|
Heaven
Ministries |
|
|
Marriage Articles How To Stop The Affair and Love Your Spouse Question From A Reader
Adultery
Pandemic
Adultery
Pandemic opened my eyes to the answers that I so desperately needed. The
author, Angie Lewis, gave me insight and encouragement to work on my
marriage not only to save it but, to make it better than it was before.
To Preview or Buy our other Marriage Books Click here
Journey on the Roads Less Traveled
Buy
Journey
|
How
To Stop The Affair and Love Your Spouse I'm getting more and more emails from women whose husbands had an affair, are having an affair, or having another affair! Why do people have affairs in the first place? Well the obvious reasons are because the adulterer feels they are not getting their needs met at home, they want to enjoy the desire of the moment, and they just aren’t thinking about loving the person they married. Face it -they aren't committed to the person they married! Maybe they feel unloved or they feel they are not in love with their spouse anymore. Perhaps they feel rejected and need some extramarital attention. But that’s the problem! Is your marriage based upon feelings or principles?
If your marriage is based upon your feelings than you will keep having
affairs no matter who you are married to just so you can
"keep" your expectations of how you're supposed to feel. But
if you base your marriage upon principle than work yourself out of your
negative feelings and do the right thing – work on your marriage. Stop
the affair and start loving your spouse again. You can do that. You don’t really need someone to tell you HOW to
stop an affair; you just do it! You actually choose to stop being
selfish with your spouse and you humble yourself to them and let them
know you are sorry for your indiscretions you have made in the marriage.
Selfish behavior stems from not knowing who we are as people –
most selfish people are needy and wanting, and it seems that nothing and
nobody can make them happy. They don’t understand that happiness comes
from within the spiritual aspect of who they are and not the person they
married. The truth is, as soon as the selfish person gives
up wanting to “control” and “get” from others, and give their
life over to God, they at once realize they aren’t as needful and
wanting anymore and don’t need to “get” praise and attention from
others. Affairs are not all about sex – they are about getting
attention and love from people. It all goes back to the “way we expect
we should feel”. Is Love Supposed To Feel Like Dating? Expectations begin in our childhood where we
become conditioned into believing a certain way about how love is supposed
to feel. We have been taught that
love is supposed to feel a certain way and if it doesn’t always feel
good it must mean that it is time to move on to a new partner. Society
can thank the dating culture (multiple sexual partners) for this
noncommittal attitude in marriage. Dating is a “dump them and leave them ritual”
that prepares married people for “dumping” each other and marrying
another – its called
“divorce”. Because they
believe that love is supposed to feel like a mixture of lust and
euphoria they become easily disappointed with their marriage. It
doesn’t take much to make a married person “think” they married
the wrong person or to “believe” they are in love with someone else
or to “think” they are unhappy in their marriage and dump their wife
or husband. After all, that is what they have been doing since they were
teenagers. Having affairs are just a simple way to get “euphoric feelings” that are missing from our marriages back. Couples want to feel good at all times in their marriage. This is why people have affairs! But most affairs only work temporarily and go against the values of a marriage designed by God. Instead of looking for ways to make ourselves feel good we should be working on ways to improve what we have already started and have been blessed with. We can choose to love our spouse by doing those things that are loving and by being a loving person. How about that? Will that work? Talk To Your Spouse Perhaps we can talk to our spouse about our needs.
Perhaps we can actually try to respect and honor the person we married,
no matter what they have done, and move on towards healing ourselves so
we won’t "feel" like we need to stray from the marriage bed.
Maybe we can let our spouse know that we're feeling rejected and
unloved and need some encouragement. When was the last time you
communicated YOUR FEELINGS with your spouse? What do you need? Talk to
your spouse. You can stop the affair and start loving your
spouse by choosing to do so. We don't need to find strangers that will
temporarily makes us feel good - we're married, so lets work on what we
have already established. When we commence a relationship with our
Creator, He gives us the wisdom to love the person we married in the
proper ways. Yes, that’s right. It takes wisdom to love in the proper
ways. That wisdom only comes from God.
Marriage Question:
My husband and I got together because
we had an affair with each other. We decided to 'make it right'
and married 15 years ago. Our entire marriage has been very hard -
but we have been too busy and preoccupied with worldly things to
pay attention. I had a 2 year affair which ended Dec 07. I wasn't
in love -- just completely WRONG with my life and the Lord. My
husband found out, and even confessed to an affair he hid from me
6 years ago. I have repented and repeatedly asked for his forgiveness. I
am thankful God loves me enough to correct me! I have never felt
so close to God and realize all I need is Him. My husband has not
forgiven me and does not think he can. He says his feelings are
gone for me and that he is not Jesus - he cannot forgive because
he does not trust me. I have forgiven him, but he thinks his
affair was far less intense than mine. Regardless, I want our
marriage to work and I know God is teaching me the real meaning of
LOVE. I just can't seem to get my husband to understand; he is
angry, hurt and wants a divorce. Any suggestions when only one
person wants to work on the marriage?
Marriage Encouragement:
First of all let me say this. It is
not your job to get your husband to understand what the meaning
of LOVE is. Your job is to forgive your husband and to
love him by applying what wisdom you have learned about what
REAL LOVE is to your actions and behavior with your husband.
Then, your husband will know your good intentions and
"SEE" with his own eyes what the true meaning of love
is. Your actions will show him! I think it is wonderful you have
found God for your life and I think that your marriage can be
saved. With God in the forefront of our marriage we can heal
ourselves from the affects of adultery and restore our marriage.
Your husbands feelings are not
gone, he is only keeping them hidden and guarding himself
because he does not want to get hurt again and that is why he is
afraid of trusting you again. Trusting someone after they committed
adultery is opening ourselves back up to being hurt again. All
you can do is pray and be patient. Give your husband time and
let him see through your actions that you can be trusted.
Eventually, your husband will NEED
to forgive you, so he can heal himself and move on with loving
you in the proper ways, but we can't make someone forgive us -
that is something that happens through our relationship with
Christ. We must first repent and ask for Christ's forgiveness of
our own sins before we can forgive someone else. Is this
something your husband has done or is willing to do. We have to
repent and turn our lives around to heal ourselves from adultery
- there is no other way. Apparently you have figured that out
already and now desperately want your husband to get his life
figured out as well. We have to know in our heart that it is God
that fills us up with happiness and contentment and not
something outside of our marriage. We need God!
This is where you come in. Continue
growing in faith and love in Christ - keep working on your
relationship with the Lord - Just work on healing yourself and
forgiving yourself. Try and not blame, accuse, or tell your
husband what he needs to do, or tell him how to "be"
as a Christian. This will only push him further away from God.
Let him come to Jesus Christ in the way he finds is best for him
- on his own terms. You can
also pray for your husband to come to the Lord and ask for His
forgiveness. That's the first step towards healing oneself.
Right now the best thing you can do is work on your part in the
marriage, being the wife God wants you to be regardless of what
your husband is or is not doing.
"The wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere". (James 3:17) E-Book Resource: ADULTERY PANDEMIC: A treasure book filled with effective guidance for your marriage from forgiveness and trust to recommitting your lives to each other again. Practical and easy-to-read, this book combines the solutions and remedies your marriage needs towards recovery from adultery. http://www.heavenministries.com/Ebooks.htm
I hope you enjoyed the Heaven Ministries Newsletter! Take care and God Bless! As always, your Comments and questions are welcome. Copyright
© 2008 Heaven Ministries To unsubscribe from the Heaven Ministries Newsletter click here. |
