Behind Closed Doors
I don’t like cheaters. Maybe that seems inappropriate for a pastor to say, but so be it. Believe me, you’ll get over it. More precisely, I despise the act itself and the pain adultery causes. Those who choose this path may be carrying unaddressed hurt, and I get that—but for a cheap thrill, they’re willing to commit one of the most selfish acts a spouse can make. It’s ghastly; like dropping a neutron bomb on one’s role as a husband or wife, not to mention also if they are a mother or father.
It is not right to reduce a person to one immoral choice, or perhaps even a pattern of bad choices. Therefore, I try to be careful in how I process these violations. Still, however, our actions reveal what we truly believe or fail to believe. Orthopraxy doesn’t allow us to quickly explain away our orthodoxy, and you cannot “fake it till you make it” either. As the saying goes, we either put up or shut up. Life is that simple sometimes.
Anyone can profess love—of country, spouse, or God—but the proof is in the pudding. Always. Words have their place, but they become useless when used to avoid genuine commitment. As someone once said, “Most people forget God all day and ask Him to remember them at night.” It’s a sobering thought, but it happens all the time.
Infidelity matters deeply, in God’s eyes and to me personally. Because of that, I keep a gang of distance from people who are comfortable with it or engage in it. This isn’t about harshly judging others; it’s about avoiding drama and refusing to compromise my values just to fit in or appear easygoing. This isn’t middle school, after all. I have no desire to be buddy-buddy with those who are careless about boundaries, at a minimum, or who are actively lying and scheming to hide betrayal. To each their own, but I want to avoid even the appearance of that kind of behavior being linked to me (1 Thess 5:22). I want no parts of it.
Even if sometimes a bit predictable, Kimberla Lawson Roby’s book Behind Closed Doors offers a realistic portrayal of post-college, early professional life for two married Black women living what they believe is their “best life” in Chicago’s semi-luxury suburbs. The story follows two couples whose wives have been besties through childhood and college. One of them was married before to a “deadbeat” before remarrying, while this is the other’s first foray into holy matrimony. Naively, they believe their lives are as syrupy Southern tea sweet, but life quickly humbles them.
One woman faces corrosive deceit in her marriage, revealing a sizable web of unfaithfulness, while the other struggles with a different but equally serious betrayal that her husband repeats—threatening to destroy their relationship overnight. Along the way, within their decades-long friendship, they, too, are forced to confront their interconnected jealousy, colorism, competition, personal shortcomings, and unresolved family-of-origin issues.
Roby portrays two women who are indeed married to deeply flawed men, but they themselves are not without fault. Two wrongs never make a right, and they gradually come to see that—even as they begin making more mature decisions—they must also take responsibility for the ways they’ve contributed to their own pain.
It’s almost as if, like many people I’ve known, they treat their life like a kind of “prop bet.” Because nothing immediately blows up in their face, they go along as if everything is fine. But life doesn’t usually work that way. Faith, too, is often treated like an axe behind glass—only taken up in case of emergency. It’s almost comical how unbiblical these quasi-Christian characters can be, yet it reflects Plato’s idea that art imitates life.
After decades in pastoral ministry, I have encountered many people like this. I preach to them, listen to them, pray with them, and try to ask thoughtful questions. For many, it becomes easy to blame God for anything bad, or even merely inconvenient—while taking personal credit for whatever goes well, as if that were the essence of a faithful, biblical life. Behind Closed Doors is a cautionary tale about marriages that reject “faith, hope, and love” (1 Cor 13:13). Covenants matter. If you’re hesitant to devote yourself to God or to another person as their better half, then don’t.