I received an email from a reader that really touched my heart because I know she is in a bad place right now with a very hard decision. Here’s the gist.
Her hubby of 8 years has a porn addiction. She has noticed something different about him lately found out that he had been having an affair and it had ended. She asked him to leave. He comes back to see their kids and when he comes over, they have amazing sex. He wants to kick the addiction….she loves him, but she is torn. Should she divorce him or not? The whole experience is drawing her closer to God and she has been in her bible and praying more than ever. She doesn’t know what to do.
Such a tough decision.
In the Old Testament, there are so many Old Testament verses handing out certificates of divorce. Yes, her husband was unfaithful to her. She does definitely have grounds for divorce by both Old and New Testament standards. I am going to preface what I am about to say by saying this … I have never experienced an unfaithful spouse, and probably never will, so I am really not sure what I would do if it really happened to me….
My Sunday school class has been going through the Gospel of Mark. Just last Sunday, we covered this chapter and verse
(Mark 10: 1-9) Getting up, He *went from there to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan; crowds *gathered around Him again, and, according to His custom, He once more began to teach them.
2 Some Pharisees came up to Jesus, testing Him, and began to question Him whether it was lawful for a man to [a]divorce a wife. 3 And He answered and said to them, “What did Moses command you?” 4 They said, “ Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and [b]send her away.” 5 But Jesus said to them, “[c] Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. 6 But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother[d], 8 and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”
Verses 6-9, we had read at our wedding. We feel that strongly about it.
In these verses, Jesus quotes God from Genesis 2:24-25. God intended marriage to be one man to one woman, and when they united, they became one flesh. What God joined together, man should not separate. Why did God tell Moses to allow divorce then? Because of our hardness of heart.
I have already written the reader with this issue. She is in her Bible more. She is praying more. She is praying for her husband. The closer she stays to God on this issue, the more she will be able to hear his voice. My recommendation would be to put off all thoughts of divorce until she hears clearly from the Lord. It is obvious to me that God has more in store for this marriage. I would find a babysitter for her kids, meet with him somewhere outside of the home, and start the process of determining what they are willing to do to save their marriage. It may be a good time to use 1 Corinthians 7: 1-6 for abstaining for a period of time of prayer for your marriage and wisdom to know where to go from here. If it were me, I would require him to get some sort of counseling for the porn addiction. A good sex therapist can help or a marital counselor for both of you. I would want to definitely get to the bottom of the porn and the affair with a counselor.
Sweetie, I am praying for you. Any of you going through the same situation have my prayers, too. God is faithful. God loves marriage. He created the unions between you and your husbands. If you have a repentant spouse who wants to seriously work through the problems, I pray that the God of healing will heal your marriages and make you stronger and closer, to Him and to each other.
monogabliss.com 