By Her View From Home 
First things first, let me remind you of the truth: you didn’t cause this. It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t anything you could have done to prevent or change this. Someone else’s choices have caused you devastation and brokenness you would never have chosen for yourself. You now live with the consequences of someone else’s choices, but it’s important to remember that those choices were never about you. Which is what hurts so much, isn’t it? If this were about you, you could do something to change it. To keep it from happening again. You could feel some measure of control if this had anything to do with you and the way you’ve shown up in your marriage. But it doesn’t, and it didn’t. You didn’t get a choice when your husband decided to break his marriage vows, but now you do. The choices now belong to you, and that can feel like both a blessing and a curse.
There will be people who will pressure you to leave. Lots of people have imagined what it would feel like to be betrayed in this way and they feel very free to let you know what they would do in your shoes. The truth is, they have no idea. Of course you don’t want to be married to an unfaithful man. No one does. But that isn’t the only question. Do you want to fight for redemption alongside a repentant spouse? Do you want to grieve together and heal together? Do you want your grandkids to have one place to come visit for Christmas? Do you want to abandon the world you spent your life building together? There is no one who can do that math for you, and no one truly understands all the variables you have to weigh.
There will be people who pressure you to stay. They will tell you God hates divorce. They will talk about how remorseful your husband seems and how grace and forgiveness are the virtues you now have to embrace. They don’t live your life. They don’t know what you endured to get to this moment where the truth became plain for everybody else. The private pain you have likely lived with for years can’t be dismissed. Infidelity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It involves lies about big and small things. It involves emotional distance imposed on you by a spouse who insists everything is fine. Your body may know something is wrong long before your mind catches up and it may protest in its own way. It’s very possible you’ve had inklings that something was amiss, but you couldn’t even let yourself think this unthinkable thought. When someone imagines the specifics you may struggle to forgive, they will likely think of the most explicit moments of betrayal. They have no idea the years of small hurts, moments of abandonment, times you questioned your own judgement or sanity, emotional neglect, and financial deception. Anyone who thinks forgiveness should be given quickly or without a full acknowledgement of the cost of the sin involved is just cheapening grace. Only you can know when and if this is a salvageable relationship.
And the hurt is made deeper when all the while you were being betrayed, you were also serving Jesus together. You made decisions about your own life based on an understanding of your shared values. Based on your husband’s integrity and commitment to provide and protect you. You didn’t protect yourself because you shouldn’t have to. But now the idea that God saw the ways you were violated and betrayed and didn’t protect you- those choices your husband made in secret have spiritual consequences for you that can make it hard to pray, hard to worship, hard to be grateful for this life you’ve been given.
I hope you know that you weren’t wrong to trust the man you pledged your life to. You made promises to each other, and you should have had every ability to believe he would keep his promises, the same way you did. Even if you had a hint that something was wrong, it was not your job to be the fidelity detective. You shouldn’t have had to try and catch him in a lie because he should not have been lying to you. It is easy to fixate on what we could have done differently, what we should have known, how we could have protected ourselves, but the truth is that you trusted the one person in this world you should have been able to trust. His untrustworthiness was a choice he made, not a failure you were supposed to spend every waking moment watching for. Regret will eat you alive if you let it. Don’t let it.
Right now, you may feel a lot of things. Anger, grief, pain, humiliation. Of course. But you may also feel relief. Your deep gut instinct that something was wrong has been validated. The distance you felt was real and wasn’t your fault. You could read all the marriage books, initiate date nights, take time away together, care about his feelings and needs, and still it couldn’t have fixed what was broken between you. Because you didn’t break it, you couldn’t fix it. But now there’s a possibility for healing. The relationship you hoped for—and maybe you used to have—could be around the corner. But to get there, you have to find peace with the heartache your husband chose for you. You may find a freedom you’ve never known before as you embrace this new reality where everyone has an opinion on your marriage and you finally realize none of those opinions matter to you.
The vows have been broken. You can stay or you can go. You are the only one who gets to decide what is right for you, and you may not be able to make your best decision with the information you have today. You can stay for now. You can separate for a time. You can take a season to figure out what is best for you in this new reality you’ve been forced into. But whatever choice you make, you will find you are stronger than you knew you could be. You are stronger than you ever wanted to have to be. Hopefully, that strength won’t turn into a hard protective shell, but can create space for safe and surprising moments of vulnerability and tenderness and joy.
It’s a new world you’re living in. It isn’t one you would have chosen, but you get to choose what it looks like from here. Grieve what was and what can never be. It is worth grieving. Your life was beautiful, and it is deeply unfair that even your favorite memories can be taken and tainted. It’s okay to be sad about the big and small losses. Don’t rush through any emotion that needs your attention. God is big enough to handle your anger, your grief, your fear—and big enough to redeem all that he allows.
And know you are not alone. Sometimes the loudest voices are the ones who are sure they have done the right thing or would know exactly what to do. Many of us are quiet about the grief we’ve walked through because we’re still struggling to understand it all. We’re asking God daily for wisdom about when to stay or go. We’ve mastered the art of a brave face for the sake of the kids who depend on our stability for their own stability. You are not the only one walking this difficult road, and those of us who have been there are quietly cheering you on. Not with the pressure for you to make a certain choice about your marriage, but with the hope that on the other side, there will be a version of you you’re deeply proud of. It may be unclear today if your marriage can be healed, but we are fully confident you can be. And you will be.
by Jodie Utter 
