I’m In An Affair.. How do I get out?

I’d imagine if you’re reading these words, your heart must be torn in two.

On one end, you may be filled with great love and attachment for someone you’ve been in relations with for some time, while on the other end, you may be filled with anguish and grief as you’ve entrapped yourself in a dangerous cycle that seems to have no way out.

Darling, before we go any further, may you know just how brave you are.

Yes, you read that correctly, brave.

Merriam-Webster defines brave as having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear, or difficulty: having or showing courage.

If you’re on this page, I have to believe that you’re ready to stop living this life you’ve created and get out of the mess you’ve found yourself in. If you’re on this page, it’s because you’re ready to face the reality of the damage you’ve made and own up to the actions you’ve taken. If you’re on this page, it’s because you’re ready to be set free.

And for that love, you are brave.

While I wish you absolutely no danger, best believe, the moments that will follow confession and separation may just be the hardest moments of your life. But if you stick with it, they will be the moments that define the real you, the brave you, the changed you.

So before we go any further, know that you have been immensely prayed for.

I believe in you. And I hope somewhere in you, you believe in you too.

I don’t say that lightly.

Leaving an affair is going to take all that you have, and truthfully, all that you don’t have. It’s going to force you to let go of your pride, humble your heart, and face the girl in mirror for who she really is, was, and is yet to be.

At least, that’s what it was for me.

I spent nearly 5 years loving a man that wasn’t my own. Years of serving, protecting, and idolizing the man who’d promised me a future with no secrecy, no hiding, and no pain. He was my world, and I was his, so I thought. Because of the nature of who we were positionally within our community, leaving him and coming clean meant breaking the hearts of hundreds of people as I kicked down the pedestals we found ourselves on, to uncover the truth on what was going on. Leaving him and coming clean meant losing my reputation, my connections, my church, my community, and most of all, my family.

It was a decision that kept me up for more nights than I could count. Fear consumed me as I imagined what life would be like when the truth was out there, knowing we had worked so hard to cover our tracks. Embarrassed by the person I became during the process, I found death to be easier to swallow than living in the light. Bondage like no other, I was suffocating with the thought of staying and going. I wanted to live in the bliss of who we were in the pockets of good we had, yet, broken with the heaviness and weight that comes with living a double life.

I was I trapped. By my own doing.

And so, I began searching for tools that would help me learn more about affairs and why they were so powerful. I read book after book hoping to find some easy 4 step program that would suddenly make this less painful and more bearable. I wanted to quietly leave and have everything be the same as it was before I ever met this man. I wanted a way out without blowing up the world I knew.

But the reality is, that’s not how life works.

While initially walking away from the man I thought I deeply loved felt right for a moment, the bondage of secrecy continued to weigh on me day and night. It wasn’t enough to just leave. I had to come clean.

And so I prayed.

And I waited.

And I prayed.

And I waited.

I wanted the timing to be “perfect”. I wanted it to make sense. I didn’t want to ruin a holiday weekend or an upcoming game night with friends with this bomb I was carrying. I tried to calculate each and every step as I longed to remain in control of it all.

Until God.

The merciful, everlasting, all-knowing, all-seeing God had been more than gracious to this prodigal daughter. For years he had been gently calling me back home and for years I chose to be ruled by my sinful nature. Until one Sunday when I sat in church and learned about a man that I had never heard of and his story forever changed mine.

Terah, the father of Abraham is briefly mentioned at the end of Genesis 11 and his story is one that should never be forgotten. In the lineage of Shem, one of Noah’s sons, Terah was on a journey to Canaan with his son, daughter in-law, and grandson. At some point on their journey they decided to settle in Harran, a pagan city. Scripture doesn’t say why, it just says they stopped.

Instead of continuing to the Promise Land, he settled in a wasteland.

And there he died.

Terah died as a man who was “almost there.“ A man who could have made it, as scripture says he lived another 205 years, but chose to stay in a place he was not called to. A man who forfeited his true place in life because he settled on the journey.

As the Pastor continued his sermon that Sunday morning, all I could hear was the Lord telling me to not settle in this wasteland. This strange in-between I found myself in. The place where I wasn’t who I was anymore (engaging in the affair) but wasn’t where I was yet supposed to be (delivered, whole and set free).

I was in the in-between.

Wrestling with the life I wanted to maintain and the life I knew the Lord wanted me to live. While I was arguing with the Lord in my head the Pastor then began to speak about Terahs’ son, Abram, and that’s when everything in me began to surrender.

In Genesis 12 we see the Lord instructing Abram to get up and go to the Promise Land. He gives Abram a promise of blessing and abundance. He gave him hope and a new future, brighter than the one there in Harran. If you know the story, you know that of course Abram is obedient and goes as the Lord instructs. But as the Pastor was talking I couldn’t help but wonder about the moment Abram had to look at his father and decide to leave him there in his settlement. He had to look at his own Father and decide that he wasn’t going to follow in the same footsteps, but instead pick up his cross and keep going to the Land of the Promise. Abram refused to live the life his Father had settled for. Abram decided to leave. And that’s when it all changed for me.

I imagined my sons, my legacy, my lineage.

How would they be affected if I stayed in this in-between? How would the patterns of generational sins and blessings be altered if I refused to confess my sins and bringing healing to my family? What battles would my sons face because I settled instead of moving forward?

That was it.

That was the turning point of it all for me.

There was no way in hell my kids would continue to be affected by my own selfish desires that have unknowingly been affecting them all along. No longer would they have a mother engaged in behaviors that were so far from who she was and who she was supposed to be. No longer would their mother open the door for upheaval, shame, and chaos in their world.

It was time to be set free.

That night, when the boys were in bed, I confessed to my husband all that had happened in the years leading up to that moment. The deceit, the lies, the manipulation, the love I still very much felt for my affair partner; it all came out. I was done hiding. Done lying. Done being anyone other than who I knew I was meant to be.

That moment is what led me to this one, where now I am sitting and sharing the depths of my journey in hopes of bringing freedom to you, love.

Because like Abram, who eventually turned to Abraham, you darling, are meant to keep moving. You are not meant to settle in a wasteland. You cannot let your love for someone (or your love for your own image) be more than you love for your calling, your freedom, your lineage, your legacy.

Despite the devastating decisions you made, you are meant for a life so much greater than the one you have been living. You cannot stay in this place of just stopping an affair but not confessing it in hopes of life being OK. You cannot willingly carry down generational curses to those who are to come after you. It’s time to surrender your image, your reputation, your world as you know it, for something so much greater.

It’s time darling to be free. 

You will not be alone. You will not be abandoned or forgotten. The Lord who sees you, knows you, and desires to heal you, is waiting for your “yes.” He loves you. No matter what happens in your family, your friend group, your world as you know it; know this to be true: He will sing songs of deliverance over you as you enter His hiding place. His mercy is here love.

Are you ready to walk into it? 

”Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.“ Proverbs 28:13