Over the past 2 years the number of counseling cases
coming into our office that are due to sexual sin has increased 5 fold. It is
one of the reasons I wrote my new book The Heart of Betrayal: When Your
Spouse Has Sexually Sinned.
When a woman
or man learns their spouse has had a physical affair, everything takes on an
unreal quality. It is the worst possible news you can imagine receiving. Some
say it is worse than learning you have cancer or some other disease. The only
words that can even come close to describing it are utter devastation.
She has
questions about how long it has been going on and will want to pry inside her
husband’s mind and learn what drove him to commit adultery. She wants to know what exactly he has been
thinking of while having sex. Who has he been picturing in his mind? Has he
been fantasizing about the other women while he was physically touching you? She
wonders how he could live a double life as an adulterer and still read his
Bible or attend church with the family.
She will
want to know the details of his activities. Ultimately, she wants to know where
she didn’t measure up to her husband and what drove him into the arms of
another woman.
The number one question a woman asks when she learns her
husband has committed adultery is, "Why?" She wants to know
what the other woman had that she doesn't have. She wants to know how he could
do this to her. She is seeking to understand his thinking and determine what
led him into the bed of another woman.
There is more to this question than curiosity; she isn't
intentionally trying to inflict pain on herself by learning these things. She
is trying to learn what he was looking for in that other woman. She needs to
know what the connection was between them. Without that, she will not be able
to trust him again.
One answer to "why" is there are some Christian
marriages that are void of any sexual contact; the couple lives together, sleep
together, and spend time together, but there is no sexual intimacy. This is a
violation of 1 Corinthians 7 which clearly states that married couples are to
engage in sexual intimacy for precisely this reason! Men and women were wired
for sex in the confines of marriage. Paul specifically says that we are not to
withhold our bodies from our spouse. In fact, he says that when you marry, your
body no longer belongs to you, but to your husband or wife. When sex is
withheld in marriage it provides the occasion for sin in the thought
life—wandering thoughts that lead to wandering hands and wandering bodies.
One typical reason offered is "the devil made me do
it." I would like to lay the blame squarely at the feet of Satan, but I
cannot do that. Jeremiah 17:9 says that the heart is deceptive, and desperately
wicked. The heart is so wicked, in fact, that we cannot and do not know the
depths of the depravity that lives there; so wicked and so deceptive that
we can rationalize our sinful desires and be lulled into thinking that our sin
is justified because, “s/he would not . . . ,” or because, “I don’t feel . . .
,” and, “God surely does not want me to live this way . . .”
Sometimes it is the excitement of new attraction or the
thrill of pursuing or being pursued again. Other reasons are the marriage had
grown stale, life was too sedate and there was nothing new to discover about
each other after a number of years. Communication had become almost non-existent;
there was no emotional spark or connection anymore. The couple talked at
each other but not to each other. In some cases, life became all about the
children and the oneness of marriage got lost in the carpool lane. The
couple becomes distant, perhaps argues more than before and the drift continues
as they move in opposite directions.
Many a man has said he did not believe that anything
would really happen. He did not think anything would “come of it.” They say
they were “just being nice, friendly, caring, or compassionate” to the woman,
up to the point where things “got out of hand.” He “never intended to develop
feelings” for her, “it just happened.” And of course, some describe
behaviors that were clearly tempting the flesh, and baiting the hook of desire.
With this as a backdrop the other woman enters the scene.
Scripture is brilliantly accurate in its description of the immoral woman, or
harlot, as she is called. In the vernacular we would call her a whore. She is a
woman who covets another woman’s husband.
An immoral woman is a predator, and she is literally
hunting for a man to seduce. In order to capture a man she will use any means
necessary to trap him, such as deception, flattery, and sympathy ploys. She
hides her true intentions from him by telling him she is looking for a friend,
how he is a good listener, or that he understands her like no one else does.
She laughs at his jokes and treats him like he is the best man she has ever
met. She may talk about how lonely she is, and she acts as though she needs him
and wants him more than anyone else ever could. She may be loud and boisterous,
acting as though she is happy and having fun in what she has chosen as a
lifestyle. She may tell the man that he is the perfect remedy for her
loneliness.
The bottom line is the other woman is someone who was
interested in him, cared about his needs and was interested in
his life. Often, the husband will say in the midst of the adultery he seemed to
have the best of both worlds - he had a godly wife, a good woman to take care
of him and his household and he had a sexy willing sexual playmate with which
he could indulge his wildest desires. He wants someone who will be in
reality what he cannot ask his godly wife to be or to do; to fulfill his
sexual fantasies. He wants her for the sex and adventure but he
doesn't want or need her for love because he has a wife.
The trap is laid first in the heart where seeds of
dissatisfaction are sewn. The dissatisfaction can be on any level of the
marriage: emotional, sexual, companionship, time, distance, etc. and is
actually a lack of gratitude for the spouse God has
given him.