Was it God’s will that I didn’t know about my husband’s sins before we got married?

Question:

Greetings!

I am reaching out to let you know that I think the Answers to Questions section on the church's website is an invaluable resource, and I appreciate the very direct and truthful responses. The following are some questions that have plagued me for years, so I thought I'd pass them along and get your thoughts.

So here are my questions (many of them in one)...

• Are the wife and children that come later on in someone's life alternative, default, or backup plans, or place fillers in the man's life for the girlfriend and aborted child he had that came first (before his wife and children within his marriage)?
• Which is more important and takes precedence in God’s plans for us when you have both in someone's life and do things out of His designed order: a child and the Imago Dei doctrine, regardless of how the child was created (example: out of wedlock, as a teenager, etc.), or marriage and a future marriage and children conceived within it? Does one trump the other? Are these two things mutually exclusive when you have both in someone's life? Or, are they not, and the order in which they transpire translates to which was the original plan (the first girl and aborted child being Plan A, and your wife and the children you have with her being Plan M, Q, S, X, Y, or Z)? Was the original plan for the child to be born out of wedlock, and was the mother the first?
• What practical implications can be concluded regarding what God’s original plans were for us when we use our free will to do things out of order?
• Could it still be God's will for you to marry a particular person even though you've created, or have, children with someone else? If so, then why give children to people whom God knows aren't going to stay together to have a nuclear family to raise that child within, and given that God designed children to be raised in families with their parents?
• Does your spouse only become “the one” for you after you’ve officially married? Can God not have “the one” for you before actual marriage, and even if you've created children, albeit "unintentionally", with someone else? Should “the one” for you be the first person you get pregnant so that that child stands the best chance in life and can have a shot at an intact family raised by its parents?
• Although soul mates are not a biblical concept, is it plausible that God is indicating who He wants you to be with if there's a pregnancy involved, even as a teenager? (The only reason my husband and his girlfriend didn't keep the child was out of inconvenience and immaturity, and to hide the consequences of their sin.)
• Does God have multiple or alternative plans or purposes for our lives?
• Which woman does God intend for you if you got one girl (the first one you had sex with) pregnant outside of wedlock, then went on to have multiple sex partners between her (the first girl) and the one you eventually married in adulthood and had children with?
• Is intentional and effortless deliberate deception, before and during your relationship and marriage, about your past to your spouse, on the same level as other sins like abortion and premarital sex?
• Do the ends (having a marriage and a nuclear intact family) ever justify the means (abortion)?

As you can probably discern, I am the married woman in this scenario and was only given a thin, superficial, glossed-over version of my husband's past before I married him. We have been married for nearly twenty years and have several biological full-blooded children. Anyway, I look at these circumstances, the lesser of the two evils would have been for him to keep his other child at 17, that the buck stopped there since we are not to murder and kill our own children, and that our three kids and I never were the original intended plan for my husband's life. I would have never married him if he'd had a child when we met; I would have never married him even if he and she had had the child and placed him or her for adoption. I have only been given the full, true version of his past within the last five years, and had I known everything before we got married, I could have appreciated it all, and I would have never married him.

The humiliation and disgrace (retroactively and presently and for our future) and lost time and warped and distorted narrative of his life and ours together, will last a lifetime; trying to put back together a true narrative of his life and ours together piece by piece is a spiritually, relationally, sexually, mentally, emotionally, maternally and individually painstaking process.

My husband said he believes God has forgiven him for his past, so he didn't need to tell me anything about it. He thinks that the only thing deceptive and betraying he's done to our children and I and our marriage and family is that he didn't tell me everything before we got married so that I could make an informed decision about my life with him and that the actual acts with other women and girls didn't betray me, our kids or his future marriage and family with us since he didn't know us. He gave himself a pass to deceive and lie to his bride for years and thought God was fine with that. We are in heavy counseling, individually and maritally. Our marriage counselor (who is both a pastor and psychologist) says our children and I are not a backup plan because we have free will, but I'm not convinced and have no peace about it and know that my husband is taking for granted what the Bible says about God being involved in all things, creating life, etc.

Thank you so much for your time. I know I'm just a random woman reaching out across the miles, but I appreciate any insight you might be able to share.

Sincere and continued thanks!