Confessing Adultry to Your Spouse

[Joseph_L_Varga]

Please stop holding back in your opinions. Try to express yourself a little bit better!!!

Thanks, Serap. I’ll make an effort, I promise!

 

[freerf]

My Catholic translation of Matthew 19:9 is this: [Jesus speaking] “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” The words seem clear to me.

Interesting. The “Catholic” version takes some liberties with the translation.

“And I say to you, Whoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery: and whoever marries her which is put away does commit adultery” American King James Version

 

[catharina]

Interesting. The “Catholic” version takes some liberties with the translation.

“And I say to you, Whoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, commits adultery: and whoever marries her which is put away does commit adultery” American King James Version

Of course it’s the Catholic Church who assembled and safeguarded the Holy Bible.
The KJV flowed from the Protestant uprising. It’s a version that is less than 500 yrs old.

 

[odile53]

I’m a woman, and I wouldn’t want to know. Let the dead bury the dead, so to speak. I’d rather he turned his energies on fixing whatever it is in himself or in the marriage (or both) that precipitated the cheating in the first place, and keep his mouth shut. There is no useful purpose to be served by “confessing” to me, and it would just be hurtful.

As far as health-related issues are concerned, that’s why I go to my doctor for an annual physical.

 

[faithfully]

I’m a woman, and I wouldn’t want to know. Let the dead bury the dead, so to speak. I’d rather he turned his energies on fixing whatever it is in himself or in the marriage (or both) that precipitated the cheating in the first place, and keep his mouth shut. There is no useful purpose to be served by “confessing” to me, and it would just be hurtful.

As far as health-related issues are concerned, that’s why I go to my doctor for an annual physical.

And so if your doctor called to tell you you had an std you wouldn’t think that was odd? Like… hmmm, I wonder how I got that… or WHEN??? What if you contracted something like HPV 5 years ago when you were 25, but your doc. doesn’t recommend it until age 30. And now you get to wait and see if you end up with ovarian cancer… Or you contracted a fertility destroying disease 5 years ago, but now it’s too late to save your fertility? And you know, you wouldn’t necessarily have a complete std panel done, unless you were presenting in a fashion that suggested you should get a specific test.

Perhaps not issues you personally would be concerned about. But there are diseases when treated PROMPTLY a person might not live through something devistating…

 

[odhiambo]

Lots of private sins are to be kept that way: private.

‘That is why a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?
Matthew 19:5
Husband and wife is a unit in this regard. My body is in effect his and his is mine.

 

[hazcompat]

How many times did our Lord stumble?

peace

 

[onmyknees]

And so if your doctor called to tell you you had an std you wouldn’t think that was odd? Like… hmmm, I wonder how I got that… or WHEN??? What if you contracted something like HPV 5 years ago when you were 25, but your doc. doesn’t recommend it until age 30. And now you get to wait and see if you end up with ovarian cancer… Or you contracted a fertility destroying disease 5 years ago, but now it’s too late to save your fertility? And you know, you wouldn’t necessarily have a complete std panel done, unless you were presenting in a fashion that suggested you should get a specific test.

Perhaps not issues you personally would be concerned about. But there are diseases when treated PROMPTLY a person might not live through something devistating…

I would still not want to be told. The emotional pain of knowing would be far greater for me to live with than contracting a disease even if I died from it. I would then be at last with my eternal spouse.

 

[KostyaJMJ]

I will also submit that the insistence on “keeping it a secret just to protect the wronged/innocent spouse from anguish” is nothing but a bald-faced lie. It has nothing to do with protecting the innocent spouse, and everything to do with the cheater trying to protect his/her own ***. And that’s how cheaters become murderers, by living this lie, and by taking the lie to its logical conclusion.

Seems a little unlikely. The hypothetical is asking if you were somehow magically able to decide knowing or not. I will take my chances. What are the odds of a false negative on an HPV test or HIV test? What are the odds that the strain of HPV will develop into cancer? I think I will take those chances any day in exchange for peace of mind. I take bigger risks than that all the time and get much less in return. Besides that, cheating doesn’t always involve sex much less unprotected sex with 4-5 random strangers. Should the spouse be told if their partner makes out with some stranger in a bar, or gets a lap dance? Most people would consider that cheating, but the odds of spreading a STD are much lower.

There are some things that I am just better off not knowing. If I am hard to live with now it is nothing compared to how I would be with a cheating wife. I would never lose another argument for the rest of my life. I would have such dark thoughts of revenge that I wouldn’t be able to think straight. And honestly, I would probably divorce and seek an annulment. It would ruin me, my kids, and my marriage. What possible good could outweigh all of that?

 

[faithfully]

I would still not want to be told. The emotional pain of knowing would be far greater for me to live with than contracting a disease even if I died from it. I would then be at last with my eternal spouse.

Wow…Ok… I guess if your health is less important than your emotions. I certainly can’t argue that.

I just know I’d heal from a broken heart… and I want to be around to see my children have children… Our time here is so little and precious… I can’t imagine letting go early just so I could be happy with a cheater…

This has been a very enlightening thread…

 

[runwaymodel]

Wow…Ok… I guess if your health is less important than your emotions. I certainly can’t argue that.

I just know I’d heal from a broken heart… and I want to be around to see my children have children… Our time here is so little and precious… I can’t imagine letting go early just so I could be happy with a cheater…

This has been a very enlightening thread…

Agree. Enlightening and quite shocking…

 

[GraceDK]

Agree. Enlightening and quite shocking…

Indeed it is.
Walking in the Truth to me must mean that if something so huge happens in one’s marriage then it needs to be dealt with openly and honestly between the spouses. In secret at least one of them will not be the same and will probably be heavily weighed down by what he/she has done.
My experience is that shame exposed to the light is most adequately dealt with.

 

[cviolette]

Do you really think that adultery will happen in a healthy, happy marriage? I think the marriage was already broke before the adultery happened. So do you tell your spouse and work together and try to fix the marriage with everything out in the open? Or do you stop the affair, confess, repent and try to fix the marriage but still keeping a major secret. Either way the marriage needs repairing.

 

[mark_a]

This could never happen to me, my spouse is a Christian!

 

[catharina]

Do you really think that adultery will happen in a healthy, happy marriage? I think the marriage was already broke before the adultery happened. So do you tell your spouse and work together and try to fix the marriage with everything out in the open? Or do you stop the affair, confess, repent and try to fix the marriage but still keeping a major secret. Either way the marriage needs repairing.

If you don’t mind my asking -
how did the meeting go with those who might be able to help you?

 

[cviolette]

If you don’t mind my asking -
how did the meeting go with those who might be able to help you?

Great. Spent 3 hours talking. They thought it was best if I just meet with one person. He is great. And wasn’t all nervous about getting everything out in the open. Went over everything about me, my husband and about how I am not there for the children. He asked a ton of questions. He also wants to meet with my husband. But so far my husband refuses. But I’ll keep pushing. I am doing a mini-retreat tomorrow. So daily mass, counseling, testing and surrounding myself with better people. I feel more engaged now.

 

[Barish]

None of these. “You broke your vow and you need to confess.” I have no right to anything.

 

[catharina]

Great. Spent 3 hours talking. They thought it was best if I just meet with one person. He is great. And wasn’t all nervous about getting everything out in the open. Went over everything about me, my husband and about how I am not there for the children. He asked a ton of questions. He also wants to meet with my husband. But so far my husband refuses. But I’ll keep pushing. I am doing a mini-retreat tomorrow. So daily mass, counseling, testing and surrounding myself with better people. I feel more engaged now.

Lovely.

Thanks for the update.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

I gave my point of view and having said that, I am 99.9% sure my husband would never cheat on me. We have a lot of trust in our marriage. He’s just not the cheating type.

We don’t talk about cheating and never have b/c it’s a non issue for us.

Serap, your comment and EasterJoy’s comment (I quote her below) forced me to think a bit seriously about possible “conversations”.

I have seen some good marriages, and marriages that were more than bad - some ugly marriages. One good marriage is my sister’s marriage. Indeed, in her marriage, there’s no talking about “if you are ever going to cheat on me, (tell me) or (don’t tell me)”. A conversation like that would be similar to me telling my mom, whom I adore, “Mom, if you ever show up with an AK-47 to shoot me”, or my mom telling me, “Son, if you are ever going to hurl a live grenade into our dining room during family lunch on Sunday”. It would just be - surreal. I adore my family, and tend to think that nothing short of being bitten by a rabid dog and going insane myself with rabies would ever make me hurl live grenades into my family’s living room (or anybody else’s living room, short of being in a war zone and fighting the terrorists or something).

Now, ugly marriages are a different business… My father was a cheater, but he was also someone who would lie to you face-to-face, and I think no amount of discussion would have made him come to his senses. Discussion with my father was futile… Finally it came to separation and divorce, when I was 5 years old. And that divorce is frankly the best thing that could happen to us. Peace and happiness only returned to our home after dad was gone.

That also isn’t how I’d bring up questions about anything important. I wouldn’t even ask about a new dent in the car like that. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a time and place to talk about serious topics.

There have been times when we hear of someone who has cheated and the topic comes up: How would you deal with that? Have you ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend cheat on you? Friends who cheated on their boyfriend/girlfriend? What did you take away from that? What if you were the one who did it? What if one of your friends tried to seduce me? If I messed up, what would you want me to do? Why even ask a question like that? Because there have been too many who have gone before me who were quite sure they’d never do such a thing. There but for the grace of God…I’d like to think I couldn’t cheat or kill anyone or anything like that, but I feel sure that better than I have fallen. I believe it is arrogant to think I am incapable of this sin or that one.

People don’t like to talk about how they feel about cheating, what kind of funeral they want, what kind of end-of-life care they want and how they understand the teachings of the Church on that, what they’d do if they lost their earning capacity, whether they would take the in-laws in rather than send them to a nursing home, what they’d do if a child was sexually active or using drugs or had gotten an abortion, and so on. It doesn’t mean the topics should not come up.

EasterJoy, I appreciate your comment. It gives me something to think about, i.e. what kind of discussions could strengthen and affair-proof a marriage. The fictitious discussions I created were totally tongue-in-cheek, wondering at how surreal it would be for someone to suddenly and abruptly approach their spouse about the subject. But frankly, I did not have a really useful idea about how to start such a conversation.

I would like to think that if you are in a marriage (and in a good marriage, not something ugly and beyond repair), you would daily pay attention and talk as necessary about your spouse’s and your own needs and well-being, and such communication should ideally (most of the time) prevent tensions from ever escalating to the point at which one spouse cheats on the other. Kind of like parents having a good communication with their children should ideally (most of the time) prevent “Columbine High School shooting sprees”. But maybe not all the time. Tragedies happen despite our best efforts.

Trying to translate your advice to a “Columbine shooting spree” - just to make sure I understand it right - a discussion shouldn’t start with something abrupt us “OK, Son, so if you are going to shoot up your high school”. It’s more like there should be more frequent, ongoing communication about how your child feels at school, whether the atmosphere is good or is there any tension or bullying, etc. And, if God forbid, we hear in the news that another shooting spree happened somewhere, that’s a good occasion to bring it up and discuss it with my children, even if there’s no indication that my own children are currently planning to do anything like that. This could be a way to start discussions about difficult subjects, in a relaxed and low-tension atmosphere. And, of course, look out for any tensions that need to be addressed, way before they escalate to the point of tragic events.

 

[Joseph_L_Varga]

He also wants to meet with my husband. But so far my husband refuses.

Violette, I think that’s a wonderful idea to have a good Christian man meet your husband and mediate between you and him. It truly saddens me to hear that your husband refuses. Does he love you at all? Does he care at all?

Praying for you and your family.