A wife recently reached out to me about her struggling marriage, and in the course of our back-and-forth, I made this observation:

Lack of safety may be the #1 reason marriages dissolve. It could be emotional safety. Physical safety. Financial safety. Whatever. But when you no longer feel safe with someone, intimacy is simply not possible.

Do You Feel Unsafe?

At times, we all feel a little unsafe. Most people have some nervousness about sharing private thoughts and feelings, becoming physically and sexually vulnerable, and relying on the other person in a relationship.

Plus, we have all experienced disappointment and hurt. Our past wounds can make us more skittish about trusting others. Some of that hurt might well have come from your spouse, because we are flawed humans and too often say or do something careless or rude. We may even lash out at our mate when our self-protection feels triggered.

Such typical caution is not what I’m what I’m talking about when I use the word “unsafe” regarding marriages in crisis or already severed.

Rather, it happens when a spouse demonstrates a pattern of cruelty, neglect, disrespect, and/or selfishness. They have disregarded your sense of safety, leaving you feeling alone and on edge.

Let’s Look at Real-Life Examples

What makes for that deep sense of being unsafe? Here are a few examples:

• He physically abused her, making her fear for her physical safety.
• He refused to work or couldn’t hold down a job, risking their financial safety.
• He viewed pornography or acted out with others, shattering her sexual safety.
• He belittled and insulted her, eroding her emotional safety.

I worded those as he did something to her, because women more often share their stories with me, but it could certainly go the other way. A husband might feel unsafe around his wife.

Can You Come Back?

Once one spouse feels unsafe, is the marriage over? Not necessarily. Plenty of marriages come back from the brink—moving from a lack of safety to genuine, sustained trust.  But it requires honesty, humility, sustained effort, and often outside help. That help might be from a couples’ therapist or simply one of you pursuing counseling on your own to shift the relationship dynamic.

Frankly, my husband and I never had a great couples’ therapy experience, but counseling on my own did wonders for my perspective and approach. Once I stopped messing up my part of things, my husband eventually changed what he was doing, and together we worked out a lot of our problems.

Others I know have had marvelous couples’ therapy experiences. And of course, some have changed their side of the relationship dynamic only to find their spouse unwilling to put forth any effort on their part.

Whether you can come back depends on your willingness to work hard and hurt more—as you work through difficult issues—to achieve true healing.

You Matter More Than Your Marriage

Some marriages absolutely should not continue because they involve the kind of oppression God consistently stood against! Isaiah 1:17 instructs us: “Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed.” 

If one or both spouses have been guilty of abuse, neglect, sexual betrayal, addiction, etc., they must take full responsibility for their actions and get help to overcome. And their mate should set healthy boundaries to encourage that (see Boundaries in Marriage by Henry Cloud & John Townsend).

If the offending spouse repeatedly refuses to work on their issues, then you are not safe. And as I’ve discussed before on my site, some abusers can reform (“situational abusers”), and others will not (“characterological abusers”). If you’re married to an abusive spouse who does not own their problem and want to fix it, then get help and get out. As Ephesians 5:11 says, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”

Marriage should not be sustained at the cost of one’s body, heart, and soul. Some emotional pain is normal in any relationship, and marriages in crisis usually experience greater emotional pain as they tear down the old and broken foundation to build a new one, but God doesn’t call us to suffer for no good reason. God created marriage to be between two equally valued partners, not for one to be the bully and the other to be their victim.

Take Stock of Your Safety

Do you feel unsafe in your marriage? Is it because of what your spouse has done? Or are you perhaps misreading your spouse or bringing your own baggage into your perceptions?

Is your spouse aware of how you feel? Are they acting with intention or maybe reacting to their own baggage, stress, personal flaws, etc.?

Have there been times in your relationship when you felt truly safe? If so, what made you feel that sense of security? And how could you foster that bond?

What outside help might you need to discover or regain safety in your marriage? Do you need to work on some issues individually to overcome sin or heal from past wounds?

Have you been oppressed or mistreated by your mate so much that you are truly unsafe and need to get out?

As you consider these questions, the best place to start is likely with prayer—asking God to give you wisdom and clarity. I’m saying a prayer for you too.

I write mostly about sex in marriage, but this topic has been on my mind for a while. If you want to know more about how these issues impact sexual intimacy, here are a few other posts to check out:

• What If Your Husband Is a Bedroom Bully?
• What I Hate About Sex
• What about the 3 A’s? Addiction, Adultery, and Abuse

And an episode of our podcast, Sex Chat for Christian Wives:

• Episode 191: What Is Sexual Betrayal and How Can You Address It? – Sex Chat for Christian Wives

The post Why Do Marriages Fall Apart? appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

Can regular sex prevent an affair?

Some have gone so far as to say that regular sex “affair-proofs” a marriage. I don’t buy that.

We are responsible for ourselves. Day by day, we each decide to fulfill our vows or break them. Our spouse’s behavior can make that decision easier or harder, but they never make the decision for us, nor can we guarantee our mate’s fidelity.

In fact, if someone feels done with the marriage enough to be with someone else, they should be honest and first leave. Am I suggesting someone leave a marriage? No. The ideal is fixing the marriage you’re in, the one you chose and committed to. If you’re wanting to cheat, you need to rethink where your marriage is and get help.

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However, if plan to be with someone else anyway, for heaven’s sake, don’t add a pack of lies to your choice! It won’t end well.

If you cheat on your spouse, that’s on you. It’s your sin, not theirs. Remember that as you read the rest of this post.

Can regular sex decrease temptation?

On the other hand, a satisfying sex life within the marriage can boost our resistance to temptation. Let’s look at the evidence—both biblical and physiological.

Biblical Viewpoint

1 Corinthians 7:5 is the famous Do Not Deprive verse, which wasn’t intended to convey what your spouse owes you as much as convincing married couples that sex should be happening and mutual. But the part we’re focusing on today is how sex and temptation interact:

Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1 Corinthians 7:5, NIV

I don’t know how any Christian gets around the message in this scripture that we will be more tempted to sin sexually if we go too long without sex with our spouse.

Mind you, this is not to say that everyone who isn’t getting laid has a blank check to cheat. If that was true, singles would get a pass on premarital sex. However, in that same chapter, the apostle Paul suggests that single people stay unmarried and celibate, and many other verses indicate that God wants us to wait until marriage.

Yet Paul also includes this tidbit: “Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion” (v. 8-9). Why does he anticipate widows burning with passion?

Well, for most people, once you’ve had sex, it’s harder to go back. You have “awakened love,” your body has acclimated, and your desire is stronger than before.

That struggle can be even truer in marriage, because you have access to someone who is supposed to be engaging in regular sex with you. Someone who promised—whether they fully realized it or not—to have regular sex with you. Going without in that situation doesn’t only involve abstinence but rejection and loneliness at a different level. The desire to reclaim that sense of intimacy can be particularly intense, challenging our self-control.

Now sex in marriage is beneficial for many reasons, but what these verses in 1 Corinthians affirm is that one benefit of regular sex in marriage is that it sates our desire and helps us resist temptation.

Physiological Case

God even infused this benefit into our physiology. Some research has shown how intimate sex in a sustained relationship helps to keep us faithful.

The primary catalyst is oxytocin, also know as the “love hormone.” When is oxytocin released? During affection and cuddling and other activities, but men also get a surge of oxytocin during sexual climax with a long-term partner.

In one interesting study, 57 male participants were given oxytocin or a placebo. Then they were approached by a very attractive female and asked to report when she was at an ideal distance and when they felt slightly uncomfortable with her nearness.

Men who were in long-term relationships and received oxytocin wanted that pretty lady 4-6 inches further away than other men did. Their monogamy and physiology combined to make them uncomfortable with other potential partners being too close.

In another study, 20 men were spritzed with oxytocin then shown photos of loved ones, attractive strangers, and their own romantic partner. Magnetic resonance imaging and a passion survey showed that they unwittingly fixated on their own partner. The researchers concluded, “Taken together, our findings suggest that [oxytocin] may contribute to romantic bonds by making men perceive their female partner as increasingly attractive and rewarding compared with other women.”

Both of these studies investigated men, and a good follow-up question is whether these findings apply to women as well. Given other studies, like one showing the scent of a woman’s partner lowered her stress level, I suspect they do. What’s different is what gets a woman’s oxytocin going! It’s not sexual climax as much as attention and affection. (Visit the post below for more info.)

Is regular sex enough to keep us faithful?

The Los Angeles Times summarizes the spritzed-oxytocin study this way: “So, a steady diet of sexual activity, hugs and other forms of physical contact may be enough to override the desire to spread genes, keeping a man at home.” The word may pulls a lot of weight in that sentence.

• Some spouses will be unfaithful no matter what, because they lack the will and ethics to fully commit to another.
• Some are steeped in wounds and baggage that make them ideal targets for Satan.
• Some find themselves in a perfect storm of frustrating personal life, squishy marital commitment, and clear opportunity. (Often those are one-night stands.)
• Some end up cheating when they never imagined they would, because they were in such an awful emotional state and just the right temptation came along.
• And some would never cheat, no matter how lonely they felt and how easy the temptation was.

Again, the choice is ours. The sin belongs to the sinner.

But we should not deny that regular sex helps many spouses remain attached and faithful to their mate. Shouldn’t we all want to make it easier for our marriage bed to be committed and exclusive?

What that does not mean is one spouse demanding sex or the other giving duty sex! God’s design for sex in marriage is exclusivity, but also mutuality, pleasure, and intimacy.

God's design for sex in marriage is exclusivity, but also mutuality, pleasure, and intimacy. via @hotholyhumorous
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What keeps you from having regular sex?

For some couples, it’s really a matter of not having the time or energy or focus to engage. You need to ask where you lost that lovin’ feelin’ and how to get it back. That may involve shifting priorities, saying no to what’s in the way, or just introducing more romance into your lives.

If you’re the holdout—that is, you’re gatekeeping in your marriage bed—you may have good reasons, but you should take that first step to address those challenges. Your journey may take days or months or even years, but most sexually rejected spouses tell me they long not for perfection but progress. Your spouse would probably appreciate you admitting things aren’t great and committing to making them better, for both of you.

If you’re feeling sexually neglected in your marriage, you may need to establish extra precautions to maintain fidelity. Recognize the signs of temptation and avoid them. Find ways to get your oxytocin flowing; if not sex, affection and quality time together. Never threaten that you’ll cheat if they don’t give you sex—that’s another kind of wrong—but be honest with your spouse about what sexual intimacy means to you; that is, feeling genuinely connected to the one you chose and love.

The post Does Sex in Marriage Keep You from Cheating? appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

And today’s question addresses just that — finding out your husband cheated. What now?

If you had asked me last week how I felt about my marriage, I would have said with confidence that we have a great marriage, one that was far stronger than most.

Then this weekend, my husband admitted to me that he had cheated on me several times during the first 5 years of our marriage. He made out with and/or received oral sex from several different women…. I’m just at a loss. I feel curiously numb, but my mind is spinning with thoughts of every kind.

My husband is extremely remorseful. I know all this happened before he got serious about his faith, and I still love him and I want to forgive him and find a way to work this out. He admitted his sins to our pastor and to his men’s bible study group a couple years ago. It seems it took him a long time to work up the courage to confess to me. He also said that for awhile he worried if telling me was actually a selfish thing for him to do, because it would make him feel better while inflicting serious pain on me. He said he wanted to protect me from that, but after continuing to pray he felt God saying he needed to tell me. So he did. Now that burden is off his shoulders, and I’m glad, but the hard part for me is only just beginning.

I know that if we’re going to have any chance at repairing our marriage we need to commit to doing it right. I am so overwhelmed though that I don’t even know where to start. 

When I receive messages like this, where someone shares their personal heartbreak, I try to imagine how I would feel in their situation. Of course I can’t say for sure, but I imagine this news like a wall falling and crushing me under—something I thought had kept me secure suddenly becoming a weight on my chest that makes it hard for me to breathe. While I wouldn’t want to demolish the whole house, because so many beautiful memories and good things happened there, it would feel overwhelming, like there’s so much to repair.

All that said, I want to point out some positives (which don’t exist with everyone who gets news of their spouse’s infidelity):

• You say this happened before your husband got serious about his faith. Meaning that the deepening of his faith has had the effect of convicting and changing him.
• You learned about this from him, meaning he was willing (though delayed) to come clean.
• The infidelity has stopped. (I’m assuming that’s true based on his statements, but see point number two below.)
• Your husband is extremely remorseful.
• You believed you had a great marriage — which likely means you have a lot to build on.
• Your husband was very concerned about the effect this information would have on you.
• He listened to God’s nudging him toward honesty, even though there might be a personal price to pay.

But now what do you do? Well, those who recover from infidelity report similar processes for healing.

1. You need time and space to grieve.

Something has been lost, and it’s entirely understandable for you to grieve this betrayal.

Sometimes when an unfaithful spouse confesses, they feel like it’s over. They’ve finally dumped the weight of their guilt by fully confessing and can feel a sense of closure in that moment, but, as you point out, the road has only just begun for the wounded spouse.

Be clear with your husband that you are grieving and need to be given the opportunity to do so, even if it means that you are sad, angry, or withdrawn. It may be painful for him to feel shut out, but you need that own that grief and work through it unheeded.

2. If he wants your marriage to heal, his life is now an open book.

You get to ask questions, and he should answer them. If you want to know where he is, when he’ll be home, and who he’s with, he needs to tell you. If you ask to see his phone, he needs to hand it over. If you want his passwords to social media, that should be shared information.

To some unfaithful spouses, that feels unfair. But the wounded spouse feels thrown off-kilter, and they need to see evidence that the relationship is exclusive and secure. They need to know that no other inappropriate contact is happening and that the marriage takes priority.

That said, the wounded spouse shouldn’t make unfounded accusations and should be thoughtful in which questions to ask about the infidelity. If you ask your husband for specifics about someone he was with, and he complies and tells you, that’s in your brain now and isn’t likely to go away. Ask what you need to know to re-establish trust, but don’t ask questions you don’t need or want the answer to — hearing the sordid details isn’t likely to help you understand more and may make you, and him, simply feel worse.

3. You need to find out what was absent during those times.

Typically a spouse cheats because they feel something is missing. Now, to be clear, what could be missing is a compass of personal morality that has zero to do with the spouse cheated on. It could also be that he felt something missing in your relationship and failed to resolve it with you, instead selfishly choosing an extramarital outlet for those feelings.

Answering the question, “Why did you cheat?” can illuminate any areas of your relationship that you might want to work on to make sure your marriage is on solid ground. Maybe your marriage has already grown to the point that this would never happen again, but it’s worth asking.

And know there likely isn’t a simple answer to this question—there could be layers of reasons you have to work through, such as a poor misunderstanding of sex in marriage coupled with a porn background and work stress and this, that, and the other.

4. You should both foster your friendship and romance.

In the midst of dealing with all of these issues, you can begin to feel like all of your discussions with your husband are tense and painful. Clear away moments and evenings and outings when you just spend time with each other.

Take the issue of infidelity off the table for those times—not that it will go away completely, but save your expressions of hurt and problem-solving on that issue for other times. Commit to dating again, reminding yourselves why you fell in love and why your marriage is worth investing in.

5. You should aim for a return of intimacy.

Some wounded spouses don’t want to have sex for a long time after discovering infidelity, while others plunge into sexual intimacy in a longing to remind themselves of this physical bond. Neither way is unreasonable, but it seems to me that the wounded spouse should take the lead.

Yes, this can go on too long where it becomes a spiteful gatekeeping exercise that can tear the marriage down further, but most of the time it’s just that the wounded spouse needs to re-establish a sense of security to become vulnerable again in the marriage bed.

Take steps to move in that direction at the pace you need, knowing that the end goal is to become one in your marriage, including physically.

For many couples, all of these suggestions proceed more smoothly when overseen by a Christian counselor who can help you address your feelings, your relationship’s weaknesses, and your goals for the marriage.

You might need to visit a counselor alone at first, to work through your emotional pain. But conversations with your husband might also flow better with someone there to mediate and interpret and make wise suggestions on how to nurture your marriage.

Finally, although the following post doesn’t address your scenario, it includes links to relevant resources: Q&A with J: Can God Heal Any Marriage after Infidelity?

As for where to start, start in prayer. Then, if I were in your shoes, I’d make a phone call to a counselor and set up an appointment. I’d peruse the resources in that post. I’d ask my husband for certain promises and access to information. I’d do some self-care. I’d schedule a date night. I’d see the counselor. I’d keep praying.

The road isn’t easy, but you can reach a destination of healing, trust, and intimacy. Not simply again, but deeper than before.

The post Q&A with J: I Just Found Out My Husband Cheated appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

Please help! my husband had a “kissing affair” with a bar tramp over two years ago. I know it didn’t go any further because of everything I know now. he said she was just some cheap easy tramp who paid attention to him at the time. he’s never had contact again and I know he still lives with the guilt. he’s done everything right, I just can’t stand the thought of him kissing me now! … I gag at the thought of letting him stick his tongue down my throat now and I want to move on! HOW can I do this?

First off, referring to this woman as a “cheap easy tramp” is total rationalization. Maybe that’s exactly what she was, but it sounds to me like he was easy in that moment too. And it’s all too common for men to claim they were seduced by a loose woman and thus blame her.

It doesn’t matter whether the woman was a dignified colleague he met on a business trip or a woman playing kissing roulette with a bar full of men, your husband needs to own that he decided what to do with his own lips.

“Whoever conceals their sins does not prosper, but the one who confesses and renounces them finds mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

You can’t make him change his tune, but you can change yours. Stop referring to that woman as a “bar tramp.” Not only do you not know her, and any terrible backstory she might have that made her walk into a bar and kiss a stranger that night, you shouldn’t enable his efforts to transfer blame to someone else.

Is that harsh? I don’t think so. Because while I can honestly say that some guys I dated in my premarital promiscuous past took advantage of me, my sin is entirely my own. I choose to participate, and that’s wholly on me. Until we accept responsibility for our sin, we cannot confess it all and receive full forgiveness available through Christ.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst”  (1 Timothy 1:15).

Now to the primary issue: He cheated on you.

And if someone is reading this and saying, “It’s just kissing,” you’re apparently not alone. In a survey of 5000 people across the United Kingdom, 14% of people didn’t consider passionately kissing someone other than your partner to be infidelity. Although that included 9% of women and a whopping 19% of men.

Now these weren’t specifically married people, but those percentages are astounding. Would you really feel it wasn’t cheating if you came home to find your beloved lip-locked with someone else on your couch? Even if you didn’t consider it adultery per se, it’s clearly a betrayal and on the road to Nothing Good.

But if you turn those stats around, four out of five men and nine out of ten women — not necessarily married — think kissing is cheating. I believe God agrees.

“Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death” (James 1:14-15, NLT).

However, the husband here recognizes his guilt and “he’s done everything right.” What would those right things be? Here’s a noncomprehensive list:

• Confess the betrayal
• Take full responsibility for your choices and sin
• Apologize for the hurt you’ve caused
• Take steps to keep it from ever happening again
• Answer your spouse’s questions
• Reassure your mate daily of your commitment
• Give your spouse space and time to return to intimacy with you

So now what? He’s done what he should, and it’s your turn. How do you get past your husband tangling tongues with anyone but you?!

I sat here for a moment thinking how I’d feel if Spock kissed someone else. My teeth clenched, my throat tightened, and I had a sick feeling in my stomach. Shock, sadness, and anger rose up in me. And that’s just from imagining a betrayal that’s never happened.

So my heart goes out to you, reader. I can only imagine, but it is a painful thought.

That said, marriage is far too important to toss out or tear down because of this one confessed, forgiven sin. Beyond forgiveness is reconciliation, and that’s where the struggle is now. So let’s talk about actions to help you move beyond what happened and into deeper intimacy with your husband.

 1. Talk through the event.

Sometimes for closure, we need to understand what happened, why it happened, and what we can do to prevent it from happening again. Ask your husband to join you in calm conversations about why he felt tempted, how his actions make you feel, what you can both do to be there more fully for one another. Discuss practical ways to prevent this temptation from arising again. Does he need to swear off bars? Do you need to go on business trips with him? Should he have a male accountability partner?

Remember as you ask him questions about what happened that he cannot un-tell you what he tells you. You likely don’t need those details that would merely give you a clearer picture to run through your mind. Make sure you what you ask about relates to the goal of getting you past this event and building a stronger marriage.

These discussions will go far better if you keep your cool while still expressing your emotions, concerns, and needs. And be willing to listen to his end and see what you can do to help him avoid any such temptation in the future.

2. Take charge of the kissing.

When you reintroduce physical intimacy after an affair, it’s important to let the betrayed spouse set the pace. You may need to take a break from time to time, breathe through the anxiety, and regather your thoughts before continuing. Having you initiate the kissing can also help you view this as something you want as well as determining how you want it.

Moreover, letting you be in charge shows that your husband respects your feelings — he understands this is difficult and he’s willing to do what it takes to be with you. Will this slower pace be difficult for your husband? Yeah. But it’s worthwhile.

You can start with kissing him in other places besides his mouth, like his hands or his jaw line. As you kiss, remember what you enjoy about being with him, touching him, feeling close to him. Take time to explore, as if you’re there again for the first time. When you feel more comfortable, move to his lips, kissing him in the way you most enjoy. If you need to pause, do so. But then try to get back to it and push past the discomfort. Which brings me to my next point.

3. Train your thoughts.

This is what is really comes down to. Because every time you kiss him now, you can’t get that other woman and what he did with her out of your mind. It’s hovering there in your brain, in your gut, in your heart. But somehow, you’ve got to stop thinking about that night and focus instead on your love for your husband, his love for you, and the kissing you’re doing.

First, recognize that you’re not on opposite sides. Yes, your husband betrayed you, but since he confessed and recommitted to you, your position going forward is a united team fighting against any enemy that wants to attack your marriage. You are one flesh, and “therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate” (Mark 10:9).

Second, use self-talk while you’re kissing to alter your perspective in real-time. Remind yourself that your husband is here with you, that he is committed to your relationship, that you enjoy kissing him. Memorize some scriptures you can use as mantras in your head to fight back when thoughts of the kissing affair pop into your head. For example:

• “[Love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs” (1 Corinthians 13:5).
• “We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5b).
• “I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me” (Song of Songs 7:10).
• “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).

Recognize that it won’t be smooth the first make-out session you have. But what tends to happen over time is new thoughts and new experiences replace old ones and the bad memory loses its foothold in your mind. As that scripture says above, love indeed covers a multitude of sins.

4. Remember how God treats you.

Here’s one last thing that has helped me get over a lot of stuff: “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:32). When I struggle with forgiveness or reconciliation, I think about all the ways I’ve hurt my Heavenly Father, and yet He takes me back every time. Yes, I must be repentant, but He is always faithful to show me grace. That perspective helps me give grace to others.

So how do you over your husband’s kissing affair? Slowly, intentionally, prayerfully. But it will happen, if you both commit to reviving your physical affection and intimacy.

The post Q&A with J: “My Husband Had a Kissing Affair” appeared first on Hot, Holy & Humorous.

I found out 3 days ago my husband had an affair… After he had planned a weekend away [secretly] this past weekend..I assumed this was the only time He had wandered. We have been having issues for a long time. Our relationships with God haven’t been good. I feel unsure if this relationship will work. We have two small kids. I don’t feel in love. He has had an issue with porn and was talking to girls online in chat rooms…. I don’t want to leave him but I wonder if I can truly heal being so close. I feel like maybe my insecurities are also keeping me…. He cheated with my neighbor.

I know God can restore our marriage and make it better than before but I’m hesitant. I’ve had sex with him since the affair unknowingly…. I just don’t know how I could have sex with him after knowing this.

What struck me about this email and why I wanted to address it is that, yes, I agree that God can absolutely restore a marriage and make it better than before. But what this email lacks is any indication of what this husband is doing to keep and improve the marriage.

What we do know is:

• He secretly planned a rendezvous with his affair partner.
• His affair partner was their neighbor.
• The marriage has had problems for a long time.
• He’s had an issue with porn.
• He’s visited internet chat rooms to talk to other women.
• He had sex with his wife after having sex with his affair partner.

Affairs rarely happen in short order. There are steps spouse take as they head into marital infidelity, which I cover in this post. You can probably see from the list above how this all might have come together: a troubled marriage, a man without solid sexual boundaries (porn, chat rooms), a woman nearby (neighbor) who tempted the husband, and a string of lies and secrecy.

It’s not just that the husband slept with another woman. It’s that he planned it, he lied about it, and he tried to have his cake and eat it too (sex with both women). I can’t sugarcoat this — his actions were horrible.

Now if you discover your spouse has cheated and still had sex with you, you should both get tested for STDs. It’s not unreasonable to ask your spouse to willingly get tested. (In fact, if either spouse has had other partners, even before marriage, they should get tested and share results with their spouse.)

But the next step is this question: Do you both want to have this marriage?

Here’s where I’m not sure about this couple. This husband watched porn, went to chat rooms, lied to his wife, cheated on her, and not one iota of her explanation said that he was sorry, cut off contact with his affair partner, begged her to stay, etc. How did she even find out about the adultery? Did he fess up (a good signal) or got caught and couldn’t wiggle out of it?

In answer to “Can God Heal Any Marriage after Infidelity?” … yes, if you’re both willing to make an effort. But if the cheater feels zero remorse for what they did, what do you do then?

If the cheater feels zero remorse for what they did, what do you do then? #marriage
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Now, there could be some who don’t feel bad about the affair, but they could be motivated to work on the marriage by other issues — losing the mate they’ve partnered with in other ways, being separated from their kids, having concern about the financial cost. If he’s still willing to come to the table, there’s definitely hope. Jesus often took people who came to Him for selfish reasons and turned them toward the truth.

Dealing with all the issues brought up by this question, here are some resources to check out:

Intimacy After an Affair. This post addresses how you really could sleep with your husband after an affair, assuming certain criteria are present.

Rebuilding Trust in the Bedroom. This post gives specifics on how to rebuild the necessary trust for sexual intimacy.

Book Review: Healing from Infidelity by Michele Weiner-Davis. Michele’s book talks about how a couple can actually put a marriage back together, and she includes a chapter on what you can do if your spouse is not willing to engage. That said, part of her prescription is an area with which I disagree: That is, she offers one path of just letting your husband go his way while you hold things together and wait for the affair to fall apart, and that is not a biblical approach. Rather, as Christians we don’t enable sin but rather confront it and look for ways to bring a straying person back into the fold. With that in mind, you can still find some wisdom in this book for your situation. Just keep your Christian thinking cap on.

Redeeming Marriages. Jack and Janet write this blog about strengthening your marriage, but they come from a background where, at different times, both spouses cheated. Yet, they fought their way back to a godly, happy marriage. You can read their story here. You might also want to check out their post on What If You’re the Only One Holding On?

Counseling. Yes, counseling. If I were you, I’d be on the phone to a Christian counseling center figuring out how soon hubby and I could sit down for a session. And if we meshed well with that counselor, we’d continue. If we didn’t, I’d try another and even another, until I found someone who could work with both of us to rebuild our relationship. Good counseling is a great way to reestablish a relationship, as God often uses others to assist our restoration.

You can indeed rebuild a marriage and intimacy from a situation that seems hopeless. But if I were you, I’d be hesitant too. Because I’d want to know that my spouse is willing to put forth some effort to make things better. If not today, then within a certain amount of time after I’ve invested everything I can into improving our marriage.

I’m praying for you.

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