Kate, a 35-year-old, really wanted to make the marriage work; her husband had assured her that he would never leave her. "We promised to stand by each other, come what may," Kate recalls. "I was convinced that he meant it. Then . . . he did that. Now I've got nothing—not a cat or a goldfish—nothing!"
Hiroshi will never forget the day his mother's extramarital affair came to light. "I was just 11 years old," he recalls. "Mom came storming through the house. Dad was right behind her, saying, 'Just hang on. Let's talk about this.' I could sense that something had gone horribly wrong. Dad was shattered. He's never quite recovered. What's more, he had no one to confide in. So he turned to me. Imagine it: a man in his 40's coming to his 11-year-old son for consolation and empathy!"
Whether it is the scandalous affairs that have rocked royalty, politicians, film stars, and religious leaders or the betrayal and tears in our own families, marital unfaithfulness continues to take a tragic toll. "Adultery," states The New Encyclopædia Britannica, "seems to be as universal and, in some instances, as common as marriage." Some researchers estimate that between 50 and 75 percent of people have at some time been unfaithful. Marriage researcher Zelda West-Meads says that although much infidelity goes undetected, "all the evidence points to affairs being on the increase."
An Avalanche of Feelings
Though shocking, the statistics for infidelity and divorce do not reveal the full impact on people's daily lives. Besides the enormous financial implications, consider the mountains of feelings locked in those statistics—the buckets of tears shed and the immeasurable confusion, grief, anxiety, and excruciating pain that is suffered, as well as the countless nights that family members spend in sleepless anguish. The victims may survive the ordeal, but they are likely to carry the scars for a long time. The hurt and damage is not easily undone.
"A marital breakdown normally produces a huge eruption of emotions," explains the book How to Survive Divorce, "an eruption which sometimes threatens to obscure your vision. What should you do? How should you react? How do you rise above it all? You may swing from certainty to doubt, from anger to guilt or from trust to suspicion."
That was Pedro's experience after he learned about his wife's unfaithfulness. "When there is infidelity," he confides, "then a flood of confusing emotions rain down." The sense of devastation is difficult enough for victims to comprehend—let alone outsiders, who have little grasp of the situation. "No one," claims Kate, "really understands how I feel. When I think about my husband being with her, I feel a real physical pain, an ache that is impossible to explain to anyone." She adds: "There are times that I think I'm going crazy. One day I feel so in control; the next day I don't. One day I miss him; the next day I remember all the scheming and lying and humiliation."
Anger and Anxiety
"At times," admits one victim of infidelity, "the emotion that hits you is raw anger." It is not just indignation about the wrong done and the injury inflicted. Rather, as one journalist explained, it is "resentment of what could have been, and was spoilt."
Also common are feelings of low self-worth and feelings of inadequacy. Pedro confides: "You have feelings like these: 'Am I not attractive enough? Am I in some other way deficient?' You start to dissect yourself to find the fault." In her book To Love, Honour and Betray, Zelda West-Meads, of the British National Marriage Guidance Council, confirms: "One of the hardest things to cope with . . . is the decimation of your self-esteem."
Guilt and Depression
Close on the heels of these emotions usually come waves of guilt. One despondent wife says: "I think women suffer a great deal with feelings of guilt. You blame yourself and wonder: 'What did I do wrong?'"
A betrayed husband reveals another aspect of what he calls roller-coaster emotions. He explains: "Depression becomes a new factor that sets in like bad weather." When her husband left her, one wife recalls that not a day went by that she was not in tears. "I can clearly remember the first tear-free day some weeks after he left me," she relates. "It was some months before I had my first tear-free week. Those tear-free days and weeks became milestones that marked my way forward."
Double Treachery
What many do not realize is that often the adulterer has dealt a bitter double blow to his spouse. In what way? Kate gives us a clue: "It was hard for me. He was not only my husband but also my friend—my best friend—for many years.— Yes, in most cases a wife turns to her husband for support when problems arise. Now, not only has he become the cause of very traumatic problems but he has also stopped being a much-needed source of help. In one fell swoop, he has caused severe pain and robbed his wife of her trusted confidant.
As a result, the profound sense of betrayal and shattered trust is one of the most overwhelming feelings experienced by innocent mates. One marriage counselor explains why marital betrayal can be so emotionally crippling: "We invest so much of ourselves, our hopes, dreams and expectations, in marriage . . . , searching for someone we can really put our faith in, someone we feel we can always rely on. If that trust is suddenly taken away, it can be like a house of cards blown over in the wind."
Quite clearly, as noted in the book How to Survive Divorce, victims "need help in sorting out the emotional upheaval . . . They may need help in working out what choices they can make and how to make them." But what are those choices?
'Is reconciliation the answer for us?' you may wonder. 'Or should I get a divorce?' Especially if the marriage has been strained, it may be very tempting to conclude hastily that divorce is the solution to your problems. 'After all,' you may reason, 'the Bible permits divorce on the ground of marital unfaithfulness.' (Matthew 19:9) On the other hand, you may reason that the Bible does not insist on divorce. You may, therefore, feel that it would be better to reconcile and rebuild and strengthen the marriage.
