Betrayal – In the human experience, nothing is quite like it. From the betrayed’s perspective, it really sucks. Knowing a person who supposedly loves you has the capacity to do something horrible is so disturbing. It destroys trust…possibly forever, it kills marital intimacy and it changes the landscape of a marriage forever.
But what about the way the betrayer feels? How would it feel to be the one who betrayed another person? How does it feel to be Allie, the one who betrayed me to have an affair with a man named Mark? What would it be like to be that person after the affair? Especially when you’re trying to repent and reconcile your marriage?
Allie says she is remorseful and repentant about having an affair. Just this morning, she apologized a few more times and was tearing up at what she’s done. That feeling has to be pretty hard. She says she wants to grow old with me and be married. She doesn’t want to get divorced. (nope)
But there is an anxiety, and an unknown. She doesn’t know what the future holds for us. She is constantly looking over her shoulder to see if I am divorcing her. She is insecure and has a heaviness that is hard to explain. Life is different. The freedom she experienced in our marriage is gone. The freedom, trust, and security she had about my loyalty is shaky and uncertain. She knows that I have 90 more days in the commitment I made to make a decision about divorce.