To be cheated on is a violation that hurts for a very long time. It’s like a deep cut that heals slowly and can easily be torn open again. Hosea and Gomer is that kind of relationship. It is a soliloquy of unfaithfulness and pain as revealed in God’s relationship with Israel. God asked Hosea to take to himself an untrustworthy partner in order to reveal to his beloved people what it looked and felt like to be used and abandoned. When realizing how deep God’s love was for His people and Hosea’s love for his wife it triggered a whole different response from each of them.