What if your spouse left you? What do you do now?

Question:

I have read your article about "Is divorce a sin?"   I have one question:

What if your spouse left you? I was not a fornicator and begged him not to divorce me. We were married for nearly ten years. I have been divorced now for over five years now. I was baptized last year and have been struggling with the issue of remarriage. I am in love with a man who is a Christian and a wonderful father. He is a widow.

My husband got a woman pregnant after he divorced me and then married her. This left me with no means of reconciliation.

What do I do now?

Answer:

Please understand that my duty is to explain what God has said, not to make everyone happy about the laws. Yes, people make all sorts of messes in the world. Some we cause to ourselves, others are caused by someone else. The fact is that your ex-husband sinned both against God and you. His sin impacted your life.

God wants people to understand that covenants, like the marriage covenant, are extremely serious matters. We lost that view in our society and that, too, is making a mess of people's lives. The laws God laid down is that marriage is a lifetime commitment. "For the woman who has a husband is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives. But if the husband dies, she is released from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband lives, she marries another man, she will be called an adulteress; but if her husband dies, she is free from that law, so that she is no adulteress, though she has married another man" (Romans 7:2-3). In general, if that marriage ends prior to the death of one of the partners, they must honor the vows they had made. "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). Jesus gave one exception to this general rule: If the marriage ends because the other partner was committing fornication, then (by implication) the innocent partner can marry again. "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).

You are not the only one to find this shockingly restrictive. When the disciples heard it, they thought making a marriage covenant wasn't worth it. "His disciples said to Him, 'If such is the case of the man with his wife, it is better not to marry'" (Matthew 19:10). Jesus' response was: "All cannot accept this saying, but only those to whom it has been given: For there are eunuchs who were born thus from their mother's womb, and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He who is able to accept it, let him accept it" (Matthew 19:11-12).

That is what you have to decide. Do you accept the fact that you made a covenant with a bum who did not keep his vow but left you tied to your own, or do you break your vow knowing that God is going to hold you accountable to your word? I know what my choice would be, but you must make your own choice.

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