Cheater-Speak: "I'm not divorcing you because of him." - Divorce Minister
“I am not divorcing you because of him [Other Man].”
-Adulteress
And then the cheater busts out this mind messing statement.
They are doing several things. All them are bad, of course. In general, it is a particularly heinous thing for a cheater to say after she has been caught.
Here are a few things such a short statement communicates:
1) This statement signals to the faithful spouse that the cheater is refusing to take responsibility for catastrophically damaging the marriage via adultery.
In fact, this statement is not inconsistent with the cheater maintaining their twisted narrative that they “had to” cheat on you because of your poor spousal performance.
The cheater is essentially saying the marriage was already dead before the cheating, and ergo, they think that makes it okay for them to cheat (which is a lie, by the way). Even a troubled marriage does not give us permission to sin.
To be clear: If they had biblical grounds to end the marriage, they ought to have ended it. THEN they could pursue another partner…. IN THAT ORDER!!!
2) This statement minimizes and dismisses adultery treating such sin as irrelevant.
A cheater is lying to themselves and others if they suggest their adultery is irrelevant to their marriage’s demise. The Bible makes it abundantly clear God does not minimize adultery (e.g. Deuteronomy 22:22, Hebrews 13:4, etc.).
By making this statement, the cheater is telling the faithful spouse to stop looking at the adultery. They are changing the subject.
It is a subtle way to say that they are only considering the faithful spouse’s sin as opposed to their own adulterous sin. “The faithful spouse’s sins matter, not theirs” is another way to say it.
3) This statement reveals an astounding lack of empathy for one’s spouse.
The cheater finally acknowledges the cheating. Maybe she has been denying this sin for months or years? The “jig” is up as it goes.
At this point, she either can go down the path of repentance demonstrating true remorse or she can double down on lies and engage in narrative management. This statement is betting the house on lies and image control.
It is cold.
The cheater admits to soul raping their spouse and then tries to treat such a horrific thing as irrelevant to their choice to leave the spouse that they just abused through committing adultery. Ouch!
Ask yourself, faithful spouse, do you really want to be married to such a cold-hearted person?
No good comes of the statement from a cheater claiming their adulterous sin has nothing to do with the divorce they are seeking. It is just another indication this person prefers the path of sinful destruction than the path of repentance and life.
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*A version of this post ran previously.
