When someone you are committed to love and have covenanted your life to, to spend the rest of your life with and share yourself with all the remaining days of your life is not as faithful to that covenant, but is rather having extra-marital affairs with someone else, the knowledge of this is a thing I am at loose of words to describe. I am tempted to use words like hurt of feelings or betrayal, but I am not sure if these best describes what I am trying to communicate to anyone reading this post.
Marital unfaithfulness is the leading cause of divorce in marriages and has played a major role in troubled homes. In fact some people go to the extreme and do unthinkable things when they find out their spouse have been unfaithful to them. As a matter of fact some kill for it. Jesus understanding how hurtful this can be in Matthew 19:9 gave marital unfaithfulness as the only reason why anyone can go for a divorce. But the clause to that we will find in 1 Corinthians 7:11 when Paul speaking as God’s mouth piece says divorce can only take place if the person going for the divorce option remains unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and same goes for the man.
In the culture of the part of the world where I come from (which is African/Nigerian), it is permissible for the man to cheat on his wife, in fact it is a common occurrence that a man is cheating on his wife and it is assumed that the wife should understand and bear with it. So in the man’s world it is understandable to cheat on your wife. But when its the the wife who cheats on her husband, it is totally a thing of great dishonour to the woman and most unlikely if her marriage is not destroyed completely whenever the husband gets to know about it. What beats me in this tradition is if the woman is less human than the man and if it is also assumed that she should not hurt over the fact that her husband is having extra-marital affairs or there is no sense of betrayal that should be mourned over on her part. But with all these said, the main purpose of this message is not to dwell too much on the problem of marital unfaithfulness, but to trust God to help us with a workable solution for those struggling with such in their marriage without having to face the follow up problem of divorce or separation.
I once wrote a message on this blog on the topic of trust in the marriages and in dealing with the issue of unfaithfulness which is closely tied to the word TRUST, I will be making some similar conclusions as we did then. But the first thing to address when trying to heal through the problem of marital unfaithfulness is the ability to forgive. One of the reasons why marital unfaithfulness leads to so many other problems in marriages is the inability of the one who has been bruised to forgive his/her spouse. In fact Jesus stated in Matthew 19:8 that the reason why Moses permitted divorce was because the hearts of men were hard. When you cannot see yourself forgiving your spouse, then the issue of divorce comes into the picture.
To ask whether it is possible to forgive a spouse who has dishonoured the marriage covenant you both share is a question I will personally give a YES answer to, depending on how far you are willing to remove the hardness of your heart and bear in you the mind of Christ. And if asked whether I really do understand what it means to have my husband cheat on me, I will still give you a yes answer to that too, because I have been through that road before, I understand the betrayal and I have felt the hurt before and still I have forgave my husband, trusted God to help me through with grace to trust my him again and I have a beautiful marriage going for me, married to a wonderful husband who though has made his mistakes and we have healed together and with God he has helped me heal through the process.
Once you are able to forgive your spouse, it really does not end there. Dealing with marital unfaithfulness is not just about forgiving your spouse, it is about preventing the situation from re-occuring, and being able to build the trust the you once had for your spouse. Forgiving your spouse for cheating on you is a factor that depends on you, but preventing him/her from cheating on you again is a thing that you cannot determine. It not a factor that depends on you, but on your spouse with the help of God. Then rebuilding the trust you once had for him/her is a factor that depends on you, but will be greatly boosted by your spouse’s actions and commitment to you and the marriage. I will trust God to help give better details on these rebuilding process.
Like I just mentioned, the fact that your spouse will not cheat on you again after you must have forgiven him or her is an issue that you as a person can determine no matter how hard you try. The more you try to be vigilant and monitor his/her movement, the more concealed he/she becomes of their sins. For the unrepentant spouse, they will only learn better ways to conceal the sin than give it up. But when you kneel before the Lord in prayer and hand over your spouse and his/her sins to God, He will not just forgive and wash the sins away, He will replace his heart of stone with a heart of flesh and put a new spirit in him. He will give him reasons to run away from marital unfaithfulness beyond what you can ever imagine. Proverbs 21:1 says “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” Also Ezekiel 36:25-27 reads “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of sone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” From this two passages, you understand that to run away from the sins of marital unfaithfulness, you only need to commit your spouse to God and trust the Lord to do a renewal work in his/her life and place him/her on the path of those that please the Lord rather than those that gratify the lust of the flesh. Don't bother to believe that your spouse is remorseful and will change, but rather trust God to change him or her. It is easier and more assuring to trust God to make the necessary changes in the life of your spouse than to trust your spouse to change by their own self effort.
The last thing to consider when dealing to this kind of problem in marriage is the ability to trust your spouse again. But the truth is that you do not need to bother yourself with trying to trust your spouse, it is more reassuring to trust God to change your spouse for you. Jeremiah 17:5-9 reads “5This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6He will be like the bush in the wasteland; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no-one lives. 7But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. 8He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruits. 9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’’ So from what we have read in this passage it is more assuring to trust God even in the matter of your spouse’s faithfulness to you. Trying to trust and believe that they can be faithful by themselves will only open you up to possible disappointment again in the future. For the unrepentant spouse, they only learn better tactics to conceal their extra-marital affairs such that you don't know than giving it up.
It gives you more assuring confidence that you have handed the matter to God and you trust Him to bring about a lasting solution to it. With God working on your behalf, you will see the changes in the life of your spouse that leaves you no doubt that he/she is a new person that is worthy of your love and trust again. But you need to trust God to make a change first than to trust your spouse to change with self effort.
With all that the Lord has help us to know in this message, I am positive that overcoming marital unfaithfulness without divorce or separation is still very much possible. When you are able to forgive your spouse and trust God to make the desired changes in his/her life you are sure of a beautiful marriage and more sure of your spouse’s salvation. Your labour in this regard is never in vain.
Marital unfaithfulness is the leading cause of divorce in marriages and has played a major role in troubled homes. In fact some people go to the extreme and do unthinkable things when they find out their spouse have been unfaithful to them. As a matter of fact some kill for it. Jesus understanding how hurtful this can be in Matthew 19:9 gave marital unfaithfulness as the only reason why anyone can go for a divorce. But the clause to that we will find in 1 Corinthians 7:11 when Paul speaking as God’s mouth piece says divorce can only take place if the person going for the divorce option remains unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband, and same goes for the man.
In the culture of the part of the world where I come from (which is African/Nigerian), it is permissible for the man to cheat on his wife, in fact it is a common occurrence that a man is cheating on his wife and it is assumed that the wife should understand and bear with it. So in the man’s world it is understandable to cheat on your wife. But when its the the wife who cheats on her husband, it is totally a thing of great dishonour to the woman and most unlikely if her marriage is not destroyed completely whenever the husband gets to know about it. What beats me in this tradition is if the woman is less human than the man and if it is also assumed that she should not hurt over the fact that her husband is having extra-marital affairs or there is no sense of betrayal that should be mourned over on her part. But with all these said, the main purpose of this message is not to dwell too much on the problem of marital unfaithfulness, but to trust God to help us with a workable solution for those struggling with such in their marriage without having to face the follow up problem of divorce or separation.
I once wrote a message on this blog on the topic of trust in the marriages and in dealing with the issue of unfaithfulness which is closely tied to the word TRUST, I will be making some similar conclusions as we did then. But the first thing to address when trying to heal through the problem of marital unfaithfulness is the ability to forgive. One of the reasons why marital unfaithfulness leads to so many other problems in marriages is the inability of the one who has been bruised to forgive his/her spouse. In fact Jesus stated in Matthew 19:8 that the reason why Moses permitted divorce was because the hearts of men were hard. When you cannot see yourself forgiving your spouse, then the issue of divorce comes into the picture.
To ask whether it is possible to forgive a spouse who has dishonoured the marriage covenant you both share is a question I will personally give a YES answer to, depending on how far you are willing to remove the hardness of your heart and bear in you the mind of Christ. And if asked whether I really do understand what it means to have my husband cheat on me, I will still give you a yes answer to that too, because I have been through that road before, I understand the betrayal and I have felt the hurt before and still I have forgave my husband, trusted God to help me through with grace to trust my him again and I have a beautiful marriage going for me, married to a wonderful husband who though has made his mistakes and we have healed together and with God he has helped me heal through the process.
Once you are able to forgive your spouse, it really does not end there. Dealing with marital unfaithfulness is not just about forgiving your spouse, it is about preventing the situation from re-occuring, and being able to build the trust the you once had for your spouse. Forgiving your spouse for cheating on you is a factor that depends on you, but preventing him/her from cheating on you again is a thing that you cannot determine. It not a factor that depends on you, but on your spouse with the help of God. Then rebuilding the trust you once had for him/her is a factor that depends on you, but will be greatly boosted by your spouse’s actions and commitment to you and the marriage. I will trust God to help give better details on these rebuilding process.
Like I just mentioned, the fact that your spouse will not cheat on you again after you must have forgiven him or her is an issue that you as a person can determine no matter how hard you try. The more you try to be vigilant and monitor his/her movement, the more concealed he/she becomes of their sins. For the unrepentant spouse, they will only learn better ways to conceal the sin than give it up. But when you kneel before the Lord in prayer and hand over your spouse and his/her sins to God, He will not just forgive and wash the sins away, He will replace his heart of stone with a heart of flesh and put a new spirit in him. He will give him reasons to run away from marital unfaithfulness beyond what you can ever imagine. Proverbs 21:1 says “The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases.” Also Ezekiel 36:25-27 reads “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of sone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.” From this two passages, you understand that to run away from the sins of marital unfaithfulness, you only need to commit your spouse to God and trust the Lord to do a renewal work in his/her life and place him/her on the path of those that please the Lord rather than those that gratify the lust of the flesh. Don't bother to believe that your spouse is remorseful and will change, but rather trust God to change him or her. It is easier and more assuring to trust God to make the necessary changes in the life of your spouse than to trust your spouse to change by their own self effort.
The last thing to consider when dealing to this kind of problem in marriage is the ability to trust your spouse again. But the truth is that you do not need to bother yourself with trying to trust your spouse, it is more reassuring to trust God to change your spouse for you. Jeremiah 17:5-9 reads “5This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. 6He will be like the bush in the wasteland; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no-one lives. 7But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. 8He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruits. 9The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?’’ So from what we have read in this passage it is more assuring to trust God even in the matter of your spouse’s faithfulness to you. Trying to trust and believe that they can be faithful by themselves will only open you up to possible disappointment again in the future. For the unrepentant spouse, they only learn better tactics to conceal their extra-marital affairs such that you don't know than giving it up.
It gives you more assuring confidence that you have handed the matter to God and you trust Him to bring about a lasting solution to it. With God working on your behalf, you will see the changes in the life of your spouse that leaves you no doubt that he/she is a new person that is worthy of your love and trust again. But you need to trust God to make a change first than to trust your spouse to change with self effort.
With all that the Lord has help us to know in this message, I am positive that overcoming marital unfaithfulness without divorce or separation is still very much possible. When you are able to forgive your spouse and trust God to make the desired changes in his/her life you are sure of a beautiful marriage and more sure of your spouse’s salvation. Your labour in this regard is never in vain.
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