It is unfair that I can’t marry again
Question:
Dear Sir:
Along with greeting you, I would appreciate an answer to my following question from a biblical perspective.
My first marriage lasted six years, and despite having certain doubts before getting married, I chose to do so to avoid fornication and because I wanted to start my own family. The truth is, I have very few good memories, and I believe we were incompatible. Added to this is the fact that he was a narcissist and probably suffered from bipolar depression. It was my psychiatrist who helped me understand that I was becoming ill after fighting to save that marriage. I suffered physical, psychological, financial, and emotional abuse from him. Because of this, I decided to separate, despite it going against my Christian principles. Unfortunately, he never wanted to seek professional help, and despite attending couples therapy, he didn't follow any of the recommendations.
It was always clear to me that to remarry, I would have to become a widow. Later, I learned that I could also remarry in the event of infidelity. The truth is, many of my first husband's attitudes and behaviors could lead one to suspect that he was unfaithful, including the fact that there was virtually no intimacy between us. Still, it could also have been due to his narcissism (masturbation). After many attempts, and when I ended up in the emergency room due to Arnold's neuralgia, he left me when I asked him to leave after giving him many opportunities.
As a psychologist, a person, and a woman, I firmly believe that if people have made the mistake of choosing the wrong partner, they have the right to rebuild their lives and have a new opportunity. As a Christian, I know the Bible says otherwise, and therein lies my conflict.
In my desire to start a family and experience true love, I often prayed for someone good to appear in my life. That's how I met a wonderful Christian man who was unlike my first husband, who was an atheist. We were happy for a long time, although I noticed certain traits in his personality that caused me anxiety. My sister also had a history of Borderline Personality Disorder. So, when I started saying things I didn't like, the problems began. In short, he functioned from a paranoid perspective, in addition to being rigid, extremist, and fanatical, as my psychiatrist described him. Over a simple argument, he abandoned me, as he had done many times over common arguments that any couple would have known how to handle, and he didn't want to save the marriage, despite being evangelical. But based on his emotional functioning style, I was able to understand many of the behaviors and attitudes he displayed while living together, which ended up hurting me greatly.
I still think it's unfair that I'm unable to rebuild my life and have to stay alone because I wasn't the primary cause of these separations. In my church, I have been given the impression that I should now become a "eunuch" or wait for my two husbands to die this time before remarrying for a third time. I would like you to clarify this for me, because as far as I understand, only my first civil marriage is valid before God, and with his death, the law or covenant that bound me to him ends. From what I understand, my second marriage was not valid and places me in a condition of adultery, which for us can be forgiven with baptism. If I were to be with someone without getting married after a divorce, I understand that I would be committing fornication.
I hope you can help me. The truth is, this torments me, and I feel like it condemns me to having no dreams about fulfilling myself in this aspect of my life. At its root is a deep fear of loneliness and the frustration of not having been able to be truly loved and start a family despite all my efforts. Only God knows how much I've suffered with this. I gave everything I had, and perhaps I was too empathetic, failing to see the signs that should have stopped me from getting married.
Answer:
If I had to guess, I would say that you desired a relationship so intensely that you were not choosy about who you were with. You picked essentially the man who gave you attention without thoroughly examining his character. Were there clues before that you ignored? Of course. The fact that your first husband was an atheist and you were trying to be a Christian should have set off alarm bells. However, you choose not to notice. This is why you repeated your mistakes.
Life isn't necessarily fair. However, there must be responsibility for the choices you made. No one forced you into these marriages. Of course, your husbands also share responsibility for their poor behavior, but I couldn't say the problems were entirely their fault.
You decided that you could not live with your first husband and chose to end that marriage. Since it wasn't about his being sexually unfaithful to your marriage, the consequence of your choice was to live as a single person or work toward a resolution with your former husband. "But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife" (I Corinthians 7:10-11). If you had suspected he was having sex with some other woman, you should have spent some time making sure that was the case, but you were in a rush to leave.
Your second marriage, therefore, was adulterous since you didn't have the right to remarry. Ending that marriage was actually the right thing to do.
What you personally want doesn't factor into the laws God gave. I know the consequences are severe, but marriage covenants are extremely serious vows. The real shame is that worldly people have lost sight of the importance of marriage.
"For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously." You have wearied the LORD with your words. Yet you say, "How have we wearied Him?" In that you say, "Everyone who does evil is good in the sight of the LORD, and He delights in them," or, "Where is the God of justice?" (Malachi 2:16-17).
Question:
Thank you very much for replying. Your answer makes a lot of sense to me. My psychiatrist says that neither of my two husbands brought me closer to my church. They at first said they would respect my beliefs and support me. I believed them, but it wasn't like that. My reason says one thing: to be consistent with the Bible, but apparently it is not in accordance with what I want in my heart, which is to be loved, to have a family, to know what true love is, to have a companion to travel with daily. When I met my second husband, I thought that God had put him in my path. However, when I saw that he did not support me in church matters, I understood that He did not. If God had indeed put him there, he would not have acted that way. Sometimes I think that God punished me this time because I wanted to do my own will in everything. I still find it hard to convince myself that everything was so wonderful, and suddenly it became a monster. Only he knows how much I fought in my first marriage to save him, but the fight was not two-way, and it was also affecting my physical, mental, and emotional health.
According to what I have understood from the Bible, now to remarry, I would have to wait for my first husband to die because the second was not valid in God's eyes. If I am with someone without getting married after my second divorce, it would surely be fornication. I feel very confused and tormented by all this.
Thank you for your reply.
Answer:
You're confused because emotionally, you disagree with what you rationally know is reasonable.
If you want a family, consider adopting some children. It would be challenging as a single parent, but it would ultimately benefit you and the children.
