My husband blames me for his adulteries and our divorce. How do I move past this?
Question:
I'm really torn about my divorce. My husband left me for another woman, divorced me, and married her. I'm still crushed after several years. Our marriage started out poorly. We had pre-marital sex and I even had an abortion. A few months before we got married, I had sex with another man. He found out after we were a couple of months into our marriage. He said he forgave me and then for the next decade we were fine. I found out he was having an affair, and he blamed me for it because of what happened before our marriage with the other man. I asked him for forgiveness again for what I had done, and I told him that I forgave him. Several years passed, and he had another affair. He again blamed me and said he should have never married me but felt he had invested too much into our relationship to turn back when we first were married.
I don't know what to think or do? I feel so guilty but when he said he forgave me I believed it. He said our marriage was never real, and he never loved me if he had two affairs and multiple other partners during our marriage. I feel so guilty about the end of our marriage and what I did to him before we got married. I thought his forgiveness would save our marriage but it didn't.
Will the Lord allow me to remarry? Is okay for him to have married the woman he was having an affair with since our marriage had a bad foundation? I'm just lost, and I just don't want to feel like I pushed him into an affair. He says he's happier than he ever was with me, and he was destined to be with his new wife because she was born the day and year his father died. He said it was a sign from God. Please help.
Answer:
Your husband committed adultery repeatedly. It has nothing to do with your fornication prior to your marriage. Everyone is responsible for their own sins. "The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself" (Ezekiel 18:20). Yes, you both sinned before you married. You stopped. He continued. Worse, he is such a bum that he succeeded in making you feel bad about his evil.
Your divorce was because of your former husband's adultery. "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery; and whoever marries her who is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 19:9). He remains in adultery. You can remarry if you so choose. But this time realize that you need to marry a good man, one who does not commit sexual sins before marriage. If it takes a while to find a good man, then so be it.
Response:
Thank you. I don't think I will remarry. Ideally, I would like for my husband to return. However, he's married. What's so interesting is that the other woman, now his wife, didn't care that he was married. Actually, she referred to me as an obstacle. She was a terribly mean person to me before I even knew she existed, sending hotel bills to me from which they stayed, but I chalked it up to the wrong address and even showed my then-husband and he said the same thing: "Wrong address." We do have a child and now I have to deal with a stepmom in the picture. My pastor tells me to pray for they turn toward the Lord and that's what I've been doing for the last few years. Unfortunately, I still feel terrible about the fornication with the other man because I truly feel I would be married if I hadn't hurt my then-boyfriend and now ex-husband.
Thank you for your honesty. The truth cleanses like no other and heals, too.
