My take on fidelity……

Andy did a great job yesterday, didn’t he? He’s written so well on such a difficult topic. I don’t have much to add.

Yes, I was infatuated, totally intoxicated by MW. He consumed my every waking thought. I went out of my way for our paths to cross. When I caught sight of him, I went weak at the knees, my heart raced etc etc etc….the stuff of ‘Fifty Shades’ indeed.

I could reel off whole load of excuses in my defence. I was a young, impressionable teacher and he was a Senior Teacher. I was struggling with issues of depression, identity and self-esteem. I was finding teaching hard. I was finding being married hard. I was lonely. (I better he couldn’t believe his luck!)

But actually, it was what it was. It was wrong. I hurt Andy and damaged our relationship. After a few months of struggling to control this powerful attraction, I decided to resign from my job. Some would say I ran away. Others would say I was removing myself from temptation. I would say yes to both – and that I was making a stand for my marriage and finding a way for it to recover and move on.

And of course, I have been attracted to other people since. The postman was not our postman – I met him at Keir’s football – he talked to me as an interesting woman at a time when I felt I was becoming invisible as a mother of young kids. Everyone wants to be seen and be desirable at any stage of their life and relationship ( and if their partner has ceased to do that for whatever reason, then……….) And I’m not sure about the window cleaner – what window cleaner? But I have been so careful all my married life to keep these attractions well under control. I am so careful about protecting my marriage and keeping all men at arm’s length. Maybe this is in part why I surround myself with women although being with a group of women is a fantastically powerful experience in itself as I found out last Saturday (again) and I wouldn’t miss it for the world (ladies, I’m not using you!).

As Andy said, honesty has been the key. I am searingly and uncomfortably (some would say) honest in all my relationships. A relationship without honesty at the core is like sand running through your fingers – you don’t know what to cling to, what is real and true, what you actually know about the other – and a relationship like that is no real relationship at all. When I met Andy, he prided himself on being ‘economical with the truth’. We have learnt together that that leads to distrust and shady areas and room for manoeuvre…..honesty can be uncomfortable but we are confident that we know pretty much everything about each other – the nice and the ugly – and we still want to be together. That has built an amazing resilience into our relationship.

We also know that at times, we have been more vulnerable than others. The stresses of family life have taken their toll. We have allowed the kids, worries about money, work, church, social life etc to get between us and divide us. We spend time on the things or with the people that make us feel good about ourselves – sometimes that has not been each other and sometimes we have drifted apart…and become resentful. I have stronger feelings of resentment about Andy’s phone than I do about any other woman! Many times, I have been this close to flushing it down the toilet!

We have had to fight to keep our marriage alive. And we will continue to do so. We will talk and share and laugh and care about anything and everything. We are fully aware of how human we are. We recognise our own faults and weaknesses and put in the time to work on them with each other. Our marriage is far from perfect, but it still is…that is what we celebrated in March – 25 years of surviving.

It can be done. Although of course, tragically, in some cases, it cannot be done and relationships do break down. There comes a point where both parties are so unhappy and so much water has gone under the bridge that there is no way back. You may still love your partner in many ways but know deep down with absolute certainty that you can no longer live with them (that is how I feel about Courtney at the moment, by the way, so don’t feel I have no understanding of or sympathy for relationship breakdown).

Relationships are precious and fragile and once trust is broken, it is hard to piece together again. Once a line has been crossed, you can never go back to how it was. Perhaps this is why Numbers 5 is so harsh. A friendship or a relationship or a community or a nation cannot function with dishonesty at its core.

 If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— then he is to take his wife to the priest.  Numbers 5:12-15

You see, deceit is such a slippery slope……going astray…….being unfaithful……..hiding it…….no one sees, no one knows, she doesn’t tell……but he suspects and is overcome with jealousy….how can they start to salvage what is left of their relationship? By seeking outside advice and help. None of this will go away on its own. Even if the jealousy is unfounded, it still needs to be faced and dealt with. I’ve observed the damage that (unfounded) jealousy can do in a relationship (between two people close to me) and from where I stood, the crushing insecurities that caused the jealousy in the wife were never effectively dealt with by the husband simply asserting and trying to prove that there was no truth in her accusations – it all ran far deeper than that…..

So the test in Numbers is for the woman to drink bitter water made from holy water and dust from the tabernacle floor and to see what effect it has on her. If she has not strayed, nothing will happen. If she has, her thighs will waste away and her abdomen swell (and Andy, my thighs are wasting away with running and my abdomen swelling with birthday chocolate – honest!). Some versions of the Bible seem to suggest that this passage is about inducing miscarriage. The Commentary I use does not really tackle this and it is not territory I wish to get into today. The Commentary does point out however, that trials by ordeal for adultery such as this were common in the ancient world and that this particular test was noted for its leniency compared to other more fierce and brutal ordeals around in pagan circles at the time. This trial is also weighted in the favour of a verdict of innocence rather than a verdict of guilt. I like what this says about our God.

We, of course, have trials of our own in society today – the stories in the media, the ambiguous photos, the rumours in the workplace, the whispers and looks from the church pews….even trying to remember the morning after a night out what actually went on the evening before and why you have some randomer’s number in your phone…..it is as important today as ever to remain faithful in a relationship and maintain honesty.

Honesty and faithfulness need to be valued. They are still important. They do still matter.

Dishonesty and unfaithfulness still ruin relationships and families and friendships and communities today.

Let us do all that we can to protect them.