My wife and I are in the process of overcoming an infidelity that I committed with a coworker…. When it came time to choose between the two, I chose my wife, and the other woman, out of spite, sent her incriminating photos and audio messages.
We were married in a civil ceremony and have a seven-year-old daughter. We are planning to get married in a religious ceremony, but these days I can’t help but feel emotionally lost and very nervous about the decision to have a church ceremony, feeling like I miss the other woman…. I imagine that, if I had chosen her, I would feel more peace. What is this that I’m feeling, and how can I live peacefully?
Dear Friend,
You say that you feel lost and nervous, and would instead like to feel peaceful. Recent scientific research shows that our feelings, also known as emotions, are created in our brains when our thoughts, our past experiences, and our culture are meshed.(1) Therefore, to change our created feelings we must change the parts that they are created from, namely, our thoughts about ourselves and our thoughts about our past experiences.
From what you say, you are having frequent thoughts about the other woman and about your relationship with her. You imagine that you might have been better off had you chosen her instead of your wife and daughter.
As long as you continue to second-guess your decision and fantasize about that other woman and how happy she made you, you will have no peace. Doubts about your marriage will continue to grow as long as you tell yourself that you are lost without her, and will prevent you from ever finding peace.
Marriage is a mutual commitment. When you and your wife married in a civil ceremony, you were making a commitment to her. Even though you were not in a church, your commitment was made before God, and He holds you responsible to keep those promises. His Son Jesus Christ taught that no one should separate what God has joined together.(2)
However, it sounds like you believe that a marriage ceremony in a church is more binding than a civil ceremony. Actually, a church ceremony is equivalent to a civil ceremony legally and morally. Either way, the man and woman are fully married. A church ceremony adds a formal blessing, but it does not make a couple more married than they were civilly before. So even if you and your wife never have a church wedding, you will still always be fully responsible before God for the commitment that you already made.
In addition, you have a daughter to think of. Please read Case 848 to learn about the consequences your daughter will face if you abandon her. That certainly would not give you peace.
Change your thoughts, and your feelings will change likewise. Control your thoughts, and you will have more peace. You have the power to live peacefully.
We wish you well,
Linda
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1 Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017).
2 Mt 19:6