How can I save my marriage?
Question:
I have been with my husband for several years and we have children together. Throughout our whole relationship, it has been nothing but an extremely rocky road.
I recently found an old friend and was talking to him on the phone through text messages and also on the phone. I told my husband that I had fallen in love with this man and I was taking my kids and leaving him. As soon as I left I immediately filed for divorce and for custody of the children. While we were separated my husband made many desperate attempts to have me move closer to him for the children's sake and I refused. While I was talking with this "old friend" I later discovered that I do not love this man and I do not need this man. So I cut my ties with him.
In the time that I was separated from my husband, my husband informed me that he had two life-threatening illnesses and asked for my help. At that point in time, I was trying to get counseling for myself and I felt that I could not help him so I refused him. By this time I wanted to be with him but felt that he would be better off without me because I have caused him so much pain in his life already.
I felt that I needed to move on to forget him. So while my husband was sick and asking me for help I decided to have sex with another man. This man and I decided that that's all it would be. We had conversations before we had sex and also about a month after we had sex.
I didn't tell my husband what I had done. I didn't think that he and I would ever be together again. My husband and I had started talking and having normal conversations without fighting. He let it be known that he had sex with three other females and yet I still didn't have the courage to tell him I did. So I lied to him continuously for about a month that I haven't had sex with anyone.
We both decided that we wanted to be with each other and were going to try and make it work this time. Needless to say, my husband found a message with a sexual comment on it that was made before he and I got back together. He asked me about it and after sitting in silence for an hour I finally told him. This man also lives in our city. My husband and I fight about what happened and he then says that he will forget. He cannot forget and now he feels ashamed of me when we try to go out in public because of either running into this man or just because of the fact that the whole neighborhood knows that I left him for another man.
I am truly regretful for everything that has happened and I love my husband with every ounce inside me and I never want to lose him again. While we were separated I realized that he is all the man I will ever need or want. I have been desperately trying to keep us together. Am I being selfish by asking him to be with me? I am not sure what to do about my marriage at this point. I have changed my ways. I cut off a lot of people. I am not surrounded by men and do not have any accounts to allow me to talk to men. Nor do I want to. How can I save my marriage?
Answer:
This has nothing to do with who you imagine you love or who is being selfish. You both are living lives without God. You both think nothing about your vows or honoring your word. In other words, you both need to drastically change.
"Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11).
Divorce should not be in your vocabulary. You both made severe mistakes, but none that cannot be overcome with a commitment to a higher ideal than yourselves. Then you'll stop compounding your sins with lies and chasing after fantasies. My best advice to become true Christians.
