What is your position on healing after infidelity,
or multiple instances of infidelity?

The short answer is that I favor it, believe it is possible, and have seen it take place on numerous occasions. There are some hurdles and blocks along the way, and any one of them is of sufficient magnitude to discourage one or both partners.

The primary requirement for healing is that the faithful partner be committed to restoration. Often times, that partner has secretly desired to leave the relationship, but not if doing so makes him or her look bad in the eyes of his or her significant public. Now that he or she has been so obviously wounded, the opportunity to leave while looking innocent and good has arrived. This situation presents a real test of character for the faithful partner.

The second requirement for healing is that the unfaithful discontinue the relationship with his or her consort(s). This means no deliberate contact of any sort. Attempting to maintain a "friendship" with the consort(s) is out of the question. They do not have to treat each other as enemies, but there does need to be a return to, at the minimum, a formal and neutral relationship having only coincidental contact if any at all. This is most difficult if the two are coworkers. In that situation, I lean heavily on the unfaithful partner to get a transfer or a new job. Many will rebel at that point because of the loss of wage and seniority status but, again, this is a test of character. Discontinuing the relationship is also messy when it is with the spouse of a couple with whom association and recreation have taken place regularly. In that situation, the faithful partner would be encouraged to back off from that friendship on his or her part in support of the unfaithful spouse. This is yet another test of character and commitment of the faithful spouse.

The last hurdle is the re-establishment of trust, a sticky issue. Trust tends to be freely given the first time two people enter into a close relationship, but it must be earned if it is ever broken. Transparency is a popular and dependable method of re-establishing trust, but caution is required. The primary concern I have with transparency is that of authority within the relationship. If the unfaithful partner is the wife, then transparency works more smoothly because the wife, being under her husband's authority, can give an account for herself without violating any boundaries. If the unfaithful partner is the husband, then he must be transparent in his dealings and schedule without transferring authority to the wife. Doing so reverses the chain of authority and sets the wife up to be tempted to succumb to the curse of Genesis 3:16. It is this latter difficulty that allows me to work deeply with offending husbands to help them become more masculine and godly in their dealings with their wife while they rebuild trust. While doing so, the wife will not feel that her husband is fully transparent because he is honoring certain role boundaries that prohibit, or inhibit, his degree of transparency. This gives me the opportunity to work deeply with the wife to help her shift her dependency from herself and what she perceives, to a more solid basis -- that of having a genuinely godly masculine husband and what that looks like.