Unforgiven,
As I read through this post, I sense some familiarity with your challenges. Your writings remind me of similar feelings that I have struggled with in the last 10 or so months from D-Day. My BW has struggled mightily with the idea that potentially I was never a Christian if I was able to, after 29 years of marriage, behave like an animal for so long and still pretend to be a faithful husband and father.
I have been given some measure of a gift of communicating through writing, (sometimes a curse to keep me from fully "owning" my deep problems) as it seems you have also. My wife and I would communicate extensively through emails as we attempted to salvage a life together after D-Day. My BW would get so frustrated with my ability to hide behind my emotional damage by conveying a sense of intellect in my writing. She was right, and I did not even realize it.
I spent a lot of time over the years prior to becoming a WH, intellectualizing my deep faith, attempting to "perform" my commitment to God and my wife and family, not even realizing it. My motives, I thought were pure, and I believed that I was laying down myself for the sake of others.
The reality was that I was serving only my deep emotional need to be admired and loved by those around me. To be respected and be seen as a wonderful husband, father, Christian leader, and man of God. The horrible shit-pit that all of the years of self-serving created is beyond description. My wife and children are beyond compare in this world... I do not say that with pride, it is literally true. They are a pure gift from God and they are so wonderful in spite of my demonic struggles, not because of my righteous performance prior to becoming a WH.
The background written above is important as context for what I will now attempt to convey.
Post D-Day, I have been confronted with the harsh realities you speak of in your post. My BW and a few treasured close friends, are the only ones aware of my fall into complete darkness. My BW has remained adamant that no more of her life be destroyed by acknowledgement of my great sin. I initially wanted to tell the world, in a selfish attempt to be fully free of the sin. What a horrible decision that would have been based on the incredible grief that would have added to her life. Heres the thing, I have had to process, and still am, the fact that for the last four years, my life would not have existed, if my children would be aware of my hideous acts. They still see me as a wonderful, faithful, righteous father and friend, and in Christ, I am those things. But my opportunity to stay in that place is only possible because they do not know what I have done. I have had to, and still am daily processing the guilt of that situation. Christ has had to daily bear my pathetic crawl to the cross, to again have him bear the weight of my sin, for the sake of my BW and children. I wanted to not take that path.... I wanted to spill my wretched guts to the world, and avoid the daily cross route for the sake of my selfish pride and ego.
Here is the point... As a Christian, it is good and right to daily die to our need to be loved, admired, thought well of, be respected... and all of the other ego kibbles, by laying down everything before Christ and letting and trusting him to process it all in His good time. This is not rug-sweeping, it is the process of daily letting Him define the difficult journey we are all on.
If we do that, our defenses our dropped and He gains full access to every part of us. I am trying to be that person. I now know that I am loved and accepted by God simply because He created me to be loved and accepted by Him. I simply receive and let that enter the deepest parts of me to be changed by it. I no longer attempt to perform my love for my BW and children... I consciously let it flow out of me as a direct result of Christs great and gracious love for me. Don't get me wrong, I am a serious work in progress, I simply know where the source of life and love is found and attempt to let it be found in me.
I apologize for length, but the center of all of this is not found in our intellect, our emotions or any other place but laying down at the cross, and letting Him define our journey. I simply seek to be aware of what He is saying and doing, particularly for the healing of my wife, and allow Him to change my perception of myself to match the reality of His love for me.
The only way to own it and recover from the feelings of utter and complete failure, is to daily lay it down, and let Christ return sanity, love and His righteousness to ourselves and our families.
Good luck to you my friend, daily find the cross and love your wife with what you receive as a product of the work of the cross.
