Mark Souder: Why I cheated

Souder and his inamorata, a part-time staffer, are both Christians who felt guilty and repeatedly talked about ending the affair as it dragged on over several years. Souder wrote in an email, “I prayed multiple times a day, sang hymns with emotion and tears, felt each time that it wouldn’t happen again, read the Bible every morning. . . . So how in the world did I have a ‘torrid’ (which is an accurate word) many-year affair? How could I compartmentalize it so much?”

Trying to figure it out, Souder wrote, “One of the biggest dangers—which is partly why intimacy is desired—is loneliness. Loneliness doesn’t mean being alone as much as it means being around hundreds of people but not really knowing them. It’s a job that results in hundreds, even thousands of friends, but not much closeness.” But he knows that explanation is insufficient: “Bottom line, however, is that the problem is sin. . . . The problem is getting the will subordinated to the Holy Spirit early enough that the Spirit is not squelched.”…

More recently, Jackson worked in Indiana and came to Washington, according to Souder, only 15 days a year. “To carry on a multi-year sexual affair in the district and not get caught shows that where there is a will, there will be a way,” Souder wrote. “I believe that it isn’t just whether someone is attractive, or available, or flattering members. It is a question of how we—Members of Congress and others—can recognize that with some people we have a deeper, intense attraction. Alarm bells need to go off.”