Ex DH is a Christian who ended our marriage due to adultery

[Anonymous]

What do the elders of his church say? He shouldn't be allowed to be a member of a church as an unrepentant sinner.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Ex DH is always reminding me about being civil. He is trying to be civil, and I will give him credit for that. Because that's his greatest desire -to have the new partner, to be back at church, to raise his kids in a godly way, and to have a friendly and civil ex wife. He would love that so much. t

OP, I say this with kindness, but...you need to detach.

Your ex-husband is a hypocrite. It's not original or unheard of. You need to move on. The only thing you need to discuss with him is logistics for the kids. That's it. He's asking you to fill the role of forgiver and supporter. And you are likely conditioned to do just that. Stop. He likes having you all intertwined and he likes lecturing you to be civil and I will bet my bottom dollar that your faith tradition includes some level of deference to men (most do). He's preying on that to manipulate you into not only forgiving him, but condoning him.

As far as the kids, I'd put on repeat that actions speak louder than words and never say a word against him, but you need to work to make it so that you really and truly do not care. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

My ex turned into a doting father after ignoring his kids for five years. It’s just the game they play. He’ll get tired of it soon enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My ex turned into a doting father after ignoring his kids for five years. It’s just the game they play. He’ll get tired of it soon enough.

Can you elaborate? I'm going through something similar.

[Anonymous]

I’m not religious so I’m having trouble following. If he had repented, confessed sin, and gone to Christian therapy, would the outcome have been different? Or is it that he would gone through the proper steps and earned a right to be at church?

(Not trying to be obnoxious, just genuinely curious)

[Anonymous]

OP, my ex husband did the same thing.

The the pastor at your church try to counsel him when he was committing adultery? Ours wouldn’t. Did any of the other Christians in our life, who attended our wedding and committed to helping us succeed try to talk to him when he was sinning? No one would in my case.

Did the church welcome him in the new relationship with his mistress? Ours did.

My point is that the church community isn’t going to help you, so stop expecting them to care. When things get hard, no one is willing to hold people accountable or try to help them see the error of their ways. It’s not fair, but that’s really beside the point. You can dwell in the unfairness of it forever, or you can accept that this just is how it is and try to move forward.

Life is not all perfect for them, I assure you. All you can do now is live YOUR best life and try to minimize how much time you spend worrying about them.

[Anonymous]

Op, Most people aren't able to accept what is horrible about themselves. They have to deny it for the survival of the ego.
He has to twist the facts in his own mind in order to function according to his own self image. He can't accept the reality of what happened - what he did. He simpley MUST contort it. Facing ugly realities about the self is just too painful.

You are not crazy and you are not wrong to be infuriated by this refusal to acknowledge facts and accept responsibility. But hey, that's cheaters for you.

You must emotionally detach, accept that he is a self-deluding idiot, and move on. Let his past speak for itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The beauty of many Christian religions is that they can be sinners but as long as they accept Jesus as their savior they will go to heaven.

They can lie, cheat, steal, fornicate and be a drug addict.

None of that matters as long as they accept Jesus as their savior they will be saved.

This is exactly why I left Catholicism. Accept Jesus as your savior, sin (because you are human), ask for forgiveness, you are forgiven, sin, ask forgiveness, rinse and repeat.

Yep. I know a pro life woman who has had at least TWO abortions I know of, and yet votes anti abortion and excuses herself with "we're all sinners". It's like a get out of moral jail free card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of like how conservatives call drag queens pedophiles when in fact it’s their Christian preachers that keep getting convicted of diddling children.

OP here. Absolutely. When I saw him at church last weekend, I was like...you are SUCH A HYPOCRITE. Holding your weathered bible. Hurting me by cheating and committing adultery. Getting involved with another woman who ended up getting a divorce "for him." Earnestly listening to the sermon after destroying the very covenant relationship that God ordained. Refusing to repent. I can't tell you how confused, angry, and hurt I feel.

I can never understand people who call themselves Christians, but have nothing but judgement in their hearts and cannot bring themselves to forgiveness, even if the resentment and anger is eating them alive.

Maybe an Old Testament God is more your speed, OP?

Even Jesus got angry. Only once as I recall but. Sometimes anger is a natural and appropriate reaction for mere humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not religious OP although I was brought up Catholic.

I think what you are experiencing is actually a lot like what a nonreligious person experiences in this situation. You have this massive betrayal happen and the world around you keeps moving while you feel stuck in the moment, and the very passing of time feels enraging. This is just grief. The same thing happens when someone dies. The world just...keeps moving, but you are trapped in that moment, unwilling to let go of a world with that person still in it.

You are grieving your marriage, and that takes a long time and is an unpredictable and volatile road.

I think when you are in a strong faith like you are, there is a belief that the faith protects you, the church protects you. You think you are doing everything right, so everything will work out. But faith or no faith the harsh reality of the world is that bad people are everywhere and bad things happen to everyone. There is nothing that protects us from this. Faith and religion is about what happens when we die, not about protecting us while we live, if it was nothing bad would ever happen to children.

So first I would try to come to terms with the fact that any protection for the life you live here on earth that you thought came from your faith was illusory. And that sucks, but it is important, because you need to gird yourself for any other difficulties that will come from any number of directions in your life.

Then I would, as others have said, either on your own or working with your spouse ensure that you are not going to the same church.

And lastly, it will take time, but you need to reframe how you view his relationship with your children. You want them to be raised in faith. Even if he is a hypocrite, his raising them in faith will make it more likely they actually become adults of faith. If you have one parent bringing them to church and another saying none of it matters that will undermine their overall religious upbringing, something I think you do not want. Additionally, it is better for them to have a healthy relationship with their father. Children are better off having their father in their life, even a mediocre father. Being abandoned by a parent leaves deep deep scars and even if it is unfair that he gets to have them in his life, it is better for them. And truly, as they grow up they will see what happened and come to their own conclusions about his imperfect self. Trust that they will see him for who he is, and you don't need to trash him for that to be the case. Kids know their parents, they see the flaws, but they also know that their parents are a part of them, they are 50% of their dad on a cellular level, and so they cannot think of their dad as fully evil without thinking there is evil in them. So let them see him as a person who is flawed but who loves them and has good qualities, again, FOR THEM, not for him.

You were wronged here, but I hear in your words that you are clinging for an explanation, a reason for why this happened to you, an assurance that he will be punished for hurting you. And at the end of the day that comes down to the simple fact that life is not fair. Bad things happen to good people. Sometimes bad people go unpunished. And we don't know why. And in the end the only person you hurt by being unable to kind of accept this and come to terms with it (and that is not an easy thing to do for anyone I'm certainly not trying to judge you for it), the only person you hurt by not accepting it is yourself.

Keep the serenity prayer close to your heart in this time:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

You cannot change what he's done, you cannot change his relationship with God, you can decide not to be friends with him, you can decide to not sit in a Church that he sits in.

Good luck

Op here. I feel like you are an angel of some sort. I don’t really mean that…but you helped me a lot. You are so right on so many levels. Thank you so much. I mean that.

I am happy my words helped at all <3

A decade ago I lost my brother and stepfather a year apart and it was an absolutely agonizing time for me. The feeling of watching the world turn and feeling like you have suddenly just become a spectator, and an angry one at that, is so hard to work through. Time is the only real solution. When I was in that place, I told myself over and over 'in three years, it will be ok' and set my eyes on that fairly arbitrary date. And when things would feel agonizing or hard I would just think about that date, and think, things would be better by then. And then just tried to keep doing the next right thing as often as I could in the interim. And then eventually that date came and I was right, we had weathered the worst of the storm. You will weather the storm, and may come out quite changed on the other side. Don't forget to have as much faith in yourself as you do in God, you are the one who will pull you and your kids through this.

Infidelity recovery is usually 3-5 years. She shouldn't feel bad if she still isn't there at 3 years. But, she should be feeling better than day 1.

Have you lived this?
I find that you get better.... then something happens that punches you in the gut, again. Some new loss, some new milestone, that is ruined or at least changed by the original offense(ses). Something that makes you feel the trauma all over again.
So you go back to step one and get to "acceptance" again but it's not a straight timeline from injury to acceptance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of like how conservatives call drag queens pedophiles when in fact it’s their Christian preachers that keep getting convicted of diddling children.

OP here. Absolutely. When I saw him at church last weekend, I was like...you are SUCH A HYPOCRITE. Holding your weathered bible. Hurting me by cheating and committing adultery. Getting involved with another woman who ended up getting a divorce "for him." Earnestly listening to the sermon after destroying the very covenant relationship that God ordained. Refusing to repent. I can't tell you how confused, angry, and hurt I feel.

If your husband did sin, so what? People sin. They fail and they repent and they try to be better in the future. I am sorry you are hurt, but you need to quit taking that man's inventory and worry about your own.

[Anonymous]

Op, you need a few, well chosen lines --- to say at church, to anyone who will listen, about his behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What do the elders of his church say? He shouldn't be allowed to be a member of a church as an unrepentant sinner.

How do we know he’s unrepentant?

Is the only way to show repentance to break up with this woman after they’ve already divorced their spouses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is kind of like how conservatives call drag queens pedophiles when in fact it’s their Christian preachers that keep getting convicted of diddling children.

OP here. Absolutely. When I saw him at church last weekend, I was like...you are SUCH A HYPOCRITE. Holding your weathered bible. Hurting me by cheating and committing adultery. Getting involved with another woman who ended up getting a divorce "for him." Earnestly listening to the sermon after destroying the very covenant relationship that God ordained. Refusing to repent. I can't tell you how confused, angry, and hurt I feel.

I can never understand people who call themselves Christians, but have nothing but judgement in their hearts and cannot bring themselves to forgiveness, even if the resentment and anger is eating them alive.

Maybe an Old Testament God is more your speed, OP?

Even Jesus got angry. Only once as I recall but. Sometimes anger is a natural and appropriate reaction for mere humans.

He wasn’t angry for three years over being jilted.

He was angry once over moneychangers defiling the temple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What do the elders of his church say? He shouldn't be allowed to be a member of a church as an unrepentant sinner.

How do we know he’s unrepentant?

Is the only way to show repentance to break up with this woman after they’ve already divorced their spouses?

DP. Yes. And they are not divorced, so he is doubly unrepentant by living in open sin.