Infidelity/resentment

[Foreverhis]

Hi there,

I’m new here and curious if anyone has had similar experience. Maybe you can offer some advice or just a listing ear. At the tail end of 2022, I found out my husband had a physical affair with a co worker- as well as online affairs with two other co-workers. He claims it was always just physical- not emotional. They’d send him pictures, etc.

We have been married for 13 years (12 at the time) and have four children. I made the difficult decision through a ton of prayer to stay with him. He has put in a ton of hard work to make us work again.

However, if I’m being completely honest, I struggle with resentment more than I’d like to admit. I was always trusting, understanding, giving benefits of the doubt. And now trusting him again is not coming easy. I feel like this past year has been stolen from me- as I try to heal and move forward. But it’s so hard sometimes. Even trying to give it to God and work through the pain, seems so difficult some days. Some days I’m okay- others I feel resentment bubbling up like no other. And I know it’s been a year, is it still normal to be feeling this way so far out?

Basically, I’m just asking if anyone has been there and can offer words of encouragement?

 

[Hidden In Him]

Hi there,

I’m new here and curious if anyone has had similar experience. Maybe you can offer some advice or just a listing ear. At the tail end of 2022, I found out my husband had a physical affair with a co worker- as well as online affairs with two other co-workers. He claims it was always just physical- not emotional. They’d send him pictures, etc.

We have been married for 13 years (12 at the time) and have four children. I made the difficult decision through a ton of prayer to stay with him. He has put in a ton of hard work to make us work again.

However, if I’m being completely honest, I struggle with resentment more than I’d like to admit. I was always trusting, understanding, giving benefits of the doubt. And now trusting him again is not coming easy. I feel like this past year has been stolen from me- as I try to heal and move forward. But it’s so hard sometimes. Even trying to give it to God and work through the pain, seems so difficult some days. Some days I’m okay- others I feel resentment bubbling up like no other. And I know it’s been a year, is it still normal to be feeling this way so far out?

Basically, I’m just asking if anyone has been there and can offer words of encouragement?

Well, I haven't been there, but I personally don't think that what you're experiencing is really all that out of the ordinary. Welcome to Christian Forums, btw.

Trust is VERY important in marriage, and once it's broken it will indeed take a lot of work to rebuild it. The best advice I can give you is two-fold:

1. You need to be honest with him that you're struggling. Don't put it to him as a complaint but more like just trying to confide in him about it. Maybe the next time things come up in conversation. But the other part to it is this:

2. Invest yourself increasingly in your relationship with the Lord, to the place that you can trust you will be ok regardless, and that He will take care of you. I can't imagine fears about potentially having to raise four kids by yourself would be very comforting. I also can't imagine feeling like you are potentially being used would be either. But if you place your life increasingly in His hands, your fears will increasingly subside, and you will be able to approach the situation with a level head. Sometimes that can be the toughest thing to come by when you are trying to get over a thing like infidelity.

Sorry if that was too direct, but I do at least know how important trust is in a marriage. Without it, it becomes like a sinking ship that you're forever trying to bail water out of just to stay afloat, so I can sympathize with your concerns.

God bless, and hopefully you get some additional answers. Just didn't want you to go without any response.

Welcome once again,
Hidden In Him

 

[Foreverhis]

Well, I haven't been there, but I personally don't think that what you're experiencing is really all that out of the ordinary. Welcome to Christian Forums, btw.

Trust is VERY important in marriage, and once it's broken it will indeed take a lot of work to rebuild it. The best advice I can give you is two-fold:

1. You need to be honest with him that you're struggling. Don't put it to him as a complaint but more like just trying to confide in him about it. Maybe the next time things come up in conversation. But the other part to it is this:

2. Invest yourself increasingly in your relationship with the Lord, to the place that you can trust you will be ok regardless, and that He will take care of you. I can't imagine fears about potentially having to raise four kids by yourself would be very comforting. I also can't imagine feeling like you are potentially being used would be either. But if you place your life increasingly in His hands, your fears will increasingly subside, and you will be able to approach the situation with a level head. Sometimes that can be the toughest thing to come by when you are trying to get over a thing like infidelity.

Sorry if that was too direct, but I do at least know how important trust is in a marriage. Without it, it becomes like a sinking ship that you're forever trying to bail water out of just to stay afloat, so I can sympathize with your concerns.

God bless, and hopefully you get some additional answers. Just didn't want you to go without any response.

Welcome once again,
Hidden In Him

Thank you for the response. I do believe and know to my core that focusing more on my relationship will definitely help me take my mind off of it and move forward.

I have tried many times to explain to my husband how I feel. It’s hard for him because all he feels is shame when I bring it up, and I don’t want him to feel that way because he really has put in a lot of hard work this past year.

 

[Tenchi]

Hi there,

I’m new here and curious if anyone has had similar experience. Maybe you can offer some advice or just a listing ear. At the tail end of 2022, I found out my husband had a physical affair with a co worker- as well as online affairs with two other co-workers. He claims it was always just physical- not emotional. They’d send him pictures, etc.

We have been married for 13 years (12 at the time) and have four children. I made the difficult decision through a ton of prayer to stay with him. He has put in a ton of hard work to make us work again.

What does it mean to "put in a ton of hard work"? How does God, the Designer and Center of marriage, figure into all this work? I ask because, if He isn't the Ultimate Foundation of your marriage - and your lives - your marriage will continue to be in jeopardy, not resting, as it should, upon its proper foundation.

However, if I’m being completely honest, I struggle with resentment more than I’d like to admit. I was always trusting, understanding, giving benefits of the doubt. And now trusting him again is not coming easy.

Is there some reason why it should? Forgiving your husband does not mean your trust in him, which he has severely damaged, should be rapidly restored. He must rebuild your trust and that takes time - much time, in light of how often he has betrayed your trust. And, again, if your husband hasn't had a reckoning with God about his sin, chances are, I'm afraid, he'll be back at it before too long.

I feel like this past year has been stolen from me- as I try to heal and move forward. But it’s so hard sometimes. Even trying to give it to God and work through the pain, seems so difficult some days.

And moving forward from such betrayal should not hurt as it does? Why?

In your giving of your pain to God are you also yielding yourself to His will and way throughout each day? He fills us with Himself, with His life, love, joy and power, only as we submit to Him. Too often, people want to interact with God on some other basis than inferior to Superior, servant to Master, sheep to Shepherd, etc. But He deals with only as the God He is, which means if we want Him to heal us and transform us, He has to be submitted to as our Boss all throughout each day. It's the way we agree to His transformation of us, which He won't initiate without our consent. As He (that is, His Spirit) is in control of you, over time He will increasingly fill and overflow from you, conforming you to Jesus, and in all of this bringing lasting and profound healing to you.

And I know it’s been a year, is it still normal to be feeling this way so far out?

I think so. But don't make an idol out of your hurt. It's easy to do. Looking at your pain, though, will never free you from it. Use the pain as a trigger, instead, to fix your eyes on the One with whom you will spend all of eternity.

Hebrews 12:1-3
1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

2 Corinthians 3:18
18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Lord, the Spirit.

 

[Foreverhis]

Yes, my husband has repented of his sins and honestly his relationship with God is stronger than it has ever been. That is what I mean by put in the hard work. As well as being completely transparent and forth coming with anything and everything that would be considered “personal.” He doesn’t do social media anymore, I have access to everything, etc. Again- like I said- hard work on his part to make amends.

Which is why I hate when I start to feel resentment, which is of the flesh I know. Basically, just asking if anyone has ever been there. And possibly understands how difficult such a betrayal is to recover from, even as a Christian- or maybe especially as a Christian.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Which is why I hate when I start to feel resentment, which is of the flesh I know. Basically, just asking if anyone has ever been there. And possibly understands how difficult such a betrayal is to recover from, even as a Christian- or maybe especially as a Christian.

What helps with resentments in general is looking at your own mistakes and failings, and that often comes through time spent in prayer. If you go to Him about it, He will start directing your mind to things you have done that weren't so smart, or weren't so caring, and it has a way of taking your mind off the sins of others and more unto the mistakes you've made, if not with them then elsewhere.

That's not something that is always well received coming from man, but when you are in prayer and it is coming from God, you know it's true, and the only thing left to do is to admit that you have done some dumb and hurtful things in the past too.

I think that's part of what I was referring to in drawing closer to God. The greater forgiveness you can show to him (especially when he knows how badly it hurt you), the more both he and the Lord will see it, and be drawn to see that you are cared for in return.

 

[Foreverhis]

What helps with resentments in general is looking at your own mistakes and failings, and that often comes through time spent in prayer. If you go to Him about it, He will start directing your mind to things you have done that weren't so smart, or weren't so caring, and it has a way of taking your mind off the sins of others and more unto the mistakes you've made, if not with them then elsewhere.

That's not something that is always well received coming from man, but when you are in prayer and it is coming from God, you know it's true, and the only thing left to do is to admit that you done some dumb and hurtful things in the past too.

I think that's part of what I was referring to in drawing closer to God. The greater forgiveness you can show to him (especially when he knows how badly it hurt you), the more both he and the Lord will see it, and be drawn to see that you are cared for in return.

Thank you for the encouragement, I appreciate it. This is something that is going to take more time and digging deeper in my relationship with God to heal from. There are simply some days where I succumb to flesh and feel very emotional still about the whole thing. But I know God is a healer.

 

[Tenchi]

Yes, my husband has repented of his sins and honestly his relationship with God is stronger than it has ever been. That is what I mean by put in the hard work. As well as being completely transparent and forth coming with anything and everything that would be considered “personal.” He doesn’t do social media anymore, I have access to everything, etc. Again- like I said- hard work on his part to make amends.

Which is why I hate when I start to feel resentment, which is of the flesh I know. Basically, just asking if anyone has ever been there. And possibly understands how difficult such a betrayal is to recover from, even as a Christian- or maybe especially as a Christian.

Is this I-know-what-it's-like sympathy of any real value, though? Will it help you become more like Christ and to love your husband in a Christ-like way? Or will it make you feel better, perhaps, about holding such resentment? You cannot win free of that upon which you're fixed. When your eyes are occupied with your hurt and resentment, they cannot be occupied with Christ. And the longer they remain fastened upon that hurt, the more certain it is that you'll be conformed to it. God's made us to be shaped by that upon which we focus. Companies spend billions of dollars every year in advertising in recognition of this conformity-to-focus principle in the human psyche. So, be very careful. Pain can be very absorbing; it can, by its sharpness, seem to deserve our close and frequent attention. But you will be, in one way or another, to one degree or another, conformed to it rather than coming free of it. In respect to this effect of pain, I speak from long and unhappy experience.

 

[journeyman]

Hello Foreverhis.
God bless you for your forgiving heart. Our Savior forgave His betrayers and I see Him in you and you in Him.
God give you peace in all things deat sister.

 

[Christ_empowered]

Hi


Just…a caution from a fellow believer. Be careful about marriage counseling and or personal counseling etc…


I’m not going to act as if I have any answers but I will say that the helping professions aren’t what they’re supposed to be. In some ways it’s the psychological side of the profession that is especially bad and potentially dangerous. Pills are not the best thing ever but it’s the talking treatments that can be dangerous and not at all of God.

You and your family are in my prayers. I just wanted to share a warning .

 

[Foreverhis]

Hello Foreverhis.
God bless you for your forgiving heart. Our Savior forgave His betrayers and I see Him in you and you in Him.
God give you peace in all things deat sister.

Thank you

 

[for_his_glory]

I was in your situation with my last husband cheating on me many times, but he not knowing I knew that he was. It's very devastating emotionally as it makes one feel they have no self worth not being desired of their husband anymore, losing all trust and as you put it, makes one very resentful as they are treated unfairly. I confronted him eventually about his affairs, but all I got was physically and emotionally beaten up for it and having him turn it on me that I was having affairs, but I never did. Long story short I eventually divorced him as he would not repent and ask forgiveness.

You are blessed that your husband turned it around and sought the Lord for forgiveness, but yet that trust has been broken on his part and will take sometime to build that trust up again. It's easy to forgive, but harder to forget and to rid oneself of the resentment and hurt.

All I can give is that you take this burden to the Lord and lay it at His feet and just take it a day at a time as the resentment will eventually go away the more you move past it and the trust will build itself once again as the both of you grow into a closer relationship with each other and the important part is to keep Christ in the middle of your marriage.

 

[Josef]

Hi there,

I’m new here and curious if anyone has had similar experience. Maybe you can offer some advice or just a listing ear. At the tail end of 2022, I found out my husband had a physical affair with a co worker- as well as online affairs with two other co-workers. He claims it was always just physical- not emotional. They’d send him pictures, etc.

We have been married for 13 years (12 at the time) and have four children. I made the difficult decision through a ton of prayer to stay with him. He has put in a ton of hard work to make us work again.

However, if I’m being completely honest, I struggle with resentment more than I’d like to admit. I was always trusting, understanding, giving benefits of the doubt. And now trusting him again is not coming easy. I feel like this past year has been stolen from me- as I try to heal and move forward. But it’s so hard sometimes. Even trying to give it to God and work through the pain, seems so difficult some days. Some days I’m okay- others I feel resentment bubbling up like no other. And I know it’s been a year, is it still normal to be feeling this way so far out?

Basically, I’m just asking if anyone has been there and can offer words of encouragement?

Hey All,
I read your post Foreverhis. I want to reach thru the screens, give you a big old hug, and say everything is going to be OK. And by God's grace it can be.
I want you to focus on now and the future.

What happened, and your reconciliation, are now in the past. Your flesh is second-guessing your spirit, and you are at war inside. That about right?

Now, how do you end the war?

Let's draw an analogy from World War 2.
Pearl Harbor suffered an unprovoked surprise attacked by Japan in 1941.
The US recovered, fought back and, in 1945, had the means to wipe the humanity of Japan off the face of the earth.
No country could have stopped the US from doing so.
The US stopped itself, and offered a peace treaty that was accepted.
There was an anti Japanese movement in the US during, and for awhile after the war.
Time began to heal the wounds of mistrust.
As a result, even though the US and Japan have had their differences, the relationship between the two countries remains a positively strong one.
They are allies now.

What caused the US to stop? Why not anilate the whole of Japan for what their government did? Because killing the innocent is always wrong.
(What a bunch of nonsense? How does this help? I would not fault you for thinking this. But I hope you understand what I am about to say a little easier by the analogy. )

Unprovoked surprise attack - the affair (s).
War - the time of difficulty and pain.
Had the means - divorce.
Peace treaty - reconciliation - (the restoration of friendly relations) - between you and your husband.
The anti-husband time - war inside you begins.
Time begins to heal - Healing has started, but you are not finished yet.

You have to end the second war before you can heal completely from the first.

You have to end the war within yourself.
You have to realize that continuous war, means continuous destruction.
You have to give yourself a peace treaty.
Because killing the innocent (you) is always wrong.
End the second war, and let the healing begin.

Healing takes pain.
I had a foot ulcer; an open wound on the ball of my foot. To get it to heal, I went to the podiatrist every two weeks. He would trim the flesh at edges of the wound to cause bleeding. The bleeding would stimulate new growth of healthy skin and eventually the wound closed.

I had to suffer temprary pain to achieve a healed foot.

So here's the stupid! (What I am about to say.)

End your war.
Live today for today and not for the past.
You don't look back.
Fix your eyes on the today and future.
Then you won't hurt the innocent. You.

To end your war inside, you must embrace it.
Pain and suffering are temporary necessary events in the healing process.
Recognize from where it comes.
Pain comes by looking at the past.
Healing comes from looking forward.
Walk forward into the future each day, with no looking back, to achieve forgiveness.
The innocent (you) are always worth saving.
Only look forward.
Walk toward the future.

Keep walking everybody,
May God bless,
Taz

 

[miamited]

Hi Foreverhis

Sad account. Marital unfaithfulness is a terribly emotional time. I'm glad you made the choice to stay and honor your faithfulness to God, despite anyone else's work in the matter.

As for the resentment and remembrance that may come to your mind to cause you anxiety... Prayer. But I think you should be honest with you husband about how you feel. Not in any kind of condemning or accusatory manner, but just so he knows that you're still struggling with it and the importance that he needs to keep his side of the bargain from now on because of all the still niggling pain that it's causing in your marriage. Just something as simple as in a moment of conversation tell him that you struggle with it still and you'd ask him to pray with you that God give you no more resentment. Pray together and God will know that it's the will of both of your hearts.

God bless,
Ted

 

[citrus]

I say get Christian counseling, but I know not everyone qualified to counsel is a good counselor. So keep that in mind, but really get it because everyone needs it. Even counselors need counseling. Men want to problem solve and come to answers, women think differently. We are so emotional. Now I am not saying that is bad. It is nessecery. A man wants to feel secure and have a safe place emotionally with a woman. Women need to say things like,"i feel" instead of " you make me feel." Say things like, " I feel great when we drink coffee together or I feel hurt when we don't drink coffee together because...." and so on. So you are giving a reason and explain why like, " it makes me feel better in starting our day together. I feel secure and noticed. This makes me look forward to seeing you later this evening." I'm not a counselor I just read it. When we say you it comes off as an attack and leaves it hanging on what problem it is and how to change it. Hope that helps.