeing this woman all the time.
I prayed when I discovered this and I felt the Lord told me that I have not done all I could and to love my husband as I am told in the Bible. But now with the continued lying and the fact that he won’t end it, I seem not to be hearing from the Lord (probably because I’m in shock, I haven’t slept in days), and I get conflicting advice from Christian friends. Can anyone tell me – is there any chance that he will come to his senses and come back to the Lord (and me)? I am unclear on what my next step should be, but my flesh wants to run and run fast, which is why I am waiting to get direction from the Lord. Thanks for anything you can tell me. I never imagined I would be in this situation after all the things I’ve stayed with him through. Blessings.
(UNITED STATES) Now is the time to stop cheating. It is not worth losing your soul mate over this. Be honest. Start fresh; the way to do that is to tell the truth.
(USA) I have been married for 8 years. I found out several months ago that my husband was cheating on me with prostitutes for at least 6 of those 8 years. I am lost. I love my husband and I believe that I should want to work it out. But how do I stay in a marriage in which there is no trust? He is very apologetic and is trying to work it out but I feel like it’s too little too late.
The adultery has left me so insecure. I was never the type of person who looked over my shoulders or tried to keep a tight reign on my husband. I had complete trust in him. Now, I find myself always second guessing myself. I feel inadequate. I feel like he is always looking around. I use to think I was attractive but now I feel like I’m not enough. I feel like he wants what I don’t have physically. He completely denies any of this. He says he loves me and that I’m beautiful but it doesn’t take away the fact that he went to prostitutes to fulfill a need that I couldn’t. I’m always waiting for him to do it again. People don’t really change, do they?
I feel completely alone and rejected not only by my husband but by God. It is too much for me to bear. We have three children and I am pregnant with our fourth. I also have a medical condition. I feel unloved and insignificant like I have been brushed aside at a time when I needed help the most. I’ve been to counseling for myself and as a couple. None of it seems to have helped instead it leaves me drained and depressed. I don’t know where to turn. I don’t know if I should leave or try to make a marriage work in which there is no trust.
(UNITED STATES) I too have been married for 22 years. I just found out a year ago he was seeing prostitues for 15 years, but the last 5 to 6 years was steady, like weekly. At first he said it was to explore and then it was about me; he said I was mean. His dad did the same thing but he says he’s not like his dad.
We are clean; no STD’s. He is a better man now, BUT I live with this pain everyday. I too have always loved him and trusted everything, and would he ever cheat on me? NO. But look what I’ve got now. YES, he did. I look for ways to let my mind let it go. It’s hard. Everyday it’s there.