(From the Current Series Nagging Questions)

Quite honestly, I hope you (the unfaithful) will not ever be the same ever again. I hope this would be the change you didn’t even know you were looking for, but have finally found.

I’m also quite sure your spouse is probably hoping you’re never the same again either. They may secretly want to go back to the way life was before the affair, or even before the affair was known, yet reality is that life is gone. We’ve taken from them the illusion that that life was perfect. It wasn’t perfect, because we hid a great secret from them. It doesn’t mean life is now void of meaning or joy though. It can and will one day return again, and the sooner you get serious about recovery, the sooner the joy and new normal will arrive.

Not too long ago I was listening to Samantha share with other women how this whole nightmare affected our lives and she said something that was very moving. She was telling our story and then said this: “I had prayed for change to Samuel and to our situation for years, but it never came. I thought God wasn’t going to do anything about it and I was just left for dead to deal with it. Then this all happened and came out. While it’s not the way I wanted change to come, I’m so glad it did and I’m so glad it happened. It changed me, it changed Samuel, it changed our theology. I hope we’re never the same again.”

If I may be so bold with you, the unfaithful, you shouldn’t want to be the same again. You shouldn’t want to be able to cheat again and justify it over and over again if that’s what you did. You shouldn’t want to have another affair. You shouldn’t want to live a double life again. You shouldn’t want to ever see the same hurt or pain in your spouse’s eyes again. You shouldn’t want to have to relive this nightmare all over again. You should want to see God differently, and your kids differently and your spouse differently and life as a whole differently. I pray you’re never the same again and you begin to make the changes you want to make. I hope you’ll humble yourself, rather than having to be humbled.  

I also hope you, the betrayed, won’t let life just return to business as usual. It’s a trap and it’s probably going to increase the chances of relapse for the unfaithful. I know it hurts like hell. I know you probably wish the nightmare would end and you could wake up and then go back to the life you once knew.  I’m sorry, but you can’t.  However, life can in fact, become richer and more profound for you both.  I’m living proof it can. It won’t ‘just happen’ and it won’t happen overnight, but it can happen. Forge ahead today my friend. Refuse to give up or return to the old life.