By Zhaoyun
Editor’s Note:
What would you do if the person you love most betrayed you? In “Silently Waiting,” Amy Cheung wrote, “When you have the feeling that the person you love is unfaithful to you, you may pretend not to know. Pretending not to know is avoidance and self-deception, but it is also waiting.”
It’s true. As an abandoned woman who’s not going to make a terrible scene, the choice is to be silent and move him through love. This is giving yourself a way out, and it’s giving him an opportunity. This is how a lot of people handle betrayal by their other half. But how can you bear the bitter misery behind that silence? If your silence can’t get him to turn back, what do you do? I really understand the struggles and the suffering behind your silence and hope that today’s essay can help you.
One Phone Call Starts a Tidal Wave
“Your husband seduced my wife and ruined my family. I’m not going to let him get away with this!”
Holding the phone in my hand, I froze, staring blankly, and didn’t come to for some time. My husband had been unfaithful? How could that be? We’d been married for more than a decade and had always maintained our feelings for each other. He had solemnly vowed to me that he would only love me for the rest of his life, and after our daughter was born he took even better care of me. Everyone was envious of what a great husband I had—how could he cheat on me now, when I’m pregnant again? No, it simply couldn’t be true!
I hurriedly hung up the phone and then it occurred to me that recently every time I came home from working the night shift, it looked like the bedding hadn’t been touched at all and my husband hadn’t been there that night. Could it be that he really had someone else, that he was taking advantage of my nights at work to find a mistress? All at once I felt incredible pain, afraid that the family we had worked so hard to build all these years was about to fall apart.
I thought to myself that I couldn’t make a big fuss, but should pretend that I didn’t know anything. Maybe my silence and patience could win his heart back. If he changed his mind, I was willing to let go of the past and make a fresh start.
The Struggle and Suffering Behind the Silence
After that, oddly, our home phone started ringing pretty frequently but if I answered the other person didn’t say anything; it was just silent. I didn’t understand—could it be that woman?
I held back my grief and anger and bore the suffering on my own, and forced myself to interact with my husband with a smile on my face. I even started doing more to care for him. But he became colder and colder toward me, often coming home late from work, and when I came home from working the night shift I saw that the bed hadn’t been disturbed. I knew that he was spending the night somewhere else. I was upset and in pain, and considering the child in my belly, I was also afraid that if I made a scene I’d just push my husband into that woman’s arms. I just silently bore his infidelity and tried to comfort myself, if I went along with him, and didn’t expose him I hoped that my tolerance would move him, and maybe he’d turn back for the sake of our child.
After a period of time passed, I wanted to mention my pregnancy to give my husband a bit of a nudge.
I asked him calmly, “I’m three months along now. Should I have this baby?”
With a look of total indifference, he shot back, “Get rid of it, don’t have it!”
In that moment it felt like a knife twisting in my heart, like the sky was about to come crashing down. Before, he had said that he wanted the second child whether it was a boy or a girl, but now he was saying he wanted me to get rid of it. He cruelly didn’t even want his own flesh and blood for that woman! Hurt, pain, a feeling of being wronged, and bewilderment all welled up in my heart. I thought back over the last ten-plus years. He had always been so loving toward me—how could his feelings just change on a dime? My suffering was immense, and I was hurting just as if a sword had pierced my chest. The tears flowed without stopping. Without an intact family, what would happen to our daughter? What about the child in my womb?
Forbearance Intensifies My Suffering
Faced with my husband’s heartless indifference left me feeling deflated. When I thought of how unconcerned my husband already was with our family, I figured having the child would just lead to more pain. Steeling myself against the suffering, I had an abortion. I became very weak after the abortion and since my husband never came home and there was no one to look after me, I ended up with a gynecological condition. The torment of my condition as well as my husband’s indifference left me speechless with pain. I kept thinking back: Over our decade-plus, I’d never lost my temper with my husband, so why would he betray me? How could he be so lacking in conscience? What was it that I had done wrong? The more I thought about it the more I suffered. I hated my husband’s heartlessness, and I particularly hated that woman.
I was constantly in low spirits and couldn’t help but start quietly crying as soon as I thought of my husband’s affair. Afraid of being mocked, I didn’t dare tell anyone about it, but just forced myself to keep smiling all the time. But there was a tremendous pressure on my heart and I really felt like I’d be better off dead. But so that my daughter could have a complete family and because I couldn’t dare to let go of what we’d had all those years, I tried to maintain contact with him, hoping to win back his heart.
One night I said to my husband sincerely, “We’ve been together for over a decade and we’ve always been happy together. Why did you get involved with that woman? If she’s better than I am in every way and you’re certain you want to be with her, I’m willing to get a divorce.”
“I’m not getting a divorce; you’re a good wife.”
I urged him, “If you say that, then we should make a fresh start and you should stop seeing her.”
He didn’t utter a word but just turned and walked off, then went to sleep. Seeing he had no intention of turning back, I once again emotionally hit rock bottom. I was both sad and angry that he didn’t want to get a divorce but still was unwilling to leave that woman—how had he become so immoral? Why did that woman seduce my husband and destroy our home? The more I thought about it the more the hatred in my heart grew and I even thought about getting revenge on her. I gave up on that thought out of fear that it would stir up trouble that could impact my daughter. But in the end, all of my forbearance couldn’t win my husband back—he ran off with that woman, leaving me and my daughter with just each other to rely on.
God’s Salvation Comes to Me When I am in Torment
My daughter was in middle school at that time; I just had a job at the factory to earn money for her education, so we lived a pretty simple life. Every time I thought my husband’s cruelty and selfishness and how he had abandoned his wife and child for that woman, only caring about enjoying his own self-indulgent day, my hatred for him grew and grew and I even thought about finding another male companion to get my revenge. I dispensed with that idea when I thought about how it would hurt my daughter. But my husband’s betrayal loomed over my heart, becoming pain that never went away. There was no one to talk to about it; I just swallowed all of it, spending every day in torment. I couldn’t help but look up to the sky and exclaim: “When will this all finally end? Who can come save me?”
Then one day, I had the good fortune of accepting God’s salvation of the last days. I read these words of God, “These trends arise one after another, and they all carry an evil influence that continually debases mankind, causing people to lose conscience, humanity and reason, weakening their morals and their quality of character ever more, to the extent that we can even say that the majority of people now have no integrity, no humanity, and neither do they have any conscience, much less any reason. So what are these trends? They are trends that you cannot see with the naked eye. When a new trend sweeps through the world, perhaps only a small number of people are on the cutting edge, acting as the trendsetters. They start off doing some new thing, then accepting some kind of idea or some kind of perspective. The majority of people, however, will be continually infected, assimilated, and attracted by this kind of trend in a state of unawareness, until they all unknowingly and involuntarily accept it and become submerged in it and controlled by it. One after another, such trends cause people, who are not of sound body and mind, do not know what the truth is, and cannot differentiate between positive and negative things, to happily accept them as well as the life views and values that come from Satan. They accept what Satan tells them about how to approach life and the way to live that Satan ‘bestows’ on them, and they have neither the strength nor the ability, much less the awareness, to resist.”
I saw from this passage of God’s words that societal trends are a tactic, a means that Satan uses to corrupt mankind. In today’s society, a lot of men have been poisoned by the evil fallacies “The red flag at home does not fall, the colored flags outside flutter in the breeze,” and “Don’t ask for eternity, be happy with now.” They brazenly engage in extramarital affairs, and plenty of women don’t feel any shame in being someone’s mistress. Rather, they think of themselves as possessing charm and skill; they’ve completely lost the conscience and reason that a proper person should possess. I thought of how my husband started out as an honest, kind man who cared for this family, but he had become a selfish, evil person who discarded with his wife and child, and broke up someone else’s home. Didn’t that come of being inculcated with Satan’s evil thinking and being deceived? I thought of my neighbor, too. They divorced after her husband had an affair. Plus there was my aunt who started seeing someone else and then didn’t want to stay with my uncle anymore—they ended up divorcing, too. Their homes had once been full of warmth, but had been split apart because of the infidelity of their partners, bringing harm to their children. I could see how Satan uses evil trends to mislead and corrupt people, leading them to seek excitement and indulge their lust, doing things contrary to morality and ethics. All this does is bring about corruption and suffering. I thought of how after my husband started going along with the evil trends of Satan and betrayed me, he wasn’t particularly happy with that woman—they were always arguing and even fighting. One time I saw marks on his body when he came back. My husband was just another victim of those evil trends, thinking that being involved with someone else would make him look good, that it would make him happy. But instead, he was living within Satan’s web, corrupted and manipulated by it. I used to always think of it as my husband betraying me and that I was the one living in pain and so I harbored hatred for him and the other woman, but by reading God’s words I understood that the root of all this suffering is in the evil trends given rise to by Satan. People are deceived from being inculcated with that evil thinking, and only then do they become so corrupt and depraved that they lose all morality and know no shame.
Experiencing God’s Covert Love
Later, I saw more of God’s words: “Whenever Satan corrupts man or inflicts unbridled harm upon man, God does not stand idly by, and neither does He brush aside or turn a blind eye to those He has chosen. God understands with perfect clarity all that Satan does. No matter what Satan does, no matter what trend it causes to arise, God knows all that Satan is trying to do, and God does not give up on those He has chosen. Instead, without attracting any attention—secretly, silently—God does everything that is necessary. When God begins work on someone, when He has chosen someone, He does not proclaim this news to anyone, nor does He proclaim it to Satan, much less make any grand gesture. He just very quietly, very naturally, does what is necessary.”
Reading this really warmed my heart. Even though Satan is constantly corrupting and harming us, God doesn’t just sit idly by. He knows that we humans are ignorant and pitiable, so He is always quietly protecting us, those He wants to save. He Himself has also become flesh and come to walk among us, expressing truths to give us sustenance so that we can gain discernment over Satan’s various means and tactics of corrupting mankind. Thus, we can distance ourselves from Satan’s corruption and harm—all of this is God’s sincere love. I thought of how after my husband started his affair, I was living in a constant state of pain from my hatred for him and his mistress and even had thoughts of taking revenge on her as well as getting involved with another man to take revenge on my husband. It was only through God’s protection that I didn’t do anything like that. In addition, when I was living lost in pain and despair from my husband’s infidelity, God brought me before Him, comforting and enlightening me with His words. He allowed me to have discernment over the evil trends stirred up by Satan to harm mankind, and to understand the root of my husband’s betrayal of me. This lessened the pain in my soul. Every single one of these things was God’s love and protection for me!
My heart started to feel warm—I knew that God had always been by my side watching over me, and when Satan was about to swallow me whole, God brought me before Him, and He led me out from the pain of my husband’s betrayal. Though I had lost my husband’s love, I had gained the love of the Creator. Being able to come before God and live in the light of God’s words now, I have a kind of peace and joy in my soul that I’ve never had before. This is the most precious thing.
My Silence Now Is Understanding and Calm
Later, I saw a passage of a sermon about life entry: “Look at those people in the world who don’t have the truth. How much suffering do they have in their hearts? There is too much suffering, isn’t it? You need to know the root cause for all the suffering in life—Satan. You are always corrupted by Satan and you don’t gain the truth, so you suffer. It is caused by the corruption of Satan. If you pursue the truth, you will be able to resolve these corruptions, and be able to sever the root of Satan’s corruption. Eventually, you will be able to shake off Satan, break away from Satan’s influence and receive salvation. Therefore, you can be saved by pursuing the truth. The meaning in it is too profound. You see that when a man has the truth within, he has no difficulties in whatever he sees, whatever he thinks and whatever he encounters. Without difficulties or constraints, everything is simple and easy. He is not distressed or worried because of one thing or another. His mind is emancipated and free. Therefore, there is almost no suffering in any aspect when one pursues the truth. The more he pursues, the brighter he becomes within”
I gained a bit of understanding from reading this fellowship. Before I didn’t understand the truth, when I saw that my husband was having an affair I thought I could win his heart back through silence and tolerance. But when I saw that everything I had done was just useless toil, I blamed my unluckiness in life and my husband’s lack of a conscience, suffering through each and every day, always washing my face with tears. Now I understand that after we humans are corrupted by Satan, we all have corrupt dispositions such as selfishness and evil, and there is no genuine love between people. Only God has genuine love for people, and only God is worth seeking. Now, by attending gatherings and reading God’s words more and more, I’ve come to understand some truths and have seen these issues more clearly. I know that my husband and that woman were also victims who were taken in by evil trends, and I’ve let go of so much of my hatred for them. I’ve also become willing to forgive them. Now when my husband occasionally returns home I have a normal conversation with him, he gives me a bit of money for the household expenses, and then he leaves. I no longer make demands on or care too much about whether he cares for me or not. Instead, I put more time and effort into seeking the truth. I live a life of the church with the brothers and sisters; there are no barriers between us, and we work together to fulfill our duties. My life now is so free, so open—hope has been reignited in my life. I know that all of this is God’s love and salvation for me. I give thanks to God for guiding me to cast off the pain of my husband’s betrayal and to embark on the right path in life, finding true happiness.
Conclusion:
When the person you love most betrays you, and when your silence and tolerance cannot win their heart back, you need God’s words and guidance. That’s the only way to find the courage to face it and be able to clearly see the truth, to gain a true sense of calm and be able to welcome the light.
