What do you do when only one spouse wants to work on saving the marriage; or what can you do when your spouse wants a divorce and you don’t? Or how can you save a marriage when a spouse says they are not in love with you anymore?
Don’t give up on the marriage!
Don’t give up just because someone tells you to find someone new or thinks you should leave your marriage. They don’t know what you need—only God can fill your needs. No matter what, you’ll still be married to your first husband or wife, so don’t get any funny ideas in your head such as remarriage because that is not going to solve the real problem. Divorce does not solve hardened hearts or a faithless walk.
Sometimes the spouse that thinks they want out of the marriage is going through troubling times at the moment and regrets ever saying that or doing things that are damaging to the marriage. Don’t give up! Pray about it and ask Jesus Christ to bring you contentment and peace.
It is our responsibility to make God number one in our lives. We need to take care of our own inner healing first above everything else. Ironically, when we start to take care of our own personal problems and start to focus on our spiritual growth with God our spouse turns back to the marriage and wants to work on salvaging it. Why this happens is for many reasons as we’ll talk about briefly below.
Don’t Pester Your Spouse
Take care of you and give your spouse some breathing room. Our own fear of losing our spouse makes us say and do things that are not conducive for helping them to see they should not peruse a divorce. When a person has their mind made up about leaving the marriage, they are not going to listen to a ranting, needy, emotional person; they will instead think they are making the right decisions.
Most Christians believe, if they are unhappy in their marriage, that it’s ok to divorce their spouse and remarry. This is taught in the building they call a church, but is not what God says, through Jesus Christ. The best thing is to give them space while YOU take care of YOU.
Heal Yourself! Many people think they don’t need inner healing but we all need some kind of healing and growth in the Lord. When a man or woman says they are a man or woman of God, but never grows in their walk with Him, are hanging onto pride and are behaving rather arrogant. Humbleness of ourselves goes a long way when we are hurting from a spouse’s actions and behaviors.
Stop Focusing on Spouse: As long as we continue to only focus on what they are doing, or about who they are with, or about their sin and or spiritual growth, we’ll never mature in our own walk with Christ. Do not let the unbelieving behavior of your spouse undermine your walk with Jesus! Spouses do this because they focus too much of their time and energy on what the other is doing. It doesn’t matter what they are doing; it matters what you are doing in the LORD!
Don’t Be Like Your Spouse: Just because they have hurt you, don’t resort to that kind of behavior. Some spouses get vengeful and do the same things that their spouse is doing to them. The attitude is, “Well if they can have an affair so can I”. This is a very bad way to heal yourself and the marriage; it is not Godly and shows how spiritual bankrupt you really are. Pray and read and study God’s Holy Word, sincerely seek Jesus Christ and somewhere in doing those things you will find the Christ-centered peace you need during time of marital suffering—you really will!!
Be More Faithful! It’s funny but even those with very little faith can become huge examples to others. Your little bit of faith is better than no faith. Our walk is all about faith and accepting what God says for our life as being true and that He will provide for our needs, if we faithfully follow Him rather than our own wisdom and understanding. You need to grow in your faith by practicing walking for Christ, not for self.
Faith can only continue growing when we continue walking in it. If we decide to just follow our own feelings and understanding about a situation we will lose even the little bit of faith we have. To become the person God wants you to be for Him and for your marriage and for your Christ-like walk it must be done in faith—and that is how you mature and grow in Christ.
Know that God is Your Father. Without Jesus Christ we are NOTHING. That means we need to know that God is our Father and knows what we need no matter what kind of situation we are in.
If your spouse says they do not love you anymore, God knows what you need!
If your spouse says they want a divorce, God absolutely knows what you need.
If your spouse is trespassing against the marriage in some way, incredibly, God knows what you need. Amazingly as it may seem, God knows!
You just need to go to Him and honestly and humbly ask Him what His will is for you in your situation right now!! Seek and you shall find.
But seek your own wisdom and you shall NOT find. It’s that simple. Don’t let someone else tell you what you need, go to God and let Him tell ya what you need; Only then will you heal and grow in your walk in Jesus Christ!
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all of these things will be added unto you. Matthew 6:33