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With infidelity, road to reconciliation is rocky one
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New York State Gov. Eliot Spitzer announces his resignation amid a prostitution scandal as his wife, Silda, looks on Wednesday in his offices in New York City.
While the governor of New York — Eliot Spitzer — is probably not a reader of The Examiner, many readers have or will find themselves standing in his shoes, with the shame of an extra-marital relationship threatening to destroy their lives. Pastors are often given the solemn responsibility and the sacred privilege of walking with couples through this darkness. If your world has been shattered in this way, there is hope and the opportunity for reconciliation at the deepest level. If Spitzer were to ask me for some Biblical advice, here is what I would suggest:
Dear Governor,
You are not the first man in a place of power to have fallen in this way — and no, I am not talking about a former president. I am talking about a king. His name was David, and the Bible describes him as “a man after God's own heart.” Yet, he made a series of very bad choices that eventually caused him great humiliation. He too was guilty of adultery. (The modern term for labeling sex outside of marriage as an “affair” is profoundly unhelpful.)
David came to understand that the first thing he needed to do was to be restored to God. In Psalm 32, he offered a prayer of thanksgiving for a God who forgives, “How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven!” To get to that forgiven place, David poured out his broken heart to God. You can find his entire prayer, confessing his adultery, in Psalm 51. It is more than worth your time to pray carefully through these timeless words — they can save both your life and your marriage.
After agreeing with God about the wrongs you have done, the next step on the pathway of hope is to be reconciled to your wife. You did well to announce this week that you wanted to invest time in a process of restoration with your family, announcing an intention to regain their trust. I would encourage you to find a seasoned pastoral counselor to help. (Pastoral counselors can be members of the clergy or trained mental health professionals. I would recommend someone who is skilled at integrating faith into their practice and who will be committed to the preservation of your marriage, assuming both partners are willing to work on it.)
Your wife will need to be given the opportunity to ask you a series of very painful questions, which you will need to answer by telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Your counselor can “referee” what will undoubtedly be the most painful conversation you will ever have. Pay the price — tell the truth. It is better to have one hard conversation than years of unanswered questions. With the help of your counselor and perhaps some close friends, you will then need to find ways to affirm that you have completely separated yourself from involvement with women other than your wife.
Your counselor probably will want to spend time with you working on “your stuff” — those things in your life that led you into the trap of adultery. The evidence so far revealed in the media would point to sexual addiction. Communicating to your spouse that you are dealing with these things will be an important step on the road to reconciliation. Her biggest fear likely will be that the nightmare of recent days could happen again.
Lastly, your spiritual director surely will need to work with both of you to deal with issues in the marriage that helped set the trap of adultery. Don't rush to get there too quickly, because there will be a great temptation for you to blame your wife for your bad choices. She is neither perfect nor responsible for your actions.
In our congregation, there are many, many couples who have survived infidelity and whose marriages now thrive. The road to reconciliation is a hard one — but the choice to end the marriage has its own unique set of negative consequences for the emotional and spiritual health of the marriage partners and their children.
While your mistakes may have cost you your political career, they don't have to cost you your marriage and your children, which are more precious by far. We will pray for you.
Kevin McGhee is a senior pastor at Bethany Community Church in Laurel and a 1978 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He can be reached at kmcghee@baltimoreexaminer.com.
