Five Things to Remember When Having an Affair

I got wind last week of yet two more Christians who have decided to destroy their marriages, their respective families and their own lives by hooking up with each other. Such behavior has become so commonplace in the church these days that it rarely draws the attention of pastors, other small groups members or elder teams. It’s just become another “normal” part of the rapidly declining morality in our country.

So, I’d like to offer a rare word to those of you in affairs, or to those of you who are literally flirting with the idea of one.

Here are five things you need to know about having an affair.

If your affair partner will cheat with you, he or she will cheat on you . Please don’t think that your partner’s adulterous ways will end when and if you finally get together. If he or she is willing to violate covenant once, what’s to stop them from violating it again? The same sweet nothings and promises of fidelity they’re whispering or texting to you now, they declared publicly to their spouse before you. And more than likely they will to someone else after you.
 People never affair up; they always affair down . Affair partners are never better people–better husbands, wives, lovers, friends, parents–than the spouse they’re cheating on. The fact that they’re willing to cheat on their spouse is proof of serious character flaws and major breakdowns in their relationship with God. Men who leave their wives for other women don’t so so because the other women is a better mate. They do so because she’s younger, (currently) sexier, richer, more understanding or just a “better fit” than their current spouse. But the fact that she’s willing to be “the other woman” tells you all you need to know about her. If she was more secure and had a higher self-esteem, she would never even entertain the idea of a relationship with a man who was already married. Bottom line: people never improve their status by dumping one spouse for another.
The root of the affair is selfishness, not love . Please don’t cheapen the concept of love by using it to describe how you feel about your affair partner. Real love has no such selfish tendencies. There is only one word to describe the behavior of a man or a women who is willing to sneak around behind their spouse’s back–selfish. To do so you have to put the well-being of your spouse, your children, your extended family and friends to the side so you can do what you want, regardless of the consequences.  And the media and websites and all your friends who are encouraging your errant behavior will always leave out the little detail that relationships that start in the bed of selfishness never fare well.
The affair won’t satisfy you . The big lie of the affair is that if you can just be with that other person, you’ll be happy (or happier). That’s the same stupid lie that the devil has been feeding people since the first couple ate the forbidden fruit. It’s the famous myth of the greener grass. It’s the lie that that one thing–a person, a car, a lifestyle, a new or different whatever–will satisfy you. It’s a lie, and for some reason we’re just foolish enough to keep buying it. Whatever need you’re trying to meet or whatever itch you’re trying to scratch by sleeping with someone who isn’t your spouse, I can promise you it won’t satisfy you. But it will kill, steal and destroy. That’s always Satan’s end-game.
Adultery is sin, and God still judges sin . Some of the scariest chapters in the Bible are those that describe God’s fierce judgement of King David after his affair with Bathsheba. The judgment was swift, multi-generational and honestly, something from which David never fully recovered. There’s a spiritual law of cause and effect with sin, and it comes with a severe cost that few of us consider before we jump into the sack with someone else’s spouse. Solomon, the son of David and Bathsheba and a man who saw firsthand the devastation that David’s poor choice brought on his family, put it aptly: The one who commits adultery with a woman is lacking sense; he who would destroy himself does it, Proverbs 6:32.

The really amazing thing is that God still forgives sin. But we must repent fully, confess openly and return immediately to God. For immediate help in avoiding or ending your affair, please see https://www.affairrecovery.com/.