{"id":39743,"date":"2013-07-17T20:38:00","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T01:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/?p=39743"},"modified":"2021-11-20T20:40:12","modified_gmt":"2021-11-21T02:40:12","slug":"if-we-straighten-out-ending-our-past-marriages-would-we-still-be-in-adultery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-we-straighten-out-ending-our-past-marriages-would-we-still-be-in-adultery\/","title":{"rendered":"If we straighten out ending our past marriages, would we still be in adultery?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\t<h2>Question:<\/h2>\n<p>I have seen you talking about adultery on a website answering questions.<\/p>\n<p>I myself have the same issue. I&#8217;m living with my boyfriend of\u00a0five years, and we have a child together. He is married to another woman, but they have been separated for ten years and he has not been able to afford a divorce.<\/p>\n<p>I also am married but to a bigamist. He married a woman in one state, never divorced her, then came to my state, where we met and married. So I guess in God&#8217;s eyes my marriage was a big affair, but the woman died later after we married. I don&#8217;t have the money to annul my marriage right now. If my boyfriend and I do take care of our past marriages, ask forgiveness of it, and get married, would we still be living in adultery? If so, I&#8217;ve prayed about this situation. Will God get me out of this situation, because every time I&#8217;ve tried to leave, something put a stop to it? I don&#8217;t know if it&#8217;s God saying wait, or what. I can see God is working in my life but this one sin keeps nagging me. I cry all the time, but I don&#8217;t know what to do. If I lay it at God&#8217;s feet and wait or what. I&#8217;m tired of doing things on my own and making a bigger mess.<\/p>\n<p>Any advice is welcomed because I&#8217;m lost on what God wants of me.<\/p>\n\t<h2>Answer:<\/h2>\n<p>Let&#8217;s start with basic facts. Intentions do not matter; what matters are the things you actually do with your life.<\/p>\n<p>You are living with a man to whom you are not married. Both you and he are legally married to other people. Therefore, you both are living in adultery. While you note that your legal husband was a bigamist, for all intents and purpose you and your boyfriend have done the same thing &#8212; other than you have not tried to enter into another marriage. You took the pretend marriage route instead.<\/p>\n<p>Your marriage both legally and according to God&#8217;s law was not valid because he was married to another woman. However, since his former wife died, in God&#8217;s law your marriage then became proper. &#8220;<em>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<\/em>&#8221; (Romans 7:2-3).<\/p>\n<p>Since you abandoned your marriage later, and since you did not state why, I must assume that both you and your boyfriend did not leave your spouses because of their fornication (Matthew 19:9). That would mean that neither one of you have the right to another marriage according to God&#8217;s law.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question: I have seen you talking about adultery on a website answering questions. I myself have the same issue. I&#8217;m living with my boyfriend of\u00a0five years, and we have a child together. He is married to another woman, but they have been separated for ten years and he has not been able to afford a&hellip;<\/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-39743","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":39870,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/ive-been-living-with-a-man-while-my-divorce-was-going-through-but-now-he-is-reluctant-to-marry-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":0},"title":"I&#8217;ve been living with a man while my divorce was going through, but now he is reluctant to marry me","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 12, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, We have lived together for 7 years. We probably would've been married long ago, but I was going through a divorce for 6 of those years, and hospitalized due to medical illnesses for about a year or something like that, on and off. We are utterly and completely\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49580,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-we-married-when-he-never-divorced-his-wife\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":1},"title":"Are we married when he never divorced his wife?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 6, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I have a question. My boyfriend and I were in love, we loved God and wanted to be married, but he was married before. He married this woman, she cheated on him, he wanted a divorce but could not find her. They had been separated for seven years,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":31393,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/as-i-grow-in-the-lord-i-find-i-am-struggling-with-my-past-and-current-sins\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":2},"title":"As I grow in the Lord, I find I am struggling with my past and current sins","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"January 21, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, my brother in Christ, I have been a member of the church for a number of years. I have been a faithful brother since that time and have grown tremendously over the years.\u00a0 As I continue to grow in the Lord, I am struggling with some things of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32286,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/my-husband-blames-me-for-his-adulteries-and-our-divorce-how-do-i-move-past-this\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":3},"title":"My husband blames me for his adulteries and our divorce. How do I move past this?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 26, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I'm really torn about my divorce. My husband left me for another woman, divorced me, and married her. I'm still crushed after several years. Our marriage started out poorly. We had pre-marital sex and I even had an abortion. A few months before we got married, I had sex\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":23910,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-married-a-man-who-was-divorced-because-of-his-adultery-is-our-marriage-ok\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":4},"title":"I married a man who was divorced because of his adultery. Is our marriage ok?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: What do you do if you are a Christian, have a second marriage, and realize only too late that it was not the will of God?\u00a0 My spouse was a called man of God, but he committed adultery in his first marriage.\u00a0He is no longer preaching, and I am\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3066,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-all-marriages-spiritually-binding\/","url_meta":{"origin":39743,"position":5},"title":"Are all marriages spiritually binding?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hello, I attend a church of Christ, and my boyfriend of several years was baptized about a few years ago. We broke up last year for several months due to some differences but have since decided to be back together. My boyfriend is in the military and during the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Answer&quot;","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\/39743","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=39743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39743\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}