Sexual indiscretion is never a welcome guest in my parlor. Yet it seems to show up uninvited and help itself to the best that innocent life has to offer.   Time after time, I am privy to the ill-effects of this piranha of human degradation, and time after time I come up null and void.  I know of one instance wherein two sisters and a daughter have had children by the same man.  I know of a girl who was impregnated by her cousin, and another who was made pregnant by her father.  Closer to home, my sister was raped at age seven by a man with a wife and ten kids, and later got pregnant at 14 by a family friend.  I was accosted on one occasion by a very prominent minister of the faith, and flashed by at least two grown men in the village.  Six or seven years ago, a friend of mine called me in the late hours of the night, being truly devastated about her husband running off and leaving her with a two-year-old child to move in  with another woman with whom he had been having an affair.  On another occasion, we visited the house of a friend to find it practically devoid of furniture – for the same reason.  In another such escapade, a friend of mine packed her husband’s stuff and put him out in the streets.  In another instance, the wife of one of my ex bosses called me and asked me to inform her husband that “his stuff is waiting for him in the hallway, and he can come by to pick it up anytime,” – and the list goes on.   And, although my husband never packed his things and moved out, he certainly picked up his body and took it gallivanting on very many occasions, and threatened to “do worse” if I “complain about it.”  According to him, I was “lucky,” because “most men don’t even bother to come home.”  Well, that was his opinion, not mine, but considering the odds, I would have had better luck panning for gold in the Bronx River.

Try as I might, I cannot for the life of me understand why I am being made subject to such gut-wrenching and heart-wrenching experiences, except to say that God is really trying to teach me a lesson which I have yet to learn. Even so, this is one class in which I would just as soon get an F-minus, because I don’t understand the context in which it is being given.  I cannot  conceive the notion that there is anything to be gain from it but heartache and sorrow.  For the most part, sexual discretion is nothing more than a severe life-altering experience, that left unchecked goes on to ruin more lives.  It is the springboard for a host of physical, spiritual and emotional maladies affecting the family.  Domestic violence rears its ugly head, marriages are destroyed, families are torn apart, children are neglected and abandoned, not to mention the increase of sexually transmitted diseases, and  abortions due to unwanted pregnancies.  In short, I cannot find the positive in the midst of all the negative that surmounts this experience, and therein lies the problem.  I have to amend that last statement, because there has been positive growth, of the spiritual and emotional kind.

Believe me when I tell you, that staying in this marriage for the duration is an Oscar winning performance for me. I watched in disgust as my husband became a bitter, vile and vicious man.  I bathed him in contempt with every tear that fell from my eyes – and the eyes of our children.  I held him in chastisement for his failure to uphold the honor of his marital vow.  I could not get past the utter desecration of my life.  It was the end of the beginning, and the beginning of the end.  Nobody but me and Almighty God knew entirely how that period affected me.  I was browbeaten on all sides.  Even my in-laws came over to my apartment and cast their lots against me – not knowing the truth, or even being willing to find out.  But I tell, you God is awesome.  When I say that, please know that I know what I’m talking about.  This is a firsthand report of the goodness of God and his ability to purify the soul and heal all emotional wounds.  The simple fact that this family is still intact is a living testimony of His amazing grace. So please, abide with me.

On his last (known) dalliance, he went about town trying to paint me as an uncaring wife. He had to have a reason to justify his actions and ease his guilty conscience, but try as he might he could not find “ought against” me.  In the first instance, I was an absent wife.  That’s true, because we were apart for sixteen months, while I was living in New York, and he was back home.  So, in that instance, forgiveness and understanding came forth without much concerted effort on my part.  In the second instance, he tried to paint me as an unfit mother, but when that didn’t fly – not even with BCW, he had to rethink his strategy.  In the third instance, he tried to paint me as an adulteress, but that didn’t work either, so again, he had to find a new strategy.  So, in his last known dalliance, he tried to paint me as an uncaring wife – which I had actually become, but only because of his aforementioned dalliance.  This was the most tedious of all, and I hope in time he can look back at this period of his life and say it was worth it.  We had some very serious disagreements, lots of verbal assaults, and in the end, even physical altercations.

Boy, I tell you, it pays to have integrity, strong moral values, and a strong sense of self-consciousness, but it pays even more when you are transparent before men that they can be witnesses to the truth, even when you are inabsentia.

None of us are infallible, for we were “created in sin and shapen in iniquity,” but God has given us the power with which to break free from the lusts of the flesh and use the stumbling blocks of infidelity as stepping stones to righteousness.   It really takes a spiritual callousness to be able to stand firm in the face of infidelity and purpose in your heart that no matter what your partner does, you will honor your wedding vows.  Nevertheless, it is not an easy commitment to uphold, because of the emotional depth to which it slices the heart.  I came into this marriage with some real grandiose ideas about marriage, and God used the pitfalls of sexual indiscretion to lift me up to a greater level of awareness, and a higher place of praise.  Sexual indiscretion is what took my husband and kids off the throne and put God in his rightful place in my life.  Now, I would surmise that the first instances, were pop quizzes, which I failed dastardly, the colossal episode was my mid-term,  and the most recent encounter was my final exam – for which I got an A+.    Overall, I got a B-, because I didn’t not walk away, run away and hide, or stuck my head in my pillow and cry, but I held fast to the unchanging hand of God, and that gave me the courage that I needed to step up to go face to face with the adversary – and win.  Before I got married, I always thought that adultery would be the one thing that I could not forgive, but God has shown me that “Greater is he that is within (me) than he that is in the world.” I wanted what my sister in the Lord referred to as a “fairytale marriage.”  What God gave me was a God-fearing humility, a marriage that withstood the test of time and over came the pitfalls of sexual indiscretion, a strong spirit of determination, and an increased measure of faith that would catapult me from the pit into the palace. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.