Relationships
I was cheated on, and everyone around me keeps saying I should forgive. What does God actually ask of me here?
“Surely as a wife treacherously departeth from her husband, so have ye dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, saith the LORD.”
Jeremiah spent his ministry describing Israel's unfaithfulness, and the image he reaches for is a wife who betrays her husband. God is the one speaking, and he speaks as the wounded party rather than the neutral judge. That is worth sitting with. The language Scripture uses for the deepest spiritual betrayal is borrowed from exactly what happened to you. God is not detached about it, and you are not required to be either.
“Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
The writer of Hebrews, closing a letter to believers under real pressure, tells them to hold marriage in honour and says that God himself will judge the unfaithful. There is no minimising in that sentence, no suggestion that adultery is a private misstep between two adults. Before anyone talks to you about forgiveness, Scripture has already said that the wrong done to you was real and that God takes it seriously.
A path forward
Refuse the timetable other people are setting for you. Forgiveness is not the same as pretending, and rushing it usually buries the thing rather than resolving it.
Get your own support in place this week, a counsellor or a pastor who is yours rather than the couple's, so you have somewhere to say the ugly parts out loud.
Pray one honest sentence a day about it, even if the sentence is that you cannot do this yet. God has heard worse, and honest prayer is what keeps bitterness from setting hard.
Closing verse
“For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the LORD that hath mercy on thee.”
- Isaiah 54:10
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