“If only I had learned to ____ quicker, my marriage might not have ended.”
-Faithful Spouse Spinning
While understandable, this sort of thinking is just another form of “The Shared Responsibility Lie.”
The faithful spouse is sharing responsibility for the choices and sins of their ex-spouse. I hate to break the news, but we are not powerful enough to control another person to that level.
Failing to learn a certain marriage lesson quicker did not cause the adultery! That sin that led to divorce is not on you, the faithful spouse.
The cheater remains 100% for their own sin (see 2 Corinthians 5:10). May learning something quicker have resulted in something different in the marriage outcome? Perhaps. Perhaps, not.
That lesson or deficiency is not what caused the infidelity!
It was the evil within the cheater that led to the infidelity (see Mark 7:21-23). The cheater would have still had to master such temptation. They would have to resist giving into the evil within.
Whatever can be said about your lesson, that would ultimately not change what was inside the cheater.
They would have to choose truth over lies. They would still have to choose righteousness over wickedness. They would still have to pick God over their own evil desires.
They did not.
And that plus all the fall out is upon them, not you.
If only I had learned ____ quicker, then maybe my marriage might have survived? Nah.
That would have done nothing to address the real cause of the marriage’s end–namely, the faulty character of the cheater.
