Question: I have a bizarre situation.<\/p>\n
I met a woman, not a member of the church of Christ, who married an atheist when she was young at the urging of her grandmother to avoid fornication. However, she was not tutored properly about Christ’s teachings on marriage.<\/p>\n
Some years down the line she became privy to her spouse’s extramarital affair with another woman, which was verified. She desired to divorce but remained in the marriage due to insurance reasons. Unfortunately, relations between the two eventually deteriorated until they parted ways without completing civil divorce proceedings.<\/p>\n
The woman traveled to another and eventually forges a new relationship with another man. She filed for divorce in her late twenties from her spouse because she had become pregnant. The law in the state she moved to said the child gets the name of her current husband regardless of who fathered the child. Her new partner wanted the child to bear his name. They cohabitated for about five years but never marry. This relationship then failed.<\/p>\n
She believes she can marry because her husband severed their marriage covenant first. I advised her that Christ has some stringent rules about remarriage but never speaks on that. Can you share any input? Are there are any Scriptures or scenarios I can use to illustrate if she can remarry now or should she try to return to her spouse, who is now remarried, or remain celibate until death if she desires to please God?<\/p>\n\t
“Truly, this only I have found: That God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 7:29).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
People certainly do make a mess of their lives. The religious status of her and her original husband in merely a distraction. It has nothing to do with the matter. God’s laws apply to everyone.<\/p>\n
Her excuse that she didn’t know God’s laws concerning marriage doesn’t match the facts. She knew her husband was committing adultery. She knew she was committing adultery. Though she knew her husband was committing adultery, she chose to remain in the marriage. She did not file for divorce because of his sins but because she wanted to please the man she was committing adultery with. Even then, she did not bother to marry the father of her child.<\/p>\n
I have a hard time saying that “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<\/em>” (Matthew 19:9) applies. She left her husband because of his sexual sins, but she didn’t divorce him because of them. It would probably take a smarter man than myself to unravel this knot.<\/p>\n
My best advice is that she remain unmarried and focus on raising her child in the truth. While her life is in a mess, perhaps she can keep that mess from continuing into another generation.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: Question: I have a bizarre situation. I met a woman, not a member of the church of Christ, who married an atheist when she was young at the urging of her grandmother to avoid fornication. However, she was not tutored properly about Christ’s teachings on marriage. Some years down the line she became privy…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[66,167],"class_list":["post-32354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-adultery","tag-divorce"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":95286,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-man-remarry-in-this-situation\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":0},"title":"Can a man remarry in this situation?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 27, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Please give me the biblical answer to the following situation: A man and woman get married (neither one is a Christian). It is his first marriage and her second marriage. They started dating (and having a sexual relationship) while she was still married to her first husband. They eventually\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32277,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-woman-remarry-if-she-divorced-her-husband-because-of-his-adultery-but-didnt-move-out-immediately\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":1},"title":"Can a woman remarry if she divorced her husband because of his adultery, but didn’t move out immediately?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I know a young woman who was repeatedly cheated on by her spouse. Yet, she forgave him after the first couple of times for the sake of the family. Later in the marriage, she suspected he was still cheating on her and had sex with a young woman with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28224,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-person-who-married-a-person-who-had-no-right-to-marry-divorce-and-marry-someone-else\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":2},"title":"Can a person who married a person who had no right to marry, divorce, and marry someone else?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 28, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a man marries a woman who was not supposed to remarry because she and her husband had committed adultery, can the man in the second marriage divorce her because of her continued adulteries during the second marriage and be able to marry again? Answer: When a person marries\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1810,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/should-i-divorce-my-unfaithful-wife\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":3},"title":"Should I divorce my unfaithful wife?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 21, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My wife had three children out of wedlock before we got married and has just informed me that she had sex with someone else during our marriage. I think I have the right to divorce, but my question is: what should I do? It appears to me that she\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24503,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-a-woman-in-an-adulterous-marriage-have-the-right-to-remarry-after-a-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":4},"title":"How could a woman in an adulterous marriage have the right to remarry after a divorce?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have read through your articles and thoroughly enjoyed them, and even taken a few sermons and re-worked them into sermons that I preached here. However, when I came across\u00a0an answer to a question you made concerning divorce and remarriage, I was a bit taken aback because of you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18479,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/isnt-divorce-for-any-reason-other-than-fornication-a-sin\/","url_meta":{"origin":32354,"position":5},"title":"Isn’t divorce for any reason other than fornication a sin?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 22, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Where is the Scripture that God allows divorce for any reason other than fornication,\u00a0such as\u00a0drug addiction, or abuse? I Corinthians 7:10 is not giving permission to divorce.\u00a0It is a command not to.\u00a0 If disobeyed, however, I Corinthians 7:11 says she must remain unmarried.\u00a0There is only one scriptural cause for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32354\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}