What is our definition of adultery?

A definite agreement on this issue will give you a basis for a sound approach to the problem of adultery in marriages. Any discovered violation of your agreement will necessarily be serious. Yet like any marriage crisis, this possibility is one for which you should be emotionally prepared, and intellectually have formulated some tentative strategies.

An older view once commonly held was that one experience of adultery automatically destroyed the marriage. That position, fortunately, is no longer recognized as sound. One who asserts that a broken leg need not be fatal should not be accused of endorsing broken legs.

Neither should the assertion that adultery need not be fatal, be interpreted as an endorsement of adultery. It is important to recognize that a marriage which has been damaged by an adulterous experience can recover, and recover fully!

The first task of the doctor is to cure his patient, not to bury him. If you face adultery, your first responsibility will be to try seriously to heal the marriage through marriage counseling, not to complete its destruction in the divorce court.

For many, a personal experience with an adulterous mate would come as a profound shock. The adjustments required would be difficult and real. The first essential to surviving adultery, as with any problem, is to find out what the behavior means. Here are some possibilities.

Was it a single slip, not likely to be repeated? If so would you talk it over to clear up the relationship? Or would you conceal it?

What if it is not a single slip, but a regularly established "affair" with someone else? Will you try to conceal this, or continue it with the knowledge of the other?

What if you were threatened with divorce? Have you basically changed the moral standards to which you agreed at the time of marriage?

If so, has this fact been brought out into the open, and adjustments made in the light of the changed situation? Or was the adultery an expression of hostility, an act of aggression? If so, have you reviewed the whole situation to determine the reason for the hostility, and what should be done for the relationship?

I hardly expect any christian dating couple to decide regarding all such possibilities in advance of their own marriage.

If you are the victim of an adulterous relationship, I would strongly recommend this free course to you called United Front. The world has its own ways of surviving adultery, but as christians, we must look to Jesus!