Cheater: “If only you understood me, you wouldn’t judge me so harshly.”
Faithful Spouse: “I DO understand. That is why we are divorced.”
A failure to understand is not why divorce is often the best of bad options in dealing with a harden cheater.
Please do not waste your time sticking your head into that brain blender pursuit. The Bible is very clear what needs to be understood about such matters:
A cheater gave into the wickedness in their own heart and chose sin over godliness (see Mark 7:21-23, James 1:13-15, etc).
A cheater pleading for “understanding” likely is pleading to have their sin excused or minimized, at least. The thought goes that understanding them will make their actions “understandable” under those circumstances.
But that misunderstands what it means to look at adultery as a follower of Christ. Adultery is not caused by circumstances.
Adultery is caused by the cheater choosing to give into the wickedness within his or her heart choosing adultery. That’s all that really needs to be understood on that matter. It is a failure of character.
And why are we SO concerned with understanding the cheater as opposed to understanding how their victim(s) feel?!
If we spent half our effort on seeing victims and the destruction adultery causes, I suspect the temptation to commit adultery would start to loose its attraction.
Choosing to divorce a cheater is not indication that the faithful spouse fails to understand the cheater. Rather, I think it signals the opposite:
