Guard your steps as you go to the house of God and draw near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools; for they do not know they are doing evil. Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God. For God is in heaven and you are on the earth; therefore let your words be few<\/em>” (Ecclesiastes 5:1-2). You made a promise that sounded nice to you but was neither necessary nor practical. God never asked you or anyone to make a commitment to never break up with another person. The promise is ill-thought-out because it assumes you have full control over your relationships. It doesn’t acknowledge that the person you date has free-will.<\/p>\nThus, apologize to God for making a foolish promise and move on with your life. You were not in a covenant with the girl you dated. The relationship did not work out as you thought it would at the start, but that is why we date — to find out whether it might be possible to marry the other person. I expect people to make poor choices at first until they learn how to pick a good partner.<\/p>\n
To break your covenant because you made a rash promise is to add one sin on top of another.<\/p>\n\t
Question:<\/h2>\n
Thanks for letting me know. I\u2019m glad, in my case, I was not forced to get a divorce. The time, I made the promise, I knew I could not promise what the other person would do. I only promised I would never decide to break up with somebody, and I broke that part. In every other case, the woman would always break up with me. So I was guessing, I would never get to the point where I would break up with somebody but I was wrong.<\/p>\n\t
Answer:<\/h2>\n
Since each person has free-will, it stands that when you chose people to date that there would be some you would find out are not suitable for marrying because when you start dating a person, you barely know them. It is equally likely that you will find another person unsuitable as it is that another person will decide that you are unsuitable. Promising not to use good judgment in selecting someone to marry is not a wise choice. The promise you made was not well thought out and should never have been given in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Question: I read a response from somebody where they were married for over 50 years, but the marriage was not valid.\u00a0 I am wondering if my current marriage is valid or not.\u00a0 Here is my situation: Before I met my wife, I made a promise to God that I would never break up with anybody,…<\/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":[489,648],"class_list":["post-6846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-answer","tag-covenants","tag-promises"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":28206,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/if-a-spouse-broke-a-breach-of-promise-to-marry-someone-else-does-that-mean-our-marriage-isnt-valid\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":0},"title":"If a spouse broke a breach of promise to marry someone else, does that mean our marriage isn’t valid?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 26, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have another question for you about marriage. While my wife has never been legally married, she was engaged in the state of South Carolina. I recently discovered a law in South Carolina called breach of promise. Are you familiar with this law?\u00a0 From what I understood from the\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":38975,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/sure-we-did-some-things-wrong-but-my-boyfriend-broke-up-with-me-for-no-valid-reason\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":1},"title":"Sure, we did some things wrong, but my boyfriend broke up with me for no valid reason","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, I'm 22. I've been having a hard time because my boyfriend broke up with me for apparently no valid reason. We are both Christians. We almost had sex, we didn't go all the way, but there were a lot of physical contacts. It was wrong, and we both\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":3066,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-all-marriages-spiritually-binding\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":2},"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 "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":22336,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/can-my-girlfriend-and-i-get-married-after-committing-fornication\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":3},"title":"Can my girlfriend and I get married after committing fornication?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"April 6, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have some issues I want to share with you so you can pray with me and give me some advice. I was searching the web for some answers on some Christian web sites when I came across your answer to a question that I had, and I am\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":27894,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/are-promises-the-same-as-marriage-covenant\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":4},"title":"Are promises the same as marriage covenant?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 21, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Dear minister, I have been feeling torn, confused, really unsure of what to do at times, I have prayed, trying to trust God to help. In the context of understanding marriage, I have searched about promises compared to covenants, including some answers on your site, and from other sources.\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":19075,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/i-married-a-woman-in-name-only-so-she-could-become-a-citizen-of-my-country-i-have-a-girlfriend-and-a-child-by-her-how-do-i-fix-this-mess\/","url_meta":{"origin":6846,"position":5},"title":"I married a woman in name only so she could become a citizen of my country. I have a girlfriend and a child by her. How do I fix this mess?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 7, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I have a question. I married someone so that they might become a citizen of my country. I did not do this for money, but because I felt it the right thing to do at the time, although I was aware I might be misusing marriage as God intended.\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\/6846","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=6846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}