Divorce,remarriage and children

[Guest]

Amen Steve.

Ditto for me in my marriage and I remain..................
I will gladly do what GOD says and leave consequences to HIM,
with HIS strength.

A friend

[jaiotu]

Hi Damon,

I'm sorry about your parents' marriage failure, because I am deeply grieved by every marriage failure.

Thank you.

[snip]

I know, from many of your other posts, that you don't much like anyone questioning your expertise, and I don't mean to offend you with any of these comments. I could be too subjective, but these are my observations.

It's not that I don't like people questioning my expertise. I'm certainly willing to listen, especially when I'm in the position of being less experienced than others - like now. What bothered me before was when people were blowing off what I had to say, even though a lot of prayer, study and personal experience had gone into formulating it. If that bothered me, then I would be hypocritical to blow off what others have to say concerning a subject with which they have more personal experience than I do.

We do agree on much of what you have said, of course. It is the areas of difference that I feel the need to respond to. If we were in complete agreement, I would allow you to have the last word and concentrate my attention on other matters.

I'm not worried about who has the last word. Oh, and I appreciate the time you're putting into responding to me, by the way.

I think we have some of the same ideas, but we are coming from two different starting points. I think you have a more pragmatic approach, which makes it possible to say something like [if there seems no hope of the nasty souse repenting] "why stay in a relationship where one's Christian witness will do no good?" A pragmatic approach toward marriage asks, "what good is accomplished?" and "good" is generally defined in terms of temporal well-being and happiness of the participants.

No, I was actually looking beyond that, although that's certainly a part of where I was coming from. I was also looking to long-term benefits, even if they were only to manifest in the Kingdom and not in this life.

First, the majority of men or women who separate from their spouses actually end up divorcing.

Granted. That's just the carnal nature at work, unfortunately.

Second, separation without proper justification, is a sin, just as unwarranted divorce is. The Bible speaks directly to the matter of what may justify a divorce, but it gives no specific information about what may justify a separation. It should be obvious that a frivolous separation by one spouse, against the wishes of the other, is a violation of specific scriptures defining the duties of married parties.

True, but what would you counsel when one spouse is simply unable to cope with the marriage circumstances as they are? (In other words, that's when I would see separation as a viable option.)

The Bible commands married people to "dwell together according to knowledge" (1 Pet.3:7), and to not deprive one another of intimate contact, except by mutual consent, for a prearranged period of prayer and fasting (1 Cor. 7:3-5).

Yes, but that passage doesn't deal with the circumstance that we're discussing. It deals with a circumstance where both parties agree that there's a problem that separation can help to resolve. What, in your opinion, would be a more biblical way of handling such a circumstance where only one party can see (or is willing to see) that there's a problem?

When couples are merely unhappy in a marriage (many who claim "abuse" from their spouses are really merely unhappy--I know this for a fact), separation gives them a "breather" that may enhance their happiness to the point that they have no motivation to return and "fix" the problem that caused their initial unhappiness. On the other hand, when leaving is not an option, the pressure in the marriage can provide the incentive for seeking counsel, change and reconciliation.

The problem I have with that approach is that if one partner in the marriage is totally unwilling to deal with the issues, disallowing separation could cause many more problems than it solves. That's my primary concern. But I do agree that what you're saying is true: separation without a real commitment to address the issues on at least the part of the separating party doesn't help, and could very probably exacerbate the problems.

You mentioned certain forms of abuse that are indeed heinous. In fact, they are criminal. In a biblically just society, a man (or woman) ought to be arrested for such abuse. The penalty inflicted upon him or her, in such a case would be, "eye for eye, stroke for stroke, hand for hand, wound for wound, burn for burn, life for life" (Ex.21:23-25). Very few spouses would continue burning their partner or their children with an iron, if, every time they did it, they were themselves subjected to the same treatment by the law enforcement agencies.

Right, but since when have the law enforcement agencies always, and without fail, seen things for the way they really are? I've seen a circumstance in which someone who had been legally separated from her husband was arrested and carted off to jail in front of her young child because she was just too stressed out to handle things the proper way right at that moment. The police couldn't recognize that the husband had actually provoked her into an emotional breakdown. Instead of talking the two of them through the situation and helping the lady to calm down, they arrested her instead.

The one thing that the bible stresses over and over again in the prophetic books is that righteous civil judgment was severely lacking in the land. That's what we're seeing today, sadly.

In a society such as ours, where most perpetrators of abuse seem to evade legal penalties, it would seem appropriate for the church to approve a voluntary, protective separation in cases where law enforcement (rightly applied) would have caused a righteous separation anyway. I don't expect every Christian to agree with this logic, but it seems a valid application of scriptural principle to me. On biblical grounds, I could not approve of any separation of spouses that is not due to dangerous criminal activity.

I hear what you're saying, but since the church doesn't have the authority of civil law behind it, if one or the other spouse chooses not to respect this kind of separation, it doesn't really do much good. If they do respect their authority, then that's great.

My approach to marriage, like my approach to all Christian duties, is not pragmatic, but principled. I believe that Christians should do what is righteous, upon principle, whether it appears to be doing any good or not.

I understand why you're saying that, but I would respectfully add another dimension to this. Rather than being merely principled, I would instead look to a direct answer from God, especially where it's very difficult to discern what the right solution would be.

As a matter of fact, this same person that I mentioned before was counseled by God to separate from her husband, because her husband was refusing to do things God's way and was putting her and her child at great risk by his behavior. And although she did legally separate from him, she kept her marital vow that she would be by his side when he passed away - which he did about a year after the separation, because of cancer. The easier thing to do (and what her therapist had counseled her to do, in fact) would have been to totally separate and not keep that vow. But she knew that that wasn't God's will. She was there, and she kept her promise.

I am not coming at this subject merely academically. I have proven myself willing to put my money where my mouth is and was willing to remain with what would popularly be referred to as an "emotionally abusive" wife for twenty years...and I would have stayed for another forty, if she had not left.

I've witnessed this type of emotionally abusive relationship, although the roles were reversed and the husband was the one being emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. I'm grieved to hear what you went through - and I read your biography, so you don't need to fill me in on the details that you've already written there. I think what happened was very saddening.

The difference here was that the husband had a genetic mental difficulty that made it impossible for him to see certain things - like how his abusive behavior towards his wife could have a severe emotional impact on his highly emotionally sensitive son, for instance. He simply refused to trust that there was a better way to get what he wanted out of the relationship.

I truly respect what you're saying because of your own personal experience. For you, I'm certain that that was the right thing to do, not least because of your incredible witness of the value of the sanctity of marriage. Believe it or not, the lady I've been speaking of wouldn't have even considered legal separation unless God had directly intervened.

Damon

[Guest]

You raised a number of questions as to what I would counsel people to do in certain cases. Unfortunately, the descriptions of the said cases were not specific and detailed enough for me to give examples of the counsel I would give to remedy them. I try to avoid giving pat answers to complex situations, and would have to take each case separately.

One thing I would no longer do (as I did when I was a younger Christian) is assume that I know enough about a particular case, or precisely what counsel to give someone, until I had heard from both sides, explored appropriate ways to apply biblical principles, and weighed every option, prior to counseling any kind of separation for a couple. As I mentioned above, where there is dangerous criminal bahavior on the part of (let us say) the husband, I would have no problem counseling the woman to find a safe place to stay with the children while better solutions were being explored.

You have mentioned that there are people (probably mostly women are in view) who lack the emotional fortitude to stay in a marriage, even when there might not be biblical grounds for separation or divorce. I acknowledge that this is true...but I add this caveat:

Fortitude, for the Christian, is not a natural strength, but is the result of appropriating God's enabling grace (2 Cor.12:7-9/ Heb.4:16). It is supernatural, and it is available to every Christian, by faith (Rom.5:2/ Eph.2:8-9). In our day of psychological interpretations of human behavior, the role of the grace of God as the supernatural enabler of Christian behavior has been largely overlooked in modern preaching and counseling.

While I believe that God's grace is sufficient to enable any believer to overcome insurmountable obstacles, including torture and martyrdom, I must realistically admit that not all Christians know of this benefit, or know how to acquire it. Therefore, there are those who (though we are exhorted not to) "fall short of the grace of God" resulting in a "root of bitterness" (Heb.12:15).

As a result, many husbands and wives find their marriages intolerable, whereas they would be sustained and carried by the grace of God, if they knew of it! Paul tells wives not to depart from their husbands (1 Cor.7:10), but being a realist, knows that some Christians do not live up to their privileges, do not appropriate grace to help in time of need, and so they fall short of obedience to hard commands. For this reason, he addresses those wives who already may wrongfully have departed, contrary to his exhortation (1 Cor.7:11).

It is one thing to acknowledge that some Christians, through weakness, ignorance (or momentary rebellion), fall short of obedience. It is one thing to pity and seek to assist them,rather than condemning them for their failures. But it is another thing to lower the bar, so as to accommodate their lower level of obedience, and to change the standards, so as to give them permission to remain comfortable in unnecessary failure.

When Paul addresses wives who have wrongfully left their husbands, he does not say, "There, there! We all make mistakes! Never you mind about God's standards." Instead, he reminds them of the standard, instructing, "let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband." That is, she should make every effort to recover what has been forfeited, and to restore the relationship. Where this seems immediately impossible, she should at least not consider that she is done with her marriage and free to move on to another relationship.

The perfect attitude toward such failure to measure-up to the Christian obligations is that seen in Christ's treatment of the adulterous woman, when He said, "I don't condemn you. Go and sin no more" (John 8:11).

To a woman, overwhelmed by marriage difficulties that do not rise to the level of grounds for separation or divorce, who does not have the grace, and who lacks the emotional fortitude to stay in her home, and who consequently abandons her home, the Christian response should be compassionate: "We don't condemn you..."

However, the other part of that message is, "Sin no more." That is, "don't consider that the bar of obedience has been lowered, or that this failure is normative or excusable, or that you are not wronging your family every day that you remain away. You must make every effort to get back into the right position as soon as possible, and to make this your primary project until it is accomplished."

In a case with which I am intimately acquainted, a very weak-minded woman fled from a home that was, in all outward respects, an ideal living environment. She lived in her dream house, with a godly, gentle and supportive husband, well-behaved children, no financial or family health problems, a good Christian social network, etc. The wife had a family history of mental disorders, and she viewed everything in her life differently from what it was. To her perception, the children were nasty and disrespectful, her husband was cruel and tyrannical, the finances were a disaster, all the family friends and relatives were unsympathetic, fake Christians--everything about the home was an earthly hell to her.

She went from counselor to counselor until she finally found one who encouraged her to separate from her husband, "for her own sanity," which she did. Because of this woman's peculiar mental problems, I think we may forgive her for lacking the emotional fortitude to overcome the demons that were driving her away from those who loved her and wanted to help her. The problem was that, not only did many Christians sympathize with her weakness, and support her in her decision, but they took this failure at face value, and made no protest when she filed for divorce. Those same Christians, through their compassion, apparently think nothing of the fact that she now acts with utter contempt and hostility toward her accommodating husband, who still loves her, or the fact that she now spends her time in bars, picking up men.

Christian friends should have said to this woman, "We love you and understand that you are having great difficulties coping with your home life right now. We are eager to help you, counsel you and pray with you. However, you must realize that breaking up your marriage is not acceptable, and all of our efforts must be with a mind of restoring that to a normal condition as soon as possible. In the mean time, we will be expecting you to aspire after reconciliation and to being restored to your home. This is the only option open to you, and the longer it takes to get there from here, the more damage will be done to your children, your husband, the kingdom of God, and your own Christian life. We cannot agree to help or support you in your present state unless you are committed to moving back the right direction as soon as that can be worked out."

The problem is that modern Christians don't know the proper balance between having compassion on the weak, on one hand, and upholding God's standards, on the other. Its called "grace and truth." Jesus was full of both of these (John 1:14), and we are supposed to have received the fullness of the same (John 1:16). We need to recognize that Christians fail, but we must also learn how to help them back to the right place. Instead, most Christians either tend to condemn and ostracize the failing weaker person, or they forgive and forget, when there is still much work to be done and restitution to be made.

I am not saying that you are making either of these errors. It is just my response to your questions.

[jaiotu]

You raised a number of questions as to what I would counsel people to do in certain cases. Unfortunately, the descriptions of the said cases were not specific and detailed enough for me to give examples of the counsel I would give to remedy them. I try to avoid giving pat answers to complex situations, and would have to take each case separately.

Fair enough.

[rest snipped]

I think this is a good place to end because we completely agree.

Damon

[Guest]

Well said Steve thank you!

I departed 1x from my husband......
I never had 1 christian tell me anything about the error I was in....
I rec'd 1 letter of rebuke.
I returned home as it was GODS will and began to pray
for the LORD to change me so I could see things differently.
We will ultimately choose either to obey or not ,leaving
ALL consequences with the LORD...IF we choose to stand back
GOD will fight our battles in HIS timing not ours.

I am choosing obedience!

Thank you for sound teaching

[Guest]

Hi Damon,

I'm sorry about your parents' marriage failure, because I am deeply grieved by every marriage failure.

Thank you.

[snip]

I know, from many of your other posts, that you don't much like anyone questioning your expertise, and I don't mean to offend you with any of these comments. I could be too subjective, but these are my observations.

It's not that I don't like people questioning my expertise. I'm certainly willing to listen, especially when I'm in the position of being less experienced than others - like now. What bothered me before was when people were blowing off what I had to say, even though a lot of prayer, study and personal experience had gone into formulating it. If that bothered me, then I would be hypocritical to blow off what others have to say concerning a subject with which they have more personal experience than I do.

We do agree on much of what you have said, of course. It is the areas of difference that I feel the need to respond to. If we were in complete agreement, I would allow you to have the last word and concentrate my attention on other matters.

I'm not worried about who has the last word. Oh, and I appreciate the time you're putting into responding to me, by the way.

I think we have some of the same ideas, but we are coming from two different starting points. I think you have a more pragmatic approach, which makes it possible to say something like [if there seems no hope of the nasty souse repenting] "why stay in a relationship where one's Christian witness will do no good?" A pragmatic approach toward marriage asks, "what good is accomplished?" and "good" is generally defined in terms of temporal well-being and happiness of the participants.

No, I was actually looking beyond that, although that's certainly a part of where I was coming from. I was also looking to long-term benefits, even if they were only to manifest in the Kingdom and not in this life.

First, the majority of men or women who separate from their spouses actually end up divorcing.

Granted. That's just the carnal nature at work, unfortunately.

Second, separation without proper justification, is a sin, just as unwarranted divorce is. The Bible speaks directly to the matter of what may justify a divorce, but it gives no specific information about what may justify a separation. It should be obvious that a frivolous separation by one spouse, against the wishes of the other, is a violation of specific scriptures defining the duties of married parties.

True, but what would you counsel when one spouse is simply unable to cope with the marriage circumstances as they are? (In other words, that's when I would see separation as a viable option.)

The Bible commands married people to "dwell together according to knowledge" (1 Pet.3:7), and to not deprive one another of intimate contact, except by mutual consent, for a prearranged period of prayer and fasting (1 Cor. 7:3-5).

Yes, but that passage doesn't deal with the circumstance that we're discussing. It deals with a circumstance where both parties agree that there's a problem that separation can help to resolve. What, in your opinion, would be a more biblical way of handling such a circumstance where only one party can see (or is willing to see) that there's a problem?

When couples are merely unhappy in a marriage (many who claim "abuse" from their spouses are really merely unhappy--I know this for a fact), separation gives them a "breather" that may enhance their happiness to the point that they have no motivation to return and "fix" the problem that caused their initial unhappiness. On the other hand, when leaving is not an option, the pressure in the marriage can provide the incentive for seeking counsel, change and reconciliation.

The problem I have with that approach is that if one partner in the marriage is totally unwilling to deal with the issues, disallowing separation could cause many more problems than it solves. That's my primary concern. But I do agree that what you're saying is true: separation without a real commitment to address the issues on at least the part of the separating party doesn't help, and could very probably exacerbate the problems.

You mentioned certain forms of abuse that are indeed heinous. In fact, they are criminal. In a biblically just society, a man (or woman) ought to be arrested for such abuse. The penalty inflicted upon him or her, in such a case would be, "eye for eye, stroke for stroke, hand for hand, wound for wound, burn for burn, life for life" (Ex.21:23-25). Very few spouses would continue burning their partner or their children with an iron, if, every time they did it, they were themselves subjected to the same treatment by the law enforcement agencies.

Right, but since when have the law enforcement agencies always, and without fail, seen things for the way they really are? I've seen a circumstance in which someone who had been legally separated from her husband was arrested and carted off to jail in front of her young child because she was just too stressed out to handle things the proper way right at that moment. The police couldn't recognize that the husband had actually provoked her into an emotional breakdown. Instead of talking the two of them through the situation and helping the lady to calm down, they arrested her instead.

The one thing that the bible stresses over and over again in the prophetic books is that righteous civil judgment was severely lacking in the land. That's what we're seeing today, sadly.

In a society such as ours, where most perpetrators of abuse seem to evade legal penalties, it would seem appropriate for the church to approve a voluntary, protective separation in cases where law enforcement (rightly applied) would have caused a righteous separation anyway. I don't expect every Christian to agree with this logic, but it seems a valid application of scriptural principle to me. On biblical grounds, I could not approve of any separation of spouses that is not due to dangerous criminal activity.

I hear what you're saying, but since the church doesn't have the authority of civil law behind it, if one or the other spouse chooses not to respect this kind of separation, it doesn't really do much good. If they do respect their authority, then that's great.

My approach to marriage, like my approach to all Christian duties, is not pragmatic, but principled. I believe that Christians should do what is righteous, upon principle, whether it appears to be doing any good or not.

I understand why you're saying that, but I would respectfully add another dimension to this. Rather than being merely principled, I would instead look to a direct answer from God, especially where it's very difficult to discern what the right solution would be.

As a matter of fact, this same person that I mentioned before was counseled by God to separate from her husband, because her husband was refusing to do things God's way and was putting her and her child at great risk by his behavior. And although she did legally separate from him, she kept her marital vow that she would be by his side when he passed away - which he did about a year after the separation, because of cancer. The easier thing to do (and what her therapist had counseled her to do, in fact) would have been to totally separate and not keep that vow. But she knew that that wasn't God's will. She was there, and she kept her promise.

I am not coming at this subject merely academically. I have proven myself willing to put my money where my mouth is and was willing to remain with what would popularly be referred to as an "emotionally abusive" wife for twenty years...and I would have stayed for another forty, if she had not left.

I've witnessed this type of emotionally abusive relationship, although the roles were reversed and the husband was the one being emotionally and sometimes physically abusive. I'm grieved to hear what you went through - and I read your biography, so you don't need to fill me in on the details that you've already written there. I think what happened was very saddening.

The difference here was that the husband had a genetic mental difficulty that made it impossible for him to see certain things - like how his abusive behavior towards his wife could have a severe emotional impact on his highly emotionally sensitive son, for instance. He simply refused to trust that there was a better way to get what he wanted out of the relationship.

I truly respect what you're saying because of your own personal experience. For you, I'm certain that that was the right thing to do, not least because of your incredible witness of the value of the sanctity of marriage. Believe it or not, the lady I've been speaking of wouldn't have even considered legal separation unless God had directly intervened.

Damon