Episode 6: Deadly Sexual Sin #4 (According to the Church): Don’t Have an Affair, part 2
We continue our series on the Seven Deadly Sexual Sins (According to the Church), with a relational process that’s condemned inside and outside the church: Infidelity.
Julia summarizes (6:30):
“We have a cultural norm that shames and stigmatizes affairs. If we actually want to have relationships in which breaking commitments happen less often, then we have to move beyond the shame, because what we know from the exceptional research from Brene Brown is that shame only fuels the patterns that we are trying to change.
We're sharing this story because we need to talk about the commitments that partners make to each other around sexuality, and we need to talk about the ways that people break those commitments, and why they break those commitments, because affairs don't happen in isolation.”
In sharing our story, we explore the following themes, understanding that infidelity occurs in numerous contexts and has multiple meanings:
Infidelity as one of a bunch of bad choices (12:15): Jeremiah was in a long-term relationship where conversations about sexuality (and quite a few other topics) were met with either anxiety or criticism, and an unwillingness to address this pattern via couples therapy. His bad choices were a) stay in the negative dynamic; b) initiate a process of divorce; c) attempt to have it both ways by pursuing sexuality outside of the relationship. For Jeremiah, option C actually initiated a very quick divorce process.
Infidelity as an autonomous choice in a sexual history with minimal autonomy (31:00): Julia, after surviving messages of purity culture, reflects, “I didn't know who I was as a sexual person. I didn't know that I was a sexual person. All I know about sexuality is what men want.” The sexual shame connected to premarital sex followed Julia into her marital relationship, and, combined with a series of unfortunate events (including, but not limited to two miscarriages), created a crisis of loss of self, which was reinforced by participating in the marriage, especially given the relational grief of two pregnancy losses. As such, sexuality was incredibly difficult to access in the marital relationship, despite the immense amount of work Julia and her ex invested in the relationship.
Infidelity as protest (50:00): Julia describes the intense amount of rage toward the systems that failed her. “That was the first big choice I had made that was just for me. And it felt really good to do something that was just for me, of course. And it felt really good to put my middle fingers in the air to the church and say, "All the things you told me not to do are the only things that are bringing me like any source of healing."
Infidelity as regret (53:00): For Jeremiah, infidelity was an exit strategy from the marriage; he reflects, “One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't end the relationship with my ex in a more overt kind of way.” Julia shares, “I really wish I had actually been a braver person because my regret was not that I chose my sexuality, my regret was that I broke a commitment to the person that I loved. And I hurt him.”
Infidelity as isolation (1:07:00): Infidelity is commonly met with judgment in religious, professional, and personal communities, which reinforces the secrecy of affairs. Julia reflects on her positive experience with her therapist: “Having my therapist support me, not my decision to have or not have an affair, but to support me and my flourishing meant that I didn't have to be alone at the time in my life that was simultaneously the most painful and the most beautiful all at the same time.” Her therapist’s response mirrors that of Jesus’ response to the woman “caught” in adultery that we talk about in Episode 62: shame-free, nonjudgmental, and loving.
Stayed tuned to our series this spring, where we’ll have in depth conversations about infidelity, including the intense amount of pressure on modern-day primary relationships, the presence of secrecy and avoidance, and misunderstandings of eroticism and sexuality.
Let’s heal together!