Is pornography a just cause for divorce that allows remarriage?
Question:
Hello, I have recently begun a wonderful relationship with a lady friend. Over the last four months or so we have developed a wonderful friendship which has recently blossomed into a budding romance. However, she has, within the last six months or so, filed for divorce from her husband due to abuse and a pornography addiction on the part of her husband. She tried to reconcile, seek help for her and her spouse and ultimately save her marriage but failed. Her divorce will be final sometime next month. With all that said, how should I view our relationship at the present time? Should we even be seeking a relationship so close to her divorce and especially since she is technically still married? How does the Bible stand on the issue of pornography and divorce? Are porn addiction and adultery the same in God's eyes? And finally, is she permitted to divorce and then remarry given the circumstances of her failed marriage? Thanks for your help and advice.
Answer:
I'm surprised that you developed a relationship with a married woman. Yes, she had determined to leave her husband, but the hope of the waiting period is for the couple to work out their problems and come back together. Instead, you help encourage her to remain apart. Since actions speak louder than words, I am left to wonder how much effort she was putting into her marriage since she was seeing you on the side. However you look at it, your current relationship with this married woman was not proper.
Pornography is a sin of passion and lust. It is clearly condemned in the Bible, I Thessalonians 4:3-5 is perhaps the clearest on this issue. However, it is not adultery or fornication. Abuse is also clearly condemned as a husband is to treat his wife as Christ loved the church (Ephesians 5:25). So while these things are wrong and can cause a man's wife to leave her husband until he straightens up, it is not a just cause to allow a woman to find a new husband. "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).
This woman finds her husband's actions terrible enough to leave him. That is her choice, but balancing that choice is knowing she is doing so to remain single until such time as she can resolve her differences with her husband.
