Healing Infidelity Through Faith Community Group
A place for those experiencing infidelity, rebuilding from infidelity, or dealing with the aftermath of infidelity, both unfaithful and hurt partners, and to be free to express how our faith, primarily Christians but others are also welcome, has or is being used to deal with our issues and hurts. All posters are expected to be respectful of each others faith experiences...
I would like to hear others tell of their spiritual journeys in life and through this time of dealing with infidelity. If you wish to write it out I think it would be good to do it as a new thread for each person. At least that way it won't look like only Cole starts new threads, Lol. I have been wanting to do this for quite some time, so here goes.
I was raised in a church going family in the Nazarene denomination. I prayed for salvation at the age of 15 and from that day forward I was a very serious christian. People would often tell me that I was one of the most honest and sincere christians they new. I grew up, got married, and had kids all in the same denomination. My H was a religion major and we went to seminary for a year and had to quite because of cost and start pastoring churches. We pastored 2 churches from 1992 till 1996 when we had a major life change, becoming Orthodox christians. Same church as the Greek Orthodox but we are Antiochian Orthodox. Through all of this I stayed very committed to my relationship with God, doing my best to stay in His will. There were some frustrations in the marriage over the years but I always felt things were overall good. I felt lucky. My life was fully absorbed in our children.
Fast forward to just before the A's began. I still felt committed to God. Still felt good in my family and marriage but some things were troubling me. I loved my H but the "like" was beginning to suffer. We barely communicated because our lives were on separate tracks with connecting points here and there. I was afraid of mid-life changes. Afraid for the kids to be gone. I got most of my social interraction from them and almost none from my H. I told H once that I was afraid for it to be just him and I because I would be so lonely.
When OM#1 started flirting with me it was the first time in my life any man but my H had paid attention to me in that way. I turned my attention from God and from my H and even from my kids to this experience and the addictive affect it was having on me. Over the course of the seven months of 2 A's and a ton of cyber play I stopped paying attention to God at all. I blocked God from my mind. I was fully absorbed into my double life. The moments of clarity scared me but I always managed to push them away.
After Dday, it was hard to pray. I started out with a simple repetitive prayer called the Jesus prayer and added in some psalms and written prayers. I prayed as much as I could of my own words but for a while it was hard. It was really a gradual coming back on that front. A big part of my spiritual journey since Dday has involved my priest. Cole talked to him before he confronted me. He has not been easy on me but tough love, I guess you might say. He has always said I am not being punished but I am in church ICU. Some important things in our church are confession and communion. Most people take communion every week and go to confession several times a year. That got reversed for me as I had to go to confession every week and communion was withheld from me for 11 mos. I am now allowed to take communion for the 12 major feasts only and with lots of preparation. I go to confession about once a month now. He has also given me a lot of spiritual disciplines. He started out pretty easy and it has progressed over time. I have added many of them onto myself with his approval.
I am grateful for the intervention of my priest. I am much stronger spiritually now than I was before. Probably ever. I have never prayed this much or this fervently or read the scriptures daily with any consistency. Once I had made enough progress after Dday to really start praying again it felt so good to be praying again after my "sabbatical."
It seems God has been very proactive with me in this process. Poking and prodding me and teaching me and showing me things about myself. The weekly self-evaluation to prepare for confession was grueling. I have struggled and hurt over so much and I continue to do so. There is no end to the spiritual journey on this earth. No end to the struggles and the lessons because we are always changing. Always in a different place with new progress that needs to be made and new lessons to learn.
I was raised in a church going family in the Nazarene denomination. I prayed for salvation at the age of 15 and from that day forward I was a very serious christian. People would often tell me that I was one of the most honest and sincere christians they new. I grew up, got married, and had kids all in the same denomination. My H was a religion major and we went to seminary for a year and had to quite because of cost and start pastoring churches. We pastored 2 churches from 1992 till 1996 when we had a major life change, becoming Orthodox christians. Same church as the Greek Orthodox but we are Antiochian Orthodox. Through all of this I stayed very committed to my relationship with God, doing my best to stay in His will. There were some frustrations in the marriage over the years but I always felt things were overall good. I felt lucky. My life was fully absorbed in our children.
Fast forward to just before the A's began. I still felt committed to God. Still felt good in my family and marriage but some things were troubling me. I loved my H but the "like" was beginning to suffer. We barely communicated because our lives were on separate tracks with connecting points here and there. I was afraid of mid-life changes. Afraid for the kids to be gone. I got most of my social interraction from them and almost none from my H. I told H once that I was afraid for it to be just him and I because I would be so lonely.
When OM#1 started flirting with me it was the first time in my life any man but my H had paid attention to me in that way. I turned my attention from God and from my H and even from my kids to this experience and the addictive affect it was having on me. Over the course of the seven months of 2 A's and a ton of cyber play I stopped paying attention to God at all. I blocked God from my mind. I was fully absorbed into my double life. The moments of clarity scared me but I always managed to push them away.
After Dday, it was hard to pray. I started out with a simple repetitive prayer called the Jesus prayer and added in some psalms and written prayers. I prayed as much as I could of my own words but for a while it was hard. It was really a gradual coming back on that front. A big part of my spiritual journey since Dday has involved my priest. Cole talked to him before he confronted me. He has not been easy on me but tough love, I guess you might say. He has always said I am not being punished but I am in church ICU. Some important things in our church are confession and communion. Most people take communion every week and go to confession several times a year. That got reversed for me as I had to go to confession every week and communion was withheld from me for 11 mos. I am now allowed to take communion for the 12 major feasts only and with lots of preparation. I go to confession about once a month now. He has also given me a lot of spiritual disciplines. He started out pretty easy and it has progressed over time. I have added many of them onto myself with his approval.
I am grateful for the intervention of my priest. I am much stronger spiritually now than I was before. Probably ever. I have never prayed this much or this fervently or read the scriptures daily with any consistency. Once I had made enough progress after Dday to really start praying again it felt so good to be praying again after my "sabbatical."
It seems God has been very proactive with me in this process. Poking and prodding me and teaching me and showing me things about myself. The weekly self-evaluation to prepare for confession was grueling. I have struggled and hurt over so much and I continue to do so. There is no end to the spiritual journey on this earth. No end to the struggles and the lessons because we are always changing. Always in a different place with new progress that needs to be made and new lessons to learn.
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