Divorce

What Is Important For Marriage?

Have you taken the time to be there for your spouse? Some of you reading this may be thinking, “He hasn’t taken the time to be a husband, why should I put in any special effort?” “She has rejected me for two weeks. I’m not going to do anything extra around the house for her.” But we do have to put in special effort if we truly want to be there for each other. Marriage is certainly not about keeping score. It is about giving of ourselves freely whenever we have the chance to do so.

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The Unbelieving Spouse Who Wants A Divorce

If your spouse leaves the marriage it can be a devastating time. Sometimes they may want to get a divorce and bring papers for you to sign. But God says we are not to divorce an unbelieving spouse. In marriage, even if only one spouse is a believer, God says the marriage is sanctified and set apart for His purpose. According to the state you are divorced, but according to God you are still married.

If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband has been sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife has been sanctified through her believing husband. 1 Corinthians 7:12-14 NIV

God’s ideal is for couples to stay together and try and make the marriage work. The believing spouse should try and bring the wayward spouse to Jesus Christ. Since God does regard your marriage as sanctified by the presence of just one believing spouse, the believing spouse should do what they can to help the unbelieving spouse come into the light and accept Christ.

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Trusting In God For Your Marriage

Who are you trusting in when things go wrong in your marriage? Are you trusting in self, or perhaps you go running to family and friends, explaining your side of the story? Some of us go running to therapists, counselors, divorce lawyers, and strangers on the street. But we seldom run to God.

Many of the people we go running to in times of marital troubles aren’t equipped in giving us proper advice and guidance. Most of them have had divorces themselves! How can someone fix our marital wounds when they can’t fix their own?

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God Based Marriage Counseling

Do it yourself marriage counseling with God in the forefront is exceptional counsel because it really works! You just need to learn how to work it. Let me ask you a question. What are you now basing your marriage on? Where are you going now for the answers you may need to resolve your marital upheavals? The answer is most likely friends, family, pastors, books, ebooks, etc, or for very few of you, mainstream marriage counseling. Am I right?

We have to know WHO WE ARE before we can choose the right kind of counseling and marital guidance.

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Keep Going (While Going Through Hell)

I love Winston Churchill’s sentiment:

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Life is tough. Sooner or later, we’ll experience a trying situation which feels like hell. It isn’t actual hell, thank God. Nevertheless, the power of that notorious situation/trauma makes us feel tortured with pain, despair and hopeless evidence. Eating disorders, addictions, compulsions, loss and grief are just a few examples of things which can feel like hell, if, indeed, torture is its calling card.

It’s painful and almost impossible to see future, life, possibility or God. We can, instead, much more easily see ourselves as failures, weak, forgotten and ruined. It’s, therefore, inevitable we come to a screeching halt; we stop in the mire and can only feel ourselves sinking…down to where? Greater depths of hell and torture?

But that’s not God’s truth about us. Even in the middle of hopelessness, God is there… living… loving… working…

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28

“Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me?” Jeremiah 32:27

It can be tempting to believe that

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Unbelieving Spouse and Marriage

I am a Christian but I am married to an unbeliever for almost 7 months. My husband left home about 4 months ago. God wants to restore my marriage?

Marriage Guidance: You’re right. God does want to restore your marriage. So please print this marriage column out and read it with your husband so you both can be responsible for your “part” in the marriage. Let’s start from the beginning.

    * Who Established Marriage For His Purpose?
    * Who Restores Marriage?
    *Who Taught the Principles For Marriage?

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Obligations of making Each Other Happy. What about Sex?

Ask Angie: Hi Angie. Does a wife or husband have the obligation of making each other happy? My husband has had 3 failed marriages.

Ask Angie: How sure can you be to enjoy a second marriage when the first one didn’t work out? I would also like to know how to enjoy sex anytime he needs it.

Please print out this marriage column and discuss it with your spouse.

Marriage Guidance: What does obligation mean exactly? It means a responsibility or duty to something or someone. In marriage that would mean encouraging, supporting, and caring for one another through those responsibilities. No one can actually make another person happy, no matter what they do, since happiness comes from within the spirit of self. Read the articles at the end of this marriage column with your spouses.

The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife and likewise the wife to her husband. 1 Corinthians 7:3

What does the above verse mean? God designed a man and a woman to compliment one another through the roles and positions they have been given in marriage. The husband has a responsibility to his wife to care for and love her in much the same way that Christ cares for and loves His church—the people. The wife has a responsibility to be supportive, submissive and a helpmate to her husband.

Married Life Responsibilities/Obligations

A woman/wife has needs and wants. A husband should take care of his wife’s needs and wants the best he can. Emotionally she needs and wants to feel respected and appreciated by her man. Physically most women need to be protected by their husband’s. Financially she should have all of her basic needs met—shelter, clothes, food. Even if a wife contributes to the finances she is still obligated to be dependent on her husband. She is not independent of her husband just because she has a job or makes more money. This mixed up attitude is what causes problems in marriage. In my opinion marriage works better when a woman is home tending to the things of home and family.

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I Love You But I’m Not “In Love With You” Anymore

Has your spouse told you they weren’t “in love” with you anymore? Well do I have news for you. The saying “I love you but I’m not in love with you anymore” is a worn out cliché. It’s not possible to “fall out of love” because you weren’t “in love” to begin with. The excuse “I’m not in love with you anymore” is nonsensical. Let me tell you why.

There is no such emotional condition as falling out of love; it’s a justification for doing whatever you are planning on doing. It’s a way to let your spouse down easy. What you’re really feeling and should be saying is “I don’t want to love you anymore”. It usually means that the attitude towards your spouse and marriage is not what it once was. Perhaps you are talking yourself into having an affair or perhaps you have already had an affair.

The person who says “I’m not in love with you anymore” is searching for a feeling.

The marriage has stopped giving them a feeling they want and expect to have. It is an attitude that builds up after months and or years of a lifeless marriage – a marriage that has no intimacy. This is why quality time spent together (intimacy) is more important than sex in a marriage. Not that sex isn’t important, because it is, but that sex IS NOT INTIMACY. Sex may be a part of intimacy but it is not the whole picture.

Intimacy can be as simple as playing a board game or planting seeds together in your garden; or intimacy can be as complex as working together in a business or getting involved in a hobby with your spouse. But couples aren’t doing any of these things together anymore! They have drifted apart, each doing their own thing. When couples stop doing things together they lose the intimate bond between them they once shared when they were first married.

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