Should I divorce my wife?
Question:
I was married a few years ago to my loving wife. I have been touched by God due to the level of faith and love in my Father my God in Heaven that lives in me. I had several spiritual experiences throughout my life that it is very easy to explain but very difficult for anyone to imagine, I am living proof only to myself that God in Heaven really exists. Well, I had a spiritual experience a few days before I met my wife and I was 100% sure that God sent me the woman of my dreams. I believe it was only two days later I met the woman of my dreams and she was everything I ever dreamed of, everything I ever wanted in my life. I was so happy that until this day I believe that God did join us and it was a marriage made in Heaven. God sent me everything I ever wanted to the 'T.'
Well to make a long story short, we were happy for a while, then we struggled for a while, and then I received a large sum of money from an unfortunate motorcycle accident and was able to buy a brand new home the first year being married, I couldn't believe it that I was able to have a home paid in full and to share it with my loving wife. Shortly after we moved into the home for just over six months, my wife got a job and told me that she was seeking the attention of other men. The whole time she worked she mistreated me when she arrived home, and many times made me either jealous or upset because she would notice other men to the point even neighbors and co-workers started to pursue her. She didn't appreciate me anymore to the point that many things she said to me and did became very unhealthy for me.
Last year she abandoned me without saying goodbye to me. Every time I called her at her mom's house, she would curse me and she also turned her whole family on me. Her family convinced her to get a divorce, and many terrible things happened to me from the day she left, too many to list. Well, she returned to me about a month ago because she realized that there is no other man that she loves more than me. The bad news is that she revealed to me that she had sex with eight different men while we were separated and her reason for this is that she says she was never planning on returning to me. I never wanted to lose her, but now I'm not sure what I should do, I feel horrible that I might have to end our marriage and relationship against my will. It is very difficult for me to imagine other men on top of her, I don't want to live without her, but what she has done makes me feel that I can't live with her. Please help me, what should I do? Does God say I must leave her? Or does he say I should forgive her? I love my wife, but I never once thought my wife would be capable of such deeds. I remained faithful to her and I ask God how could she do this to me. This isn't the reason I married her. Six months before she abandoned me I had a spiritual experience where I saw eight angels with swords and they all at the same time stuck eight swords in my heart faster than I could blink. The pain in my heart was out of this world. I screamed from the top of my lungs. I knew it was a sign from God that my wife was going to betray me but at that moment I remember looking over at my wife beside me telling myself that I don't want to stop loving my wife no matter how great the pain I felt. Please tell me what I should do? What does my Father in Heaven want me to do with my marriage?
Answer:
It appears that you would rather not face the consequences of your choices. Throughout your note, you have stated that critical points in your life were announced by spiritual experiences. Thus, you have set yourself up to say that it was God who selected your wife, but because it didn't work out, then it was God's fault for picking the wrong woman. Depending on how far you go along this line of thinking, you could say that God caused your wife to cheat on you because you were told about it in advance.
I believe in God's providential care for His people, but I accept what He stated in His Word, "Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away" (I Corinthians 13:8). I wonder how much of what you experienced is actually a reflection of your own desires? It certainly doesn't appear that you are going in the direction of righteousness. In the days of prophets, God complained about the false prophets roaming the land of Israel, "How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart" (Jeremiah 23:26). I understand that you believe that you are being led by God, but it remains possible that a person can want to believe something so badly that he ends up deceiving himself. He accepts it as truth because it is exactly what he wants, and thus, he never questions his experiences.
The difficult position you place everyone else in is that you expect others to accept your statements of dreams and visions based solely on your say-so. John told Christians, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world" (I John 4:1). How can someone as I fulfill that command? As you pointed out, you are "living proof but only to" yourself. Such has never been the nature of God's dealings with men as recorded in the Bible. And yet, you make it awkward for others because any expression of doubt or request for evidence becomes a personal insult.
But you asked me about your wife. If I understood you correctly, you married this woman very shortly after meeting her; convinced that you had met the woman God intended for you. Signs of that marriage was crumbling began to appear well within the first year, but you chose to overlook them because you were too certain that they could not be there. It is only with hindsight that you can look back and see the hints. I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that you didn't put much effort into your marriage because you were convinced that it was made in heaven and thus problems would work out on their own. I am certain that I'm not getting anywhere near the complete story or just treatment of the events because you portray yourself as a bystander to the events happening around you. It is just another reason I suspect that you have trouble owning up to the responsibilities of your choices.
In your second year of marriage, your wife appeared to have lost all respect for you or your marriage. She openly told you she was looking for another man, but you remained passive. What passed for marriage went from bad to worse. You knew it. You even dreamed about it and took your dream to be a sign from God, but still, you did nothing about the situation, probably in the mistaken notion that the outcome was ordained by God. She eventually left, but you continued your role as a victim reduced to begging her family for her to return.
You never stated whether the divorce actually went through or not, but after a period of months where she jumped from bed to bed, she decided for reasons you haven't explored to return to you. Now you would like me to tell you whether you should take her back in. Isn't this just another attempt to avoid responsibility?
Should you forgive her? Jesus said, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses" (Matthew 6:14-15). To put is simply, you don't have a choice in whether to forgive her or not -- no choice, that is, if you want to reach heaven. "Take heed to yourselves. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times in a day returns to you, saying, 'I repent,' you shall forgive him"" (Luke 17:3-4). Thus, if your wife says she has changed her ways and asks you to forgive her, then you must.
Should you take her back? This is actually a separate question that is hard to separate from the question of forgiveness. When a spouse breaks the marriage covenant Jesus said, "He said to them, "Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 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 19:8-9). In the case of fornication (sexual immorality), God allows the faithful spouse to divorce the unfaithful spouse. The faithful spouse is permitted to marry again if he so chooses, but the unfaithful spouse is not permitted to marry again. "But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery" (Matthew 5:32).
Divorce is not a requirement, but an option. Only you can decide whether to exercise that option or not. What I would ask that you consider is whether you believe she earnestly desires to remain faithful to the marriage. If you are only serving a rest station before she starts playing the field again, then to remain married would be logically foolish, especially with the potential of children being born into such a situation. If you believe that she sincerely wants to make the marriage work, then I strongly recommend that you get up off your chair and start participating in the marriage as a real Christian man.
