So often, when we're confronted with something we're ashamed of, we tend to deflect. Point out the other person's dirty porch, rather than acknowledge that ours has some missing floor boards.
Almost without exception, when you question an unfaithful spouse about their questionable behavior, they will point at the things that are making them behave strangely, like, the shiny object over there. Or, they'll point toward you. They have been living a double life, a lie, so they have an ability to direct attention away from the obvious, with a precision that keeps your head spinning.
That whole thing is a form of abuse in itself.
It sucked to be suspicious for all those months. To have that little thing deep within my spirit that made me wonder, only to have it be dismissed.
Once, he was outside cleaning the inside of his truck. This wasn't a normal thing for him. He very rarely washed his truck, or cleaned the trash out. He told me that a girl from work needed him to pick her up, and give her a ride to work the next day. He said he thinks that she might have a crush on him, but that she was a sweet kid, and that he kind of felt sorry for her. She lived with her mom, whose birthday was only 2 weeks apart from his. This girl was literally young enough to be his daughter.
From the very early beginning of our relationship, he had established honesty as a virtue he held the most dear. He wouldn't even tell a white lie. He was brutally honest. Blunt. Proclaimed often that he didn't care what other people thought. He was going to say it like it is, whatever it is, and if people didn't like it, it was their problem.
So, if I was suspicious or concerned, and I'd appease that thing in my spirit, and question the situation, he'd deflect. And I'd buy it. Over, and over again, as other situations would arise, or people in town would come to me with concerns about this girl.
I believed him when he said I was being ridiculous. That I was being paranoid. That he would never hurt his family. That I was wrong for even thinking that he could. That I hurt him for even suggesting such a thing. How could I even think that of him?
I believed him when he said that the people in town were liars. That they were gossips taking a little bit of truth--the fact that that sweet girl living with her mother had a crush on him--and that they were running with that little truth, and creating a big, ugly, completely untrue story.
Naturally, I felt terribly for falling prey to lies and gossip. For listening to the people in town, over the man I had been married to for all those years. Never mind that thing in my spirit. It was nothing more than female emotion, and everyone knows that women are run on unpredictable emotion, and can't be trusted, right?
For our entire marriage, he was bold in his rants against pornography. He believed pornography was evil, that viewing it was sinful, and he was even against R-rated movies that contained nudity. So much so, in fact, that he'd record a movie and delete that bad scenes so that we could watch an edited version.
So, when I woke up early that morning to get a drink of water, and I startled him, and he quickly minimized whatever it was that he was viewing on his computer, I was more than just suspicious. I sat across the room from him and I struck up a conversation, wondering all the while what would happen if I clicked that minimized button on the bottom of the screen. I watched him. I observed him. His nervous slurps of coffee. His nervous laugh. For a half hour I watched while we talked, and at that point, I knew. That thing in my spirit was validated. I was calm.
It wasn't just the pornography. It was way that he had preached against pornography for over 18 years. But, in spite of his stand against it, in secret, he participated.
I discovered once and for all that morning, that the pedestal of honesty he stood on, the same pedestal I had him propped up on, was made of Jell-O.
Pornography today. What's tomorrow going to bring? Within 2 weeks, I was able to get him to confess to multiple emotional, lewd, and sexual affairs.
Listen to that thing in your spirit. That little voice. Quietly watch. Listen. And stay patient. The more agitated, frustrated, or angry you allow yourself to be, the more likely the cheating spouse will use it to strengthen that weapon of deflection. They'll make it be about your lack of trust, or your paranoia, or your jealousy.
The pain of betrayal is complex. We are complex. But, God has given us simple things, like that voice, and listening to that little voice can be just what we need to take us out of denial, and on the right path of recovery and restoration.
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