Posted on 05/17/2013 10:38:14 AM PDT by markomalley
Televangelist Pat Robertson is under fire once again after telling the wife of a cheating husband to get over the infidelity and provide a better home so he doesn’t “wander.”
Robertson was responding to a letter from a woman identified as Ivy during Wednesday’s episode of “The 700 Club.” Ivy wrote, “We have gone to counseling, but I just can’t seem to forgive, nor can I trust. How do you let go of the anger? How do you trust again?
Robertson’s co-host began to answer the letter when the one-time Republican presidential hopeful interjected with the “secret” to getting past the cheating.
“Stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. O.K.,” Robertson said.
Robertson suggested the wife forget about the incident and focus on why she married her husband in the first place, advising she try to fall in love with him again. The televangelist rolled out a series of questions for Ivy to think about.
“Does he provide a home for you to live in? Does he provide food for you to eat?” Robertson asked. “Is he handsome?”
But it was the way Robertson ended his response that set off a firestorm.
“Males have a tendency to wander a little bit, and what you want to do it make the home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
If she doesn't she will not be able to stay with him.
The woman involved needs to answer a few deeper questions regarding her self. Does she harbor the anger feeling as though she now has an excuse to divorce the man in question and put her self “back on the market”? Does she in fact truly love him? What sorts of passive aggressive games did she play in the marriage? Is she bitter that ultimately her Husband was not the Christ she hoped he was?
Sure the man cheated and bears the primary blame for that sin. Yet if he has truly repented and gone thru the personal hell of examining why he did what he did and has thrown himself on the mercy of God, asking for total inward change, then what is the woman holding on to that she can not see her husband as the imperfect man that he is...recognizing that for the grace of God...she too, could have committed adultery?
For all that, if there has been such a breach that the wife simply can not come to a place of relative trust and active forgiveness(77 times 7), then they might have to at least separate since an atmosphere of recrimination and back biting will exist between these two, no matter how much “work” they try to put into it!
People often make the mistake of trying to find “heaven and God” in the other, a kind of spiritual “co-dependency” when we all have a responsibility personally to “die to self and carry our own crosses daily”. This can lead to dryness and heightened “fulfillment” expectancies of one another that no one on this Earth can ever supply. I’m not talking about Fidelity because that is a behavior that all marrieds are to maintain...but I’m talking about deeper needs and aspirations that only the Holy Spirit can supply to each individual.
We all hear songs about being the “other’s all in all” and express sentiments about “being your lover’s everything”...yet those are very high spiritual bench marks no one can ever attain for the spiritual fulfillment of one another. This is why I think many marrieds, both men and women, will stray and cheat. We expect each other to fill the God shaped vacuum that only God can fill, yet at the same time we may wish to be in a relationship where the partner simply accepts us as the imperfect (but trying) man or woman that we, in fact are!
It is ironic then that while we give lip service to the very Christ who showed us grace and forgives our sins and imperfections, that we expect our spouses to be totally God like in our care and fulfillment of one another; then throwing them away or committing infidelity when they are not the Christ that we expect them to be!
“Stop talking about the cheating. He cheated on you. Well, he’s a man. O.K.,” Robertson said.
I think most of you have completely missed the mark here. Robertson was not saying it was ok to cheat on your wife, but what he was saying was after the man repented and returned home, how the wife continued to hammer him about it. Only a fool would not realize how destructive that would be to rebuilding the relationship.
I suppose it would have been better had every time she brought it up, he could have reminded her that the other woman had been at least younger, prettier, sexier...whatever. No you say? Working on rebuilding a relationship takes both parties working on rebuilding. Anyone who continues to remind someone of their failures is not looking to rebuild a relationship, they are looking to make sure that there is hell to pay each and every day of the other persons life.
I look at this article and draw two conclusions...One is that it is not OK to cheat on your wife...but two, if you do leave and never come back because rebuilding the relationship is not an option.
She asked a specific question.
He answered a specific question.
You're all being politically correct control freaks.
“I probably would have said, “Leave the jerk”, but would that have been the best answer for a Christian?”
Divorce is permitted, not required, in the case of adultery. Biblical law.
Pat’s 83 now, maybe it’s past time for his son Gordon to take over full time. Before Fox News, the 700 Club did some good reporting on things the mainstream media wouldn’t touch. Like Christians being persecuted in public schools and the consequences of abortion like Post-Abortion Syndrome and abortion’s connection to breast cancer.
Why didn’t he offer her any real advice on how to let go of her anger and to forgive? I would have expected him to say something about prayer, and turning to the Lord for help in putting it behind her.
Instead Robertson offers up iananities such as, “Is he handsome?” LOL, seriously!? “Does he provide for you?” Well, maybe so, but he broke his vows and she can’t turn the hurt off like a faucet. Also, he tarnishes faithful Christian men when he implies that men just wander—get used to it-—and bear no responsibility for doing so.
Look, I’m the last person you’d accuse of being a man-basher. I happen to agree that women should try to keep themselves attractive for their husbands, but it goes BOTH ways. Men don’t get a free pass when they develop beer bellies and sit around scratching themselves.
The woman contacted Pat for help, and all he gave her was stupidity.
I agree that his advice was inane.
You have the right advice about forgiveness. That is what a wise Christian pastor would say.
The tragedy is that, more often than not, I have experienced very poor, ill-informed, and un-spiritual “counseling” from many persons in “ministry”, of many denominations.
Indeed.
Repentence, forgiveness, and staying together, are ALWAYS the better choice.
Well, that DOES put a different spin on it. The way it was “reported” doesn’t jibe with what YOU, an eyewitness, say about it.
Thank you for that clarification.
Beginning Experience, a peer facilitated weekend for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one
The woman contacted Pat for help, and all he gave her was stupidity.
Agreed. While I think there is a good point to be made about not hanging on to the anger and continually obsessing over it, especially if it happened many years ago, if it hasn’t been repeated and he’s asked for his wife’s forgiveness, which BTW was not evident in the woman’s question - she didn’t indicate how long ago this infidelity took place or how many times it happened or for how long or with whom and he never addressed that. But instead of praying for her or with her, offering her some sound advice, live alone any Biblical examples to follow on how to forgive as I would expect a minister to do, what he basically said is “Well, he’s a man OK, get over it, just stop thinking about it, forget about the stripper in the motel room, just be happy and focus on the fact that he’s a good provider, that you have a home, food to eat, clothes to wear, he treats your kids nice, goes to their sporting events, that he’s handsome because you wouldn’t have married an unattractive man or someone who wasn’t a good provider, and you know, men like your husband “tend to wander” because if they see attractive and sexy women in magazines or on TV they can’t be blamed for not keeping it in their pants and out of stripper’s vajajas and it’s probably your fault too that he does, because you’ve just not been “wonderful” enough, reach out and touch him, just touch him, touch his face, hold his hand”, although I would guess the “stripper”, assuming it even was a stripper, was touching more than his face and holding something other than is hand. Perhaps she could install a stripper pole in the bedroom if she really wanted to be a good wife and for him to not have sex with strippers. (eye roll). And again, where did the woman’s question say anything about strippers…perhaps it is Pat who has a particular fascination with strippers?
I watched the whole video. At the beginning after his female co-host read the question, Pat asked her what she thought and she gave a reasoned response about the difficulty of forgiveness especially when it comes to a spouse (cheating) because that is one of the most “ultimate betrayals” and that is true. And then Pat says, “Here’s the secret” and she says “OK” and then she turns her head away and downward in seeming embarrassment of what idiocy she knows Pat is about to say.
I also have to wonder if Pat would have given the exact same advice to a man if he was having difficulty forgiving his wife for cheating. Would Pat have told him to focus on what a good cook and housekeeper she is, how well she takes care of the kids, how attractive she is, would he have told him that women tend to wander what with all those sexy men in magazines and on TV?
Keep in mind that Pat also said it was OK for a man to divorce his wife because she had Alzheimer’s and suggested to a teenager who was concerned about his parent’s marriage, that men drink because their wives are ugly (and the kid’s question had nothing to do with drinking BTW) and that a man with an “unruly” wife should move to Saudi Arabia where it’s OK for him to beat her and that people should not adopt orphans from other countries because they might be brain damaged.
I support his right to say whatever is on his mind but I also have the right to say that whatever thought crosses his mind is probably dying of loneliness.
How about saying,"He is HUMAN and therefore sins, etc, etc". But no, he is a MAN...as if he gets special understanding for acting upon this particular sin.
Blech.
Oh now *that* is special. Tendency to wander "a little bit"?
Males do this sort of thing, so get over it maam. Oh and by the way, if you had made your home wonderful, he wouldn't have done it.
I take my previous post back. What he said is disgusting.
..is Robertson saying that the Sixth Commandment doesn’t apply if the husband is good looking?
And that makes it rough especially if the man has a wife who has an attitude that hes mine now so i don,t have to do anything.
The only thing Robertson is doing is telling it like it is, all preachers do not lie just to be in good grace with people with their heads in the sand.
A woman or man either one will do anything to get the one they are after and as soon as they get them all bets are off.
Men and women both go astray, that is why forgiveness is essential.
If the only reason to marry some one is because you think they will not stray, that would be the marriage made in hell.
Thank you for actually answering my question.
Thank you for actually answering my question.
One of the Islam speakers said very plainly ( we must get some one in Washington, or the white house, i am not sure which it was, but i think i got the tape awhile before Obama got elected.
I will see if i can find the tape and put the name of it on the thread.
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