In Theory:

Infidelity is in the news with the recent development of Jenny Sanford — wife of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford — filing for divorce after 20 years of marriage. The world’s No. 1 golfer, Tiger Woods, is also involved in a web of infidelity, possibly involving several women. Infidelity is not new in the celebrity world, but what does your faith teach about infidelity? Are we truly damned if we cheat on our wives or husbands?

The Rev. Amy Pringle: “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” of course, is one of the Ten Commandments; and in Jewish law was punishable by death. In New Testament times, Greek law punished a man who slept with another man’s wife by putting him in stocks in the public square — stripped — with a radish stuffed up his well, never mind.

Forgiveness of adultery is also a biblical principle. Jesus is famous for setting free a woman who was caught in adultery, and about to be stoned to death, by the show-stopper line, “Let the one who is without sin cast the first stone.”

In the Episcopal Church, we see adultery as a devastating sin, forgivable by God after a process of repentance and amendment of life, but extremely difficult to repair in the human arena. We counsel both spouses, trying to help them discern the implications of this horrible breach of trust. Sometimes a marriage survives it; most times not.

If you’re where Mark Sanford and Tiger Woods were, before they did what they did — restless, lonely, tempted, thinking about that other person too often — if you’re feeling that way, it probably means something is missing in your life, which somehow your psyche (or another part of you) thinks this affair will fulfill. It won’t. It will just bring a hailstorm of pain down on you and everyone you love.

Figure out what’s missing, what you’re really yearning for, and how you can fill that gap in your life on your own, or with your spouse. And if your marriage is truly dying, take the steps to end it cleanly, before an affair increases the agony of divorce tenfold.

One more thing: Maybe this other person is really The One, the new love of your life, God-given. It happens. People change and grow, and marriages die. Honor your spouse as much as possible, in the way your marriage ends. The integrity you show in this marriage will set the limits of the integrity you have in the next.