Your husband’s infidelity is heartbreaking. As a Christian, this truth remains constant—you’re called to protect yourself from evil and pursue spiritual safety. If you’re looking for Christian help for infidelity, here’s what you need to know.

If you’ve just discovered your husband’s infidelity, start with this free emotional abuse quiz to see if what else might be going on.

What’s The Spiritual Problem?

If you’ve been led to believe that the betrayal in your marriage is because you haven’t prayed enough or prayed enough yet.

If your husband or clergy has told you that infidelity is your fault because you didn’t submit to him? These are evil lies.

The infidelity had nothing to do with how you communicate, how you look, or even how often you’ve been intimate. YOU are not the problem. Adultery is a sin. Nowhere in scripture does it say a man’s sins are the fault of his wife’s eye rolling.

The real problem is your husband’s emotional and psychological abuse, his chronic lying, manipulation, gaslighting, sexual coercion, and financial secrecy.

The Best Christian Help For Infidelity: The Word of God

Scripture reminds us of the importance of standing against wickedness and seeking freedom from harm. Here are a few powerful verses to encourage and guide you as you seek to deal with his infidelity as Christ would:

• Ephesians 5:11 – “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.”
• Proverbs 4:23 – “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
• James 1:27 – “…to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

These scriptures show that separating yourself from abuse and deception is what God wants for you—it’s biblical. You are not called to suffer in silence or endure abuse for the sake of appearances or misguided concepts of forgiveness.

Jesus didn’t come to keep you stuck in pain. He came to bring freedom, peace, and healing.

Luke 4:18-19 tells us His mission was to set captives free and lift up the oppressed. That doesn’t mean women should remain in a marriage where there’s infidelity or emotional abuse, sacrificing her well-being for a man who takes the name of God in vain when he claims to love God, but his actions prove otherwise.

The Bible reminds us to pay attention to actions, not just words. Matthew 7:16 says, “You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles?” And in 1 John 3:18, we’re encouraged to “not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.”

If your husband’s actions don’t reflect God’s love, He commands you to prioritize your safety and peace. Jesus came to deliver you from evil. He never asked you to submit to it.

Facing Misguided Clergy or Pressure

Sadly, some people might tell you to stay with a man who is hurting you or taking advantage of you. For example, kind people like clergy or members of your community might say this.

They might even tell you that staying shows your faith or that it’s a good sacrifice. Also, others might say that if you just pray hard enough, God will change your husband. But, it’s important to remember that no one should have to stay in a situation where they are being hurt.

This is not what Christ intended. God calls us to live in safety and truth, not submission to evil. You don’t have to be an “abuse victim for Jesus.” Jesus fights for the oppressed and calls for justice.

Of course, you can pray for your husband to repent, but what does that have to do with remaining in proximity to his harm?

Christian help For Infidelity solutions

The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop was taken from scripture. In studying what Christ said, we teach women to…

• Get Educated About Abuse: Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. Our Savior wants us to be educated, especially about abuse. Listen to The FREE Betrayal Trauma Recovery Podcast to learn about what other Christian women did when they discovered their husband’s infidelity.

• Establishing Safety: Learn strategies to protect yourself from emotionally, physically, and spiritually abusive behaviors. To learn more, enroll in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop
• Find the Right Support: Our Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Sessions connect you with a coach who understands what you’re going through. She’ll help guide you toward clarity and peace.

Biblical Help When You Discover Your Husband’s Infidelity

The Bible encourages you to cast out evil from your presence. That is Christian help for infidelity. This could include separating from a husband who lies, manipulates, and emotionally abuses you. Choosing safety is NOT a sinful decision—it’s one of strength and faith.

Consider practical steps to safeguard your wellbeing:

1. Set Boundaries: Begin by creating physical, emotional, and spiritual boundaries with the strategies in The Betrayal Trauma Recovery Living Free Workshop
2. Connect with a Supportive Community: Attend a Betrayal Trauma Recovery Group Session to find understanding and empowerment with women who’ve been through the same pain.
3. Seek Truth and Healing: Trust in God’s plan for your freedom, and explore tools like our Living Free Workshop to build a better, safer life.

Christ Is With You – Even After Infidelity

Jesus came to bring hope to those hurting, and freedom to those who feel trapped. He cares about your pain and sadness. You deserve a life full of peace and hope. Start healing from infidelity today with Betrayal Trauma Recovery.

Transcript: Christian Help For Infidelity

Anne: I have a pastor on today’s episode, we’re going to call him pastor Pete. He talks to a lot of women in his congregation who have just discovered their husband‘s sexual addiction. And he’s been known to say that when men have a “sexual addiction,” or when they use pornography, that they’re participating in sexual assault.

Welcome Pete. Can you talk about why you came to that conclusion that a sexual addiction. In other words, viewing pornography participates in sexual assault.

Pete: Sure, a little background, many years ago, talking to men and hearing them. I realized that one of the real desires they had in getting married was to find someone upon whom they could act out all the pornography they had seen over the years. And that just showed me how much today’s young men have been immersed in pornography. This was something new to me. You know, as somebody who grew up before the internet, I didn’t have that kind of access to it from a young age, as so many people do today.

There’s something intrinsically violent about pornography. There’s something intrinsically violent about that kind of sexual transgression. And I really came to see even more that most people involved in making pornography are doing so against their will. Or they’re doing so because it’s their last option. So they seek Christian help for infidelity.

And I’m sure you know that tons of the pornography in the world comes from impoverished countries. Where people are taken advantage of, or this is the only way they can earn some money. And for us to look at pornography, we must participate in that violence.

Biblical Perspective on Sexual Ethics

Pete: As you look at the Bible, you look at what it’s like to think as a Christian. God made us so he can tell us how to live. He can set the standards, set the rules. And we find early in the Bible, the 10 commandments, right? These commandments govern human behavior, both in our relationship to God and our relationship to other people.

As we continue to read the Bible and Jesus comes, we find out what we should have known. Many people knew all along. Which is that these 10 laws, these 10 rules, weren’t binary. As long as you don’t commit adultery, you’re fine. We realized that each of these laws actually summarizes a much wider ethic. And so Jesus would say, “You have heard it said. You shall not commit adultery.” Right? So that’s what people have been told us what the law says. That is Christian help for infidelity.

And then he would say, but I say to you, anyone who looks at another person lustfully is guilty of breaking that law. So he took the very defined, specific law and made it very broad. It was meant to be that way all along, to hold that standard of do not commit adultery. It’s not just to not fall into bed with somebody to whom you’re not married. But it’s to honor other people. It’s to not think lustfully about them.

As we expand what’s meant by these laws, we see that if we participate in a sin that demands violence, we’re also participating in that violence.

Live for the good of other people

Anne: Yeah, I’m so grateful for the commandments for this reason. They’re not just a criteria for whether we get into heaven. I like how you said they’re not binary. Like, if you commit adultery. You won’t go to heaven. And if you don’t commit adultery, you will go to heaven. Instead, the commandments are about our relationships and how we interact with other people.

And this is God saying, I love all my children. While you’re down there. I don’t want you to hurt anybody else. The commandments are more about. Whether we harm other people in this life. Are we making the world a better place? Are we making it more peaceful?

Can we create heaven in our relationships right now? It’s sad to me that so many Christians don’t think of the commandments in this way. Because if every person in the world obeyed the commandments, the level of destruction and harm caused to other people would be greatly reduced.

I mean, we all make mistakes. There are so many ways that we can harm others accidentally, even if our intent is good and we’re still obeying the commandments, but the level of harm would be seriously reduced.

Pete: Sure, and you think about how Jesus summarized those laws. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Christian help for infidelity includes all those ten laws summarized in two.

Live for the glory of God. And to do that, you live for the good of other people. And so if everyone on this earth lived for the glory of God, how do they do that? By only ever doing good to other people.

Christian help for infidelity: Change from the inside out

Pete: Jesus says adultery is not just having a sexual relationship with someone to whom you’re not married, but even lusting. It’s even desiring, looking at that person, as an object, objectifying the person. According to Jesus’s standard, when your heart desires something in that way, you’ve given your heart to it, you’re allowing your heart to long for it.

You’re still guilty of that sin. Because Jesus isn’t just interested in moderating our behavior as if we can have evil desires. But as long as we restrain those desires, we’re good. No, we’re to be changed from the inside out. It’s where desires are good, and therefore our behavior is good. What we do simply reflects who we are on the inside. And so we’re to be changed, transformed from the inside out. That is Christian help for infidelity.

Anne: Yeah, and he’s not just sinning against the women in pornography and lusting after them. But in so doing, he’s not paying attention to his wife or giving her the attention she deserves or needs. So it’s both that he’s harming the women in the pornography by participating in an exploitative, abusive industry. And he’s also withholding love, affection, and support from his wife.

Pete: Right, and then you can go farther to say you’re also showing your discontent with God. You’re criticizing God for not giving you someone or giving you something. And you’re expressing this dissatisfaction in how God has related to you. As if he’s holding back. So I don’t think we can overestimate the depravity of human nature as displayed in this kind of sin.

The Deceit in Sexual Sin

Anne: Yeah, at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, we call it abusive. We say pornography use is abusive to your spouse. And some people have told me that’s too extreme. And I tell them there’s no other word I can think of that shows the severity of this behavior. It is so harmful that just to say, it’s not good, isn’t going far enough.

Pete: Mm-Hmm, yeah, and you know, before I came on here, I had to spend some time thinking about that, and I haven’t yet reached a conclusion. I certainly understand why you say it, and I completely agree in many cases.

Anne: From my point of view, I would say every instance is abusive in and of itself, whether the person is an abuser. Do they know it’s harmful and continue to engage in it? And also, do they lie? Do they manipulate people to hide their behavior? Let’s let’s talk about that for a minute. Let’s talk about the deceit when men seek Christian help for infidelity.

Pete: Yeah, deceit, when people commit this sin, they cover their tracks. That deceit can take different forms. That deceit can cover up your behavior. So erasing your browser history in the hope that people won’t see it. It can be the failure to report behavior. And then there’s the deceit of even, as a Christian, you know,

The Lord’s Supper is an ongoing ritual Christians participate in that draws us close to Christ. And before we take Lord’s Supper, we’re meant to examine ourselves and see, do I have any behavior in my life that is ongoing and unrepentant that I’m refusing to conform my behavior to what God calls me to?

The Consequences of Unrepentant Sin

Pete: And if week after week, I’m participating in the Lord’s Supper. I’m deceiving people around me. And in a sense, I’m trying to deceive God um, ultimately. Unrepentant sin like that can be proof that I’m not truly a Christian.

Anne: Many of our clients at Betrayal Trauma Recovery, their husbands, are participating in that level of deceit. And that would be another reason why I use the word abuse.

Pete: Yeah, and I think we’re all capable of distinguishing between people who didn’t know they were just young and immature versus the person who is really being deceptive and hiding it. From 1st Thessalonians chapter 4, where Paul, was writing to a church. And he’s really warning them about sexual immorality. He’s telling them of the importance as a Christian, you become Christians. How do you behave now that you’re a Christian? When you want Christian help for infidelity? You’re to abstain from sexual immorality.

And the positive side of that commandment is to control your own body, holiness, and honor. He warns that nobody’s to wrong another, because the Lord is an avenger. When he uses that word wrong, that’s related to greed or fraud. So he’s essentially saying that this kind of sexual sin, in which pornography would fall under, is a form of defrauding other people.

Christian help for infidelity: The Escalation of Pornography Addiction

Pete: When people do pornography, initially a small amount will satisfy, but they have to push themselves into darker stuff and into greater quantity. And as you study the human brain, you understand why. Your body craves deeper and deeper chemical experiences. It takes more and more.to give you the same experience that you wanted.

And if you talk to certain people who have been addicted to drugs or something. They may say they’ve been chasing that first high, you know, that first time they experienced heroin, that it gave them some experience. They’ve always been trying to find again. Pornography can be like that. You spend your whole life indulging in it to a deeper degree, trying to recover the shock, the electric feeling you had the first time.

Anne: Yeah, we see that all the time, how it escalates. So as a Christian, I feel like pornography leaves a void, and some of my listeners aren’t religious. But for our Christian friends, who want Christian help for infidelity, why do you think the spirit is so offended by pornography, and why does it warn so strongly against it?

Pete: This Spirit engages with us to warn us away from sin and to assure us that we can overcome any temptation through His power. Sin is never inevitable. We’ve always got, through the Holy Spirit, what we need to say no to that sin and do what’s right. Over time, when we give in to a sin like pornography again and again, we’re constantly shoving the spirit away. We’re constantly saying, no, we don’t want to take hold of what you’re offering us. Eventually, it’s like the spirit hands us over to our sin. You can read about that in Romans chapter 1.

Anne: Yeah.

The Importance of Truth, Forgiveness & Boundaries

Anne: And it’s not just with sexual sin, it’s also with truth. Men who engage in this type of abusive behavior continually refuse to be honest. They have a sort of fantasy world that they’ve created and live in where they’re a victim. My belief is that truth is their only way out.

Christian help for infidelity, you know, a Christian teaching that I think I interpreted incorrectly that kept me stuck for so long. It was my belief in forgiveness. And I want to talk about that for just a minute. So I was continually forgiving and so grateful for the Lord’s grace and his love. and mercy, knowing that people can repent, and looking forward to my husband’s repentance. Not knowing that he wasn’t repenting. He was just lying in manipulating me.

In fact, my ex would say things like don’t you believe in Jesus? And he was basically asking me to tolerate his abuse in the name of Jesus. Which is of course taking the Lord’s name in vain, which is against the commandments, in addition to the lying and adultery. I want to ensure that women are educated about abuse, so that we can be at the feet of Jesus and partake of his grace and goodness. I believe Christ’s atonement covers the consequences, so I can move toward peace.

Pete: Yeah, I forgive you, and we’re getting a divorce are not mutually exclusive things. You have violated your vows in this marriage through adultery. And even while I forgive you, that’s not the same as saying, I’m going to stay married to you. That forgiveness doesn’t mean the eradication of all consequences. You know, the abused can’t maintain a relationship with the abuser.

Able to Forgive when safe from abuse

Pete: Christian help for infidelity can often be confused. Those things where to say, I forgive you means, Oh, and I’m not going to report this behavior to the police. Or I forgive you, it means we had to stay married. I want to distinguish between those things. And I also think we can be too quick to forgive in the sense of we haven’t seen remorse and repentance from that person.

Anne: From my experience, I was only able to truly forgive when I was safe from the abuse. So my ex-husband, he continues to lie and manipulate people and claim he’s the victim. Because of that, I’ve cut off all contact with him. And I look forward to the day where he can live in truth.

But since that’s not the case now, the way I think about forgiveness is that he owes me a debt. He owes me truth and fidelity to our marriage vows. He owes me a lot, you know, child support, and he won’t pay a bunch of stuff like that. So releasing him from the debt he owes me, releasing my desire for him to pay me with truth, honor, and goodness, it made it so much easier for me to separate myself from him and protect myself.

Christian help for infidelity: Living in Peace and Freedom

Pete: Yeah, I guess I’d want us all to think about the value of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news of what Jesus has done. She doesn’t live before this person, as if he’s the one who judges her, as if he’s the one who she has to please. She lives before Jesus Christ. She’s been fully and finally accepted, and she can now live in peace and freedom. She’s not captive to this other person, to this abuser. So the gospel of Jesus Christ is such such good news.

Anne: I have such gratitude for God for giving us these commandments that can help us be safe. And I want to share that women in this situation, obeying the commandments yourself, will bring so much power into your life. As I have chosen to obey the commandments, and so many other women in this situation have. God enables us to walk through the Red Sea on dry ground. When we get across the Red Sea, we have to wander around the wilderness. It’s not an easy road, but as we are obedient, the Lord will bless us.

Thank you so much for coming on this episode today to talk about Christian help for infidelity.

Pete: You’re very welcome.

Taking One Step at a Time

Anne: I realized recently, I haven’t said thank you for listening to my podcast. This podcast has received over 330,000 downloads now. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here with me through my journey of healing. It is humbling to think that so many women are listening. I appreciate your support. In September, the kids return to school, and sometimes it feels like things might improve, but this time of year is really hard for me.

My ex was arrested on September 18th. A month after school had started. So this time of year, I think back on that. My life has changed so much. I learned how to set boundaries. I started podcasting. And I’ve heard all your amazing stories. I can focus on my children. And have hope for the future. I’m amazed to be at this point to look back. And realize that I’m feeling positive when I never thought I would feel like this. I received Christian help for infidelity.

I don’t have that feeling in my gut that something bad’s going to happen anymore and don’t live with dread daily. So if you’re in that stage, I understand. I’ve been there. Just keep taking one step at a time.