I’m worried because my husband is a drug dealer
Question:
I am a 25-year-old mother of three. I am married. My husband and I have children, but he started caring for my firstborn, who was from another man, ever since she was in my tummy. I am a foreigner in this country, but we got married illegally in the country of my origin when I was deported from this country. We made up a fake marriage certificate, though he signed up an affidavit that was filled in front of a lawyer to say we were properly married. The certificate is original but his signatures are fake on that marriage certificate. This keeps bothering me.
I am born again. I love my husband, but he is not born again. We survive because he is selling marijuana. That's how we pay our bills and support our children. I have no education. My last school level was ninth grade. As a woman of God, I am tired of this life. He says their family business is going down and he can't afford to maintain a certain lifestyle, so he has to do it. Is this the right life as a Christian? If I leave him where will I go? I have no father no mother as I am an orphan. I have two younger siblings whom I take care of as well. I do not want him to go to jail if he gets caught. He is a very good man. He doesn't mind me going to church at all. He took me in while I was pregnant by another man. He treats that child as his own child.
All I am asking is for God to give us a debt-free life and a better way of getting income. He is very intelligent. I have fasted and prayed. Is it a sign for me to leave him? I don't want to go to hell or him to hell while I go heaven. I am asking God to help us, to direct us because I don't even know if it is God speaking to me or not.
Answer:
As much as you love your husband, the fact remains that what he is doing is illegal. When he gets caught he will go to jail and according to the current laws whatever he owns will be forfeited because they were purchased with drug money. I'm not trying to scare you. I just want you to see the reality of the situation.
While he is a good man to you and the children, that doesn't make him a good man overall. He is making money by harming other people and profiting from their addiction to his product. He is not the first like this:
"Indeed, because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man, and he does not stay at home. because he enlarges his desire as hell, and he is like death, and cannot be satisfied, he gathers to himself all nations and heaps up for himself all peoples. Will not all these take up a proverb against him, and a taunting riddle against him, and say, 'Woe to him who increases what is not his -- how long? And to him who loads himself with many pledges'? Will not your creditors rise up suddenly? Will they not awaken who oppress you? And you will become their booty. Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the people shall plunder you, because of men's blood and the violence of the land and the city, and of all who dwell in it" (Habakkuk 2:5-8).
Making money off of other people's weaknesses is "easy" money and your husband is basically lazy. He wants quick money, not money that he earns. And as typically happens, it will be his downfall. The claim that he must do this is false. No one has to sin. This is what he chooses to do.
You need to be prepared to support your family without him because his house of cards will eventually collapse. Better would be that you encourage him to be a real man and earn a living -- put that intelligence to good use. But also realize that when his sins catch up with him, there is a chance that you'll have trouble as well because you are aware of his illegal dealings.
Until he is willing to give up his sins, he cannot become a Christian. You want a debt-free life, but you are focused on this world. You are failing to see the debt of sin that is piling up. "Better is a little with the fear of the LORD, than great treasure with trouble" (Proverbs 15:16). There has to be a complete reversal of his attitude, but likely that will only come when he loses everything.
Question:
Thank you, but my point is should I just leave him, should I continue to pray while living with him, or should I move out and continue to pray for him? Is this type of marriage true to God?
Answer:
I cannot make such a decision for you. If you choose to move out, it must be with the knowledge that it is in hopes of getting back together after he stops his sinning. "Now to the married I command, yet not I but the Lord: A wife is not to depart from her husband. But even if she does depart, let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband. And a husband is not to divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11). You cannot remarry another man just because your husband is involved in gross sins; only a divorce due to fornication allows for remarriage.
Response:
I want to be right with God. Of course, I am going to divorce him and not remarry. I will definitely get back with him if he stops.
Thank you. Stay blessed.
