When your husband leaves for another man on this edition of Truth and Love.

I'm Heath Lambert and you're listening to Truth and Love, a podcast of the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,

where we seek to provide biblical solutions to the problems that people face.

We are all familiar with the problem of a spouse leaving their marriage for another partner.

But one particularly painful loss in this area is when a husband leaves his wife for another man, that is, to go be a part of a

homosexual relationship. This can raise its own unique kind of doubts and sorrow in the

midst of that kind of betrayal. To help us address this matter, we invited, as our special

guests this week, Dr. Robert Jones. Dr. Jones is the professor

of biblical counseling at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, and he is the author of

pursuing peace. He's also a fellow with the Association of Certified Biblical Counselors,

and the producer of Truth in Love, Amy Evanson, caught up with him to ask him some questions about this topic.

I would love if you could help us understand what forgiveness should look like for a wife whose husband has left her for another man.

Well, very good, Amy. I first want to say, I'm so glad to be part of ACBC, and I'm thankful for this opportunity.

This is a tragic thing and a hard thing, and we've talked with women where this has been the actual case. I think that when

this happens, this is a crushing thing, and I think of passages like Psalm 46, God is our refuge in strength and ever-present help in time of trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea.

It's a crushing thing.

In terms of this particular question about forgiveness and how one should respond, I think there's a sense in which we would want to see people to think about two kinds of

forgiveness here, a kind of forgiveness that really is from the heart, an attitude of forgiveness

where the person must learn to release bitterness.

And this is a common problem, of course, where a wife can become very bitter and resentful.

And so I think we have to help that person think through what it looks like to release the bitterness and deal with the resentment issues.

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