A phone call is jarring when in it, your friend divulges the discovery she made of her husband’s infidelity. Of her boyfriend’s big lie. Of her crush’s double life. Or of his wife.
Whatever the breach of trust, the result — at first, at least — is devastating.
One person’s choice pulls the path out from under somebody else, somebody who didn’t sign up for this. Somebody who promised to be true to him even in bad times after he promised infidelity would never be the source of them.Until it was.
“Until death,” as it turns out, is often code for “until I change my mind” — fidelity often only upheld when not inconvenient. She picks him as husband and intertwines her world with his, but has to peg him, when he leaves her, as a bullet.
You really dodged a bullet.
Fidelity is too often breached, too treated as impossible. I’ve received too many jarring phone calls.This isn’t a blame game. Relationships are systemic, and most marriages that end probably shouldn’t have started. But I’ve met enough women who are so disheartened by the men who used to walk life beside them to share this with all men on women’s behalf:
Some of us are giving up on you.Which doesn’t mean good single men will be single forever. It means women need good single men now more than ever.
We need you to step up and stand out.
To teach your brothers (biological or otherwise) how to make good choices.
To teach them to treat women first as sisters.
We need our male friends and our brothers and our dads to do what they say they are going to do. We need to meet men who use forethought before they pursue us, who pursue God before they pursue us. We need men whose choices inspire us to say “they do exist” (and not “is this some kind of a joke?”).
We need to know that men exist who want to love a woman like Christ loves the church. Who know love is a choice.
We need to know that not all men are bullets.
Because I know you aren’t, but I know a lot of ladies who need good men to prove it.
