Thoughts on Infidelity

I know -- I've been hitting the marriage theme lately. I am doing a study on infidelity and so I've been engulfed in topic for awhile now.

Our professor (who is a incredibly intelligent man) posed the following question to our class:

You're married. You have just committed an act of infidelity with another woman/man...20 minutes out of the act, what are you thinking?

Our answers:
- Crap! What have I just done? (Guilt, obviously)
- Get the heck outta there. (The awkwardness...)
- Thinking about your wife and how you are going to continue the lie @ home. (Guilt/Lies)
- What now?

I think his point was that people get caught up in the fantasy and don't think about what they might feel (20 mins) after committing infidelity. And no one asks us to think about these questions, the really hard questions... I mean how many times have you been asked to imagine what it would be like to cheat on your wife/husband and how would you feel 20 mins after... I think it is a good question to ask ourselves before the temptation of infidelity arises. It makes us realize our actions have reprecussions.
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Proverbs 6 really gets at the issue of infidelity.

20 My son, keep your father's commands
and do not forsake your mother's teaching.
21 Bind them upon your heart forever;
fasten them around your neck.
22 When you walk, they will guide you;
when you sleep, they will watch over you;
when you awake, they will speak to you.
23 For these commands are a lamp,
this teaching is a light,
and the corrections of discipline
are the way to life,
24 keeping you from the immoral woman,
from the smooth tongue of the wayward wife.
25 Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyes,
26 for the prostitute reduces you to a loaf of bread,
and the adulteress preys upon your very life.
27 Can a man scoop fire into his lap
without his clothes being burned?
28 Can a man walk on hot coals
without his feet being scorched?
29 So is he who sleeps with another man's wife;
no one who touches her will go unpunished.
30 Men do not despise a thief if he steals
to satisfy his hunger when he is starving.
31 Yet if he is caught, he must pay sevenfold,
though it costs him all the wealth of his house.
32 But a man who commits adultery lacks judgment;
whoever does so destroys himself.

Ultimately, the thief can give back what he stole (even if it is sevenfold.) The man (or woman) who commits infidelity -- loses a piece of him or herself that will be difficult if not impossible to get back. The ramifications of infidelity are far-reaching...

I know, way to select an uplifting topic to research.

yac.