Are you there, God? It’s me, Patty.

Here I am sitting in the middle of my bathroom floor, crying my eyes out. How could this have happened to me? How could the man that vowed to love me till death due us part, have an affair on me? We are both leaders in our church and in minister class. How could he? He has ripped our family apart. What about our kids? How do I explain why I am leaving him? Are you there, God? I really need you to hear me. I need to know what to do. It’s October, the holidays are around the corner. Do I even tell him that I know yet? And when I do, what happens then? What will he say?

           October and November had come and gone and I still haven’t said anything to him about me knowing about his affair. I mean how could I ruin Christmas for our kids. I wanted them to at least have this Christmas as a whole family, because by next Christmas, it would be so different. So, I waited until after Christmas, but I didn’t wait until New Year’s, I couldn’t. I was so angry by this point. It was like the pain had turned something on in me that was like nothing else. It wasn’t hate, but I was like the lady in Tyler Perry’s movie, “Diary of a Black Woman”. If you know the movie, then you know the part I am talking about. The part after he got shot and because they were still legally married, she was the one who was obligated to nurse him back to health. You know that day when she dumped him and his wheelchair in the tub and beat him with a bat to get back at him for how he mistreated her. It was that type of anger.

           The night that I told him that I knew, he acted like it was no big deal. He did what he did, and was doing what he was doing, and he was going to continue to do it.

My pastor at the time told me to just bear down and fight. That it was a spiritual battle and I just needed to rebuke the devil, anoint my windows and doors of my house, anoint his pillow, pray over him in his sleep and everything would be okay. Well even God won’t go against man’s free will. So, the whole time I am fighting this spiritual battle all I kept saying was, Are you there, God?

The more I stayed with him, the angrier I became. But I held it together for the kids, or at least I tried to when they were around. Little did I know that they knew what was going on. They were all teenagers but the youngest and she was 12. They weren’t stupid. They knew he wasn’t home when they went to bed most nights or home when they got ready for school.

The arguments got worse and worse. I was back and forth between anger and hurt, fight, or leave. Are you there, God?

A few years before this, my husband and I were counseling couples at the church. One of the brothers in the church had slept around on his wife and gave her an STD. When we got home that day, my husband had asked me if he was to ever cheat on me what would I do. Before answering, I asked him the same question. He replied that he would fight for me and our marriage. I looked at him for a minute then he asked me again. My reply shocked him. I told him that I would leave.

Now that we were the couple in the middle of an affair that he was having, I was going against everything that I thought, everything that I believed and that I had said.

I had switched churches because of other ministry reasons and was talking with my new pastor about it. He told me that no one but God could tell me what to do. I wanted to leave. I wanted a divorce, but that was my flesh talking, or was it? I didn’t believe in divorce. I believed that marriage was until death do us part. Are you there, God?

           I was so conflicted. I was at war within myself. I didn’t even know why I was fighting anymore. Nothing was working. All I kept asking was, “God, where are you?” But I really did try to make it work.

           I asked him again to stop seeing her. He said that he would stop the affair, but he wouldn’t stop being her friend. Well, to me that meant that he was lying and he wasn’t going to stop seeing her. It meant that he wanted his cake and to eat it too.

           So, kept praying and asking God to help me make the right decision for me and my family. The right decision for my own sanity. Are you there, God?

           Finally, God took me into His Word and showed me where it says that there is one acceptable reason for divorce and that was adultery. I had my answer.

           From when I found out about the affair until February of the next year, is how long it took me to get the answer that I needed. Once I had my answer from God, I immediately began to make changes in my life. I moved out.

           When he got the divorce papers, he didn’t sign them. He said that he thought I just needed space and time, but that I would never file for divorce. How could he actually think that? I had told him when we were living together before we found God, and before we got married, that if I ever walked out that door I would never come back. I told him when he asked what I would do if he ever cheated that I was gone. How could he think I would stay in this marriage?

           Are you there, God? It’s me, Patty? God answered said, “I am right here with you.”