Republican Congress member Mark Souder of Indiana has announced plans to resign after admitting to an extramarital affair with a part-time staffer. Souder made the announcement at a teary news conference on Tuesday.

Rep. Mark Souder: “I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff. In the poisonous environment of Washington, DC, any personal failing is seized upon, twisted for political gain. I am resigning rather than put my family through a painful, drawn-out process of which any legal question would have been clearly resolved and I would have been exonerated. But the political price to pay and the personal of my family was not worth it.”

Souder has repeatedly billed himself as a so-called “family values” lawmaker. Last year, he appeared along with the staffer with whom he had the affair in a campaign video promoting abstinence education.