First, I want to say that I'm not an atheist (I was baptized when I was 11), but I should also say that I do not attend church. I noticed many people here mention God or refer to God as a guidance for themselves. So, I have a question for those individuals...

If you break one of the commandments (and many of us have probably broken the 10th commandment) then what do you believe you have to do to be forgiven? If a BS forgives the WS does that mean God forgives the WS or will that person still be damned to he!!? What if the BS never forgives?

Also, do we have anyone else with a different religion that could provide there views on adultery?

I don't want to turn this into a big religious fight... just curious on some of your views.

Hopeful,

If you stand before the Lord, humbly and ask Him for forgiveness, The Lord gives it. To him ALL sins are sins, no sin is bigger than the next. My sin of adultry is no worse or better in his eyes, then my neighbors sin of theft. But God does expect you to trust him and fully submit to him as well, but he is a very Patient God. He made humans to fail, he made us weak, and so he doesn't expect us to be anymore than that. God MADE us all sinners, we were born sinners...and it's why he wants us to accept HIM, and ask for HIS forgiveness, and ask HIM to help us along the way - to guide a path for us, to be there to help us when we fall down, as we are all bound to fall, as that is how we are designed.

My H doesn't have to forgive me inorder for God to forgive me, God's forgiveness is mine for the taking if I ask (which I did) however, God expects you to forgive as well...and won't give his forgivness if you are unforgiving. And so to accept God's forgivness I had to forgive myself. And I continue to forgive others on a daily basis with his help.

A saint somewhere out there once said, Forgiveness is deliberatly choosing to forget it happened.

It doesn't mean you forget, but it means you choose to pass it by, let it go, briging it up over and over and over is not forgiveness, it's denial of anger - true forgivness is letting it go - you may remember the scar, but you have given the deed to God and let him take care of it.

Dorry, well put...

No problem. Would love to help!!


First off, ALL of us break ALL of the Commandments. There is not a person that has stode the face of the Earth that hasnt broken every one of those Commandments, that is except Jesus.

To be forgiven? Only one way. To accept the fact that Jesus Christ Himself went to the Cross to pay for those sins (and the ones you have yet to commit). That He paid for the sins that you or me should have paid for. How to get forgiveness? You must accept that Jesus did that for YOU and that not only do you accept Him taking your place, but that you now follow Him as Lord and Savior....and as your friend. That's it. Baptism follows this. Once saved (and thus forgiven), then you get baptized as an outward sign to everyone for what has already taken place in side.


Nope. God does not forgive because I forgave my wife. But He does say that He will never forgive me if I dont forgive my wife. Again, forgiveness from God comes from accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior. There is no other way. The 10 Commandments...shoot, all of the rules in the Bible...werent meant for us to live up to. We cant. Never could (at least after Adam, we couldnt). The Law was meant to be a mirror, to show us EXACTLY who we are and how far we have fallen. And to show us that there is NO WAY to bridge that gap. No way to make amends. No way to be forgiven. Someone has to pay for sin. Now, we can pay for it ourselves...and God says the payment for sin...any sin, large or small...is death. Or, we can let Jesus pay for it. And with the acceptance of that, we are no longer under the death penalty.

Like I said, the Law is a mirror. It shows us how dirty we are. But it has NO ability to clean us up. That comes from water. And the water that cleans us is the blood of Jesus Christ.


Then the BS will not be forgiven by God for his/her sins. Mat 6:15 "But if you (a Christian) do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions."

Hope this helps. Ask all the questions you would like.

In His arms.

I guess that tells me where I am in my recovery. I do feel very angry and I just want to move on but don't feel like I can... not yet. She says that she hates that the OM helped her to go against everything she believes in. I feel like I need to hear her say that she hates the f****r, then I'll feel that she truly is sorry and he is out of her mind and we can both move forward in our recovery. I need to know that I'm the only one occupying her thoughts and heart for me to move forward.

I know this is shallow or unrealistic, but it's just the way I feel today.

Views on procedure may differ between denominations, but the basic idea is that the WS must be truely repentant in their heart (you can't fool God) and ask God for forgiveness. God's forgiveness is not based on whether they are forgiven by anyone else.

Not long after Dday I heard a sermon about forgiveness. Short version: If I don't forgive WS then I am out of God's will and may be preventing WS from facing God. God is better at punishment than I will ever be.

Good stuff, widow.

In His arms.

And you wont until you have that relationship with Christ that you need, and when you do...you take that anger and exchange it for His love. Right now, your anger isnt about your wife. It is about you. You choose to be angry (I now this from personal experience). Or you choose to let it go and let God take care of it all. Your choice.

A good start for her, but she also needs to go to Jesus with this. If she is forgiven by Him and she has repented, then the affair is over. And no one can hold it against her any longer. As a matter of fact, once forgiven...God no longer even sees the affair.

While all of us BSs would love this, it doesnt happen too often, for many reasons. But guess what? This is not what will stop your recovery! All you need is to fill each other's ENs, dont love bust, and do the things that Dr. Harley suggest. And leave the rest in the hands of God.

Not realistic. You need to understand that this is a process. it is worth it in the end. But in the middle, it kinda sucks. She has a lot to deal with. She will deal with it much faster if yo uare nto demanding and you are understanding. The reality is that she has had an affair. You two cannot chaneg that. But you can help her to process it so it is left in the past. But just like dropping somethign out of your car, when you leave it, you can still see it in the rear view mirror for a little while. But with each passing second, it gets further away and smaller.

So it will go with this. Keep your eyes ahead.

In His arms.

Wise words, MM

I think a profound realization for me was that God had the power to forgive me even when I couldn't forgive myself for what I had done.

My logic is thus: If God has chosen to forgive me, am I not saying that I am more wise than God when I refuse to forgive?

Low

Others (Dorry, MM, fbwidow, LowOrbit), have done a very good job of answering your questions and I concur with them.

So now let me ask you a question in return. Being "baptised" saves no one. Being raised in a Christian home saves no one. Have YOU accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? I, for one, need to know if I am speaking with a brother in Christ or not when attempting to formulate a response to your questions and situations.



If you are Christian, any other views than those based upon Scripture are irrelevant. If you are not a Christian, "Any view" will do, right?



Neither do I. And your simple answer to my question about YOUR faith will suffice to "diffuse" any "big religious fight."

God bless.

All true LowOrbit!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Actually Hopeful4future,

My wife is a Catholic that went to Catholic schools and she thought that once you committed a mortal sin, you where condemned and could no longer receive communion and would most likely go to HE11

So I researched it and what I have found is quite lengthily and I’ll include it after my own summarization.

To be forgiven, you most ask for forgiveness from God, Your Spouse and Yourself.

Can I be forgiven?

Infidelity & Forgiveness:

• 1. THE PROCESS OF FORGIVENESS
  
• a. Has he/she owned up to the infidelity?
  
• b. Is he/she genuinely contrite?
  
• c. Is he/she earnestly committed to moving forward in a positive direction? Is he/she committed to a life long investment in the relationship?
  
  2. However, forgiveness of such a serious violation of trust as marital infidelity does not come easily.
  
  
• d. How do we do it? How can we forgive?
  
• e. Moreover, we need to confront our own vulnerabilities. Are there deep-seated insecurities and weaknesses which this betrayal has brought to the fore and which urgently demand our attention?
  
  Furthermore, we need to reach in and reach out, embarking on pursuits that will foster a positive self-image and make us feel, healthy, competent and sufficient. From this position of strength and self-esteem we can proceed to the next phase, which is to address the issue of the offending party.
  
  3. AGENDA FOR THERAPY
  
  
• f. Deal with the pain and fallout.
  
• g. Improve communication skills. This means learning to talk so that we can listen, and listening so that we can talk.
  
• h. Clarify and better understand what we need from each other. What do I need you to do so that I can begin to trust? Is it to spend quality time together in order to communicate regardless of our hectic schedules?
  
• i. Share the spiritual centers of our lives, striving together to integrate transcendent values such as a relationship with God.
  
• j. It should go without saying that forgiving, healing and building trust take time. It requires consistent investment and hard work.
  
• k. In the last analysis, hanging on to anger and resentment, obsessing and refusing to forgive is, as someone observed, letting someone live in our head rent-free. The greatest beneficiary of forgiveness is to the one who finds it within one's self to do so.
• l. Most significantly by forgiving we reach beyond our finite limitations and in the likeness of our Creator in whose image we are fashioned, we become more exalted human beings, mending the broken, healing the wounded, and restoring the integrity of love.
  
  4. WHAT REPENTANCE MEANS
  
  
• m. The first stage involved admission, No rationalizations or excuses were allowed. We owned up and said the equivalent of, "We did it and it was wrong!"
  
• n. The second step called for remorse, being truly sorry and regretful.
  
• o. For the third and final step, it was necessary that you put into place a program which would mitigate against the possibility of failure in the future. This demanded boundaries and safeguards to protect against the recurrence of such a lapse. It goes without saying that this mandated a formidable investment of arduous work.
  
  

Bible Quotes:

1 Corinthians 6:16-20

(16) What? know ye not that he which is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. (17) But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit. (18) Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. (19) What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? (20) For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.

Adultery creates a second one-body/one-flesh bond in opposition to the marriage. This will inflict severe damage upon the marriage relationship. The apostle says such sexual sins hurt so much because they are "sins against [our] own body" (verse 18).

Paul comes to his primary point in verses 19-20: We are not our own! God bought us at an incredibly high cost, the blood of our Master, and thus He commands us to "glorify God in your body and in your spirit," both of which are His! God owns us completely!

The import of this is staggering! When we commit sex sins—even in our minds—we have first become unfaithful to God! When we break the seventh commandment, we show infidelity to God! Yes, it shows infidelity to the wronged spouse, but it all begins with unfaithfulness to God.

The road to adultery starts when we become willing to break the vows we made to God at our baptism. We promised then that we would honor and obey Him exclusively and faithfully, accepting Him as our Savior, Master, and soon-coming King and Husband. When we are willing to walk away from the commands He gives us about sex and marriage, we begin to walk into the arms of adultery. Physical adultery starts with spiritual adultery!

If an adulterer desires to repent, he must first acknowledge that he has sinned against God. King David, in his moving prayer of repentance after the murder of Uriah and adultery with Bathsheba, cries out, "Against You, You only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Your sight" (Psalm 51:4). Did he not also sin against Uriah, Bathsheba, the nation, his wives, and his children? Of course! But ultimately, his sin was against God! When we are faithful to God and our covenant with Him, we will not commit sex sins.

Matthew 5:27-28
The Jews felt that adultery is a kind of theft. Though this is not entirely wrong, Jesus emphasizes its impurity in these two verses. He says that ruin awaits even the unchaste in thought. Nowhere is the inward aim of Christ's teaching so evident as in this comment. A change must first take place in the thoughts if conduct is going to be changed. The real problem with sin resides inside the mind. Christ traces impurity back beyond the lustful act, beyond the first touch of the hands, beyond the gaze of the eyes, to the inception of desire.

Malachi 2:15
God hates divorce because of the damage it does. "For the Lord God of Israel says that He hates divorce, 'for it covers one's garment with violence,' says the Lord of hosts. 'Therefore take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously'"

Malachi 2:17
And what was the response of the unfaithful priests to all this infidelity? They said that "everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the Lord, and He delights in them"

Can I Renew my Wedding Vows?

Catholic doctrine

Physical Adultery: In the secular and atheistic element of human society, adultery has always been a common practice. This is mortally sinful and results in punishment by Almighty God, even in this world! In our watered-down “Christian” society, adultery is not so socially scandalous as it once was. The liberal media regularly portray infidelity as some kind of romantic adventure—and often attempt to justify, and even encourage it. The sin of adultery is euphemistically called “having an affair.” In the civil law, divorce has become simplified and easy to attain. The notoriety of public figures who flaunt their adulterous behavior tends to break down respect for the institution of marriage and the virtue of purity. Scandal and bad example can be found everywhere, often even in the best of families. A wedding ring placed on the hand of a bride should send out a signal, loud and clear: She belongs exclusively to one man. So also the wedding band worn by the groom: He is no longer “fair game.” He belongs to one woman only. A respectable married man not only does not commit adultery, but also does not engage in looks, words and actions which may lead in that direction. On his deathbed, Saint Dominic assured his followers that he had never fallen into the sin of impurity. He confided that his success was due to the fact that he “never took part in any dangerous conversations.” That is a good lesson for all of us: Resist the beginnings! Many spiritual directors pass that wise maxim on to their penitents. It is an extremely important principle in the spiritual life. Every sinner—from Adam and Eve to every murderer, thief and adulterer since then—has foolishly ignored this principle. Every teenager who has rebelled against his parents and against God, somewhere along the line, has refused to “resist the beginnings.” A prudent married person does not bestow any type of affection on or give more than passing attention to members of the opposite sex which may ultimately lead to fatal consequences. Little by little, imprudent behavior can weaken one’s resolve to observe faithfully the marriage vows made before God. Adultery remains always a mortal sin. It is a direct violation of the Sixth Commandment. Even if this sin becomes prevalent in the world, its culpability is not thereby diminished. Anyone who dies having committed this sin—and dies unrepentant—will be subjected to eternal punishment in ******.

The Catechism Explained
V. THE FORGIVENESS OF SIN
1. There is no man upon earth without sin; consequently there is none who does not need the forgiveness of sin.
"If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us" (1 John 1:8). The just man falls [daily] seven times (Prov. 24:16). God permits us to fall into venial sin again and again, to keep us humble. As we sin daily, we must daily ask for the forgiveness of sin in the Our Father. Only by reason of an exceptional privilege, such as was bestowed by God upon His blessed Mother, can mortal man pass the period of his sojourn upon earth without committing venial sin (Council of Trent, 6, 23); nay more, without the succor of special grace it is impossible to avoid venial sin for any length of time. The highest perfection of which human frailty is capable is this: Not to commit any sin, even venial sin, with deliberate intention.

One of the reasons I did so much research was in addition to help my wife forgive herself and fall back into the good grace of GOD. I wanted to remarry her, to give us a fresh new start, to which she said “The church wouldn’t allow an adulterer to remarry.” So I did my research and YES YOU CAN!

HLR,

Well, I guess you have done some research. In fact, I'd say you did so much that you could almost write your own book.

You and I have been on this rollercoaster long enough and I think it's time that we get off this ride and go on the merry-go-round. Something simple and predictable.

Actually Hopeful,

I have been waiting for my wife to get me off this rollercoaster and do something special for me…Something that Just to say I LOVE YOU!

Maybe, but for now, I’m day by day and still hurting way to much.

HLR,

I'm nowhere even close to your problem. Mine is just typical hurting that we all are going through. So, I bow to your endurance of the constant uphill hike you are taking. I'm not sure I could have done what you are doing for as long as you have been. But, then again, I never thought I would be here so I'm sure I would. She is worth it.