Why is my husband committing adultery?
Question:
Hello!
I was on your site and I wanted to ask a question. My husband (who was a minister when we married) started cheating on me years ago after a pastor prophesied over him the year before and told him, "Don't ever forsake your wife or it will detrimental unto you."
Long story short, he never stopped cheating! He moved and left me and our sons, doesn't pay child support, hid money from us, and now we have finally come close to signing papers only because he's been engaged for the last two years! My question is how has he been able to do all of this and seemingly be getting away with it? Is God-honoring their union? Will she be in an ongoing adulterous relationship with him? He's told me repeatedly over these years that God has forgiven him and that the only way out of our marriage was for him to cheat! They both are saying that God told them that they are told to marry each other. I don't think that the God that I know and serve would give her someone who is still married and vice versa. I haven't read that in my Bible, but only God knows which version my husband was reading from.
Answer:
Like many people involved in charismatic religions, your husband places his personal feelings over what God actually says in His Bible. He so strongly wants God directly leading his life that he assumes that anything he feels must be from God. The fact that God never has directed men by feelings and that He warns, "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered" (Proverbs 28:26), is never considered.
God allows men free choice, and your husband has chosen sin. Sin is deceptive and your husband chooses to believe its lies. "And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (II Thessalonians 2:10-12).
Your husband is involved in adultery. "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:9-10). Because of his stubborn refusal to give up his adultery, Jesus said, "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).
Just because a man claims to be a Christian or even a preacher it doesn't follow that he is one. "But why do you call Me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do the things which I say?" (Luke 6:46). It is sad that your husband is ruining his life for the empty promises of sin, but that is the reality of the situation.
Response:
Thank you so much for your response! Satan is very shrewd and cunning, and I'm sure he wants me to be deceived as my husband is! For a brief minute, I was starting to question God about what he was and wasn't doing. I saw him on TV the other night talking about his ministry and obedience, and I could only pray that those scales would be removed from his eyes. I'm so saddened at the situation because all I ever wanted was my marriage and my family. I grew up in a two-parent Christian home, and that's the life I wanted for myself and my children. I know that we can't make people live righteous lives, but I wish I could shake him, not because I want him back, but for the sake of his soul. Many will hear God say on the Day of Judgment, "Depart from me you worker of iniquity I never knew you."
