When I was going through the darkest part of my marriage dying, I really did not want the divorce.
(As a side note, I am so grateful today that I was freed by that divorce. God has used Mrs. DM and Munchkin to restore the laughter in the halls of my heart.)
A temptation I had was to take even the smallest civility from my estranged wife (at the time) as a sign she was willing to stop the divorce. She wasn’t. It was just a way to jerk me around. False hope.
She was perfectly fine with cheating.
When confronted over said cheating, she maintained–as I remember it–that her affair partner had nothing to do with our marriage problems! At least, she did not have a problem with the affair (and how she felt about it was all that mattered in her book).
My encouragement to those in that place–hoping for change in the cheater to avoid divorce–is to look at your cheater’s actions or lack thereof.
Focus on what have they done or not done to address the cheating in a rigorous way.
If they have done nothing (or very little), then I suggest reminding yourself that the cheater is choosing the path of destruction and you need to seek freedom from that spiritual death march (See Hebrews 10:26-27).
This will help save you suffering. It is hard, but sometimes the kindest truth is a hard truth.
____
*A version of this post ran previously.
“If they have done nothing (or very little), then I suggest reminding yourself that the cheater is choosing the path of destruction and you need to seek freedom from that spiritual death march (See Hebrews 10:26-27).”
Can’t be said enough. Also, freedom from their almost inevitable fall in their physical life. Had I stayed in that marriage; I would have faced massive gambling debts, been forced into bankruptcy, and living in a broken down trailer with a small pittance to live on.
He would have drained my retirement account as fast as I could build it, just like he did his own. He would have continued to cheat just as he did with his adultery partner/wife. He would have moved from place to place to find new folks to con. He found out the con was much harder without a respectable wife to make him look good and do most of his work for him, while he takes the credit.