Do you think atheist marriages can work? And toward Christian marriages: do you still have to make it work, or can you just be confident it will work since the only reason for a divorce would be cheating?<\/p>\n
I know a couple — she’s atheist, he’s agnostic — and they intend to marry. But she’s worried. She said she doesn’t want to marry to have a divorce in the future, like most people, but to me, it seems unlikely. It’s very rare to see couples who married and never divorced. None of them intend to divorce, but can that be taken seriously? Do you know any atheist couples who are examples?<\/p>\n\t
Despite the world’s trend, most Christians whom I know have not been divorced. It is not because they are better than anyone else, it is because they are committed to living life as God commands. Good marriages that last take a\u00a0lot<\/em> of effort. Good marriages don’t just happen. Couples still face hardships and difficulty, but where others run from their problems, Christians tend to work through them and as a result, build a better relationship. “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<\/em>” (I Corinthians 7:10-11).<\/p>\n Can others, including atheists, have such marriages? Yes, but they start with a problem. They don’t have a moral reason to make a marriage work beyond their own desire. There may come times in a marriage where one or the other of the couple simply doesn’t want to make the marriage work at that moment. What carries the couple beyond that point? What motivates them to reach a higher point than what they’ve already obtained?<\/p>\n Divorce isn’t a given. It is what people run to when they don’t want to work on their relationship with another person.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Question: Do you think atheist marriages can work? And toward Christian marriages: do you still have to make it work, or can you just be confident it will work since the only reason for a divorce would be cheating? I know a couple — she’s atheist, he’s agnostic — and they intend to marry. But…<\/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,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[184,64],"class_list":["post-32540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-atheism","tag-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19650,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-want-to-marry-this-woman-but-i-dont-know-if-it-is-right\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":0},"title":"I want to marry this woman, but I don’t know if it is right","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I met a beautiful amazing woman, and I want to marry her and start a family with her. She is a Christian, and we make a great team. However, there are some hesitations on my part. She had sex when she was younger to an unbeliever, but she didn't\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":51262,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-divorced-single-christian-serve-in-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":1},"title":"Can a divorced, single Christian serve in the church?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 31, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: These days it seems as if many couples, including Christians, do not give their marriages a chance and their marriages end quickly because they are not willing to give up their stubborn ways.\u00a0 My husband and I have been married a long time and went through a lot of\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":32354,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-do-you-advise-concerning-a-woman-who-left-her-husband-because-of-his-adultery-but-did-not-divorce-him-and-later-lived-in-adultery-herself\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":2},"title":"What do you advise concerning a woman who left her husband because of his adultery, but did not divorce him, and later lived in adultery herself?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"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\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":36475,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/is-the-law-of-marriage-and-divorce-that-jesus-taught-for-the-church-or-universal\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":3},"title":"Is the law of marriage and divorce that Jesus taught for the church or universal?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My wife last husband wanted to divorce her on irreconcilable differences. He changed his mind and said to her he wanted to work things out, she refused and wanted to proceed with the divorce because of the abuse and adultery, he also had another child outside their marriage. They\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":35006,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-a-man-married-three-times-but-his-wives-are-all-now-dead-can-he-marry-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":4},"title":"If a man married three times, but his wives are all now dead, can he marry again?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If a man had three spouses, he divorced his first wife for adultery and he married an adulterer, divorced her for unknown reasons, and married a woman who was not an adulterer and divorced her to go back to his second wife, and all three spouses die, is it\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":17196,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-a-divorced-person-remarry-if-adultery-occurred-after-the-divorce\/","url_meta":{"origin":32540,"position":5},"title":"Can a divorced person remarry if adultery occurred after the divorce?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: If two people are divorced for unbiblical grounds and there is no adultery at the time, yet one spouse after the divorce marries someone else or is sexually immoral is the other then free to remarry another? Answer: \"And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except 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\/32540","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=32540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}