Hi Tspidey630. When I read your post, I prayed for your situation because I relate too well to it. And realize I need to pray for our sister Chosen_and_blessed. I'm so sorry. I understand.
At 20 years of marriage, my husband's mistress contacted me and introduced herself to me as his girlfriend. I didn't know how she had gotten my phone number but spent 3 days witnessing my faith to her and had to repent continually for how I dealt with him afterward. I had never gotten evidence that he had ever cheated on me with anyone else throughout our marriage - only the 2 1/2 year relationship he was in with this woman 20 years younger than him. He had met her in a bar and according to her / him confessing to be true, he told her he was not married (at 18 years of marriage) and had no children (having our 4).
The details of their relationship floored me. She shared with me so much information - including that he had taken her to 5 cities outside our state. I found out there was an additional city within our state he had taken her to and found out he had spent over $9000 on this other life of his. The bookkeeper who worked for our company had warned that he lied about everything and forged signatures constantly. I was floored, dismayed. This was not only the father of children who loved him tremendously and still do. This was a man wearing a Christian mask very convincingly. He was the choir leader at the church where my brother-in-law and sister-in-law (his sister) are pastors. For about 2 of the 5 years I had belonged to their church he led the choir by making rules, enforcing rules, and alternating wit me as director + other choir members in leading praise/worship. My husband preached, did prison ministry, street ministry, and other activities that identified him with Christ. His deeds were a rude awakening to me seeing firsthand Matthew 7:21.
Now, even after many counseling sessions with a more Biblical pastor that we've been under for years and after expressing repentance and newfound loyalty to God and then to me and the kids, my husband is in the faith genuinely this time as far as I can see. He still has his faults as we all do. But my feelings toward him have changed. I love him as a brother in the Lord. I love him as a family member of my family because he's my husband. I do what I can to respect him - with much struggle that I lean on God to help and even correct me. I mess up so much and have to always seek forgiveness and cleansing.
That said, here's what i truly believe based on what God's Word tells me:
The fact that I don't love my husband romantically as I always had up until the aftermath of all our turmoil is not important. What IS is important is that I love him as a Christian brother in the Lord. And if he wasn't a believer, what would be important is to love him as a neighbor. The way we are to love others with a born again new heart is not romantic at all. I have a biological brother who has hurt the family tremendously. But I love him with heart of a believer and also as a biological sister. Nothing romantic needed. I love a stranger on the street enough to share the gospel and with basic necessities as I see needed that i can give in the moment. Nothing romantic needed. I love love love my children and the children whom I teach in Sunday school. This doesn't require that I always admire any of them all the time. They actually try my patience quite often. But I love them.
Romantic love for your husband may return. That would require work on his part, and does not have to require work on your part at all unless you want to work toward romantically loving a man who pushed it out of you. It's okay to let that be all on him.
But if you focus on loving him with a born again heart that is surrendered to Christ, that is what is important. This is the heart that so loves Jesus, it will compel you to forgive as often as needed to obey God's Word (whether forgiveness is required due to deeds or memories). This love (called Agape love) will compel you to treat his role as a husband in alignment with God's expectations, fulfilling your role as woman of the house to please Christ.
It is natural to love your husband as a member of your family because he is just that to you - a member of your family, the husband. Caring for his well-being, caring to do your part for the household to experience family.
Allow God to minister to you over time. When you feel your heart begin to soften from spending time with God, don't fight it.
And don't try to fit into the mode of what others say forgiveness and reconciliation looks like. Forgiveness does not mean never mentioning the sin again. This man-created standard has made reconciliation a hard task. The journey of reconciliation sometimes requires two people to agree to certain times of discussing the pain of what happened as a litmus test for what can fractionally be expected in the future.
A lot a LOT of closed in time with the Lord will help you. It helped me. Communicating with a circle of true born again wives on an ongoing basis has helped me. Too many people have made insensitive statements to me that appeared to be like Job's friends whom God had to punish thinking they were identifying Job as a wrongdoer through his pain. On the flipside, too many people have also made statements that enabled me to be unforgiving toward my husband.
A multitude of wise counselors (preferably true born again wives) can add so much balance - especially when they lean on God's Word to minister to you. One of the women on CF became one of my closest friends by making herself available. She goes by the name of Farine on CF. She's been through a lot of hurt and pains. She's leaned on God in ways I've never seen in many people. And she's one in a few women I've been able to talk to.
Whatever you're going through, God can use what you experienced to help others in the future experiencing similar problems. Whether you speak. Whether you reach out on CF like Farine did and like I'm doing. Whether you minister to someone one-on-one. When my pastor's wife told me that I'd be able to reach out to other wives with an understanding heart from experience, I thought she sounded cliche. I didn't want to hear that because I felt like, and still do and will always feel this way, that a woman shouldn't experience any betrayal in order to help another woman.
So obvious why God allows encouragement and counseling to work that way. Yet, it still hurts and can be hard to grasp in understanding till one day when the Lord settles all questions somewhere in eternity. Meantime, we keep reaching for our Father for answers and consolation on every end as would a toddler struggling to walk reaching for Dad, who is right there - tho he's allowing the child to fall for strength in the growing steps.
Praying for my 2 sisters in this thread.
