Category Archives: morality

Divorce, morality

When the Other Woman Becomes the Wife

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http://www.emotionalaffair.org

When an Other Woman Becomes the Wife

“My perspective is from that of the other woman (OW) who became the new wife. I hope this helps someone.

You will get to be responsible for destroying the life of another woman. You will get to be responsible for destroying the lives of all children involved. No, children are not resilient. They are sponges and take in everything around them whether they are capable of processing it or not. And when they are not able to process their world being shattered and all the conflicting messages about right and wrong, you will get to deal with all their issues and mistakes and anger as they grow up. You will have to know all the while that whatever is happening is a direct result of your selfishness. If the child fails at school, can’t control their anger, becomes promiscuous, falls into addictions, can’t maintain good relationships of their own you get to know in the back of your mind and deep in your soul that you are responsible for what molded that child. Whether you admit it or not, you WILL know. You will not be able to fix this; it will not work out, smooth over, or ever be okay. Even if you look like the Cleavers on the surface it is under there bubbling and will come out. Don’t think you are special and you will escape this result.

Maybe right now you are in a place where you are in deep denial about the children and you don’t give a crap about the BW [betrayed wife]. Let me appeal to your sense of selfishness then and tell you what you personally are going to suffer in the years to come…

You are marrying a cheater. Someone who didn’t like what they had at home so they went looking for something better. Or maybe you offered him something better? It doesn’t really matter who started it, who lied more, it doesn’t even really matter if you were tricked into a relationship not knowing he was married at first. Your consequences will be the same. You now have a spouse who gave up one family and chose you and yours. Feels great right? Think again. How long do you think it will take before you stop feeling like a prize?

The minute things go wrong, and face it, in all marriages there are these times, he is going to be looking at you and wondering if you were worth it. And you will feel it. Even if he doesn’t say it right out. He is going to realize that this marriage requires just as much work as the old one did and you are not nearly as perfect in real life as he thought you were and he is going to be angry for what he has sacrificed for you. Now you get to be insecure and feel like you are always fighting to be worth it to him.

You are going to be labeled as the b**ch for the entire rest of your life. No matter what changes or personal revelations you come to, you will be the bitch that wrecked a home and stole a husband. There will be innumerable family conflicts over this. You are likely to have his kids hating your guts forever. This means that every holiday, school concert, soccer game, big family event like graduations and weddings, and grandkids (yes, it will last that far and long) will be sources of conflict instead of happy times.

You will probably not be invited to a lot of things that your spouse should be attending with his children. You may show up anyway, asserting your position as the new wife. But it will be a conflict. Your spouse will have to over and over choose between you and his original family. He is going to resent you for this. You are going to get so tired of constantly being the center of conflict and so tired of all the hate directed at you and no one is going to sympathize with you. When you do impose yourself where the BW and her children and extended family and friends are, you will feel the scarlet letter that you wear burning in your chest no matter how high you try to hold your head. I promise you…you will. You and your stolen spouse will fight over this more than you can imagine in the years to come.

And guess what?! When he starts to pull away from you and works late more, or isn’t insatiable in bed with you anymore, or cuts his hair a new way you are going to be terrified. You are going to be terrified because you know exactly what he might be doing next. You are going to be suspicious probably before he actually even does anything because you already know he is untrustworthy.

Chances are he is going to cheat again too. Except this time on you. Now, you get to feel the pain of being a BW doubled by the pain of realizing exactly what you did to someone else. The guilt and shame on top of your already devastating pain from being cheated on will be unbearable. Now listen to this closely NO ONE IS GOING TO CARE!! You are going to hear and know that you should have known better and have the old adages about cheaters thrown in your face over and over. You will not be able to come somewhere like these boards for support because they are going to crucify you! You will be all alone with your pain and your heartache with no one to blame but yourself.

Do not think you are special. DO NOT THINK IT WON’T HAPPEN TO YOU!!!!!!!!!! The stats are overwhelmingly high. No one gets married thinking that their spouse will cheat. No one. I promise that you are not different or better somehow.

Occasionally an affair partner will grow a conscience and want to be a good person and here is what happens…

Now, let’s say that you make changes in your heart and your life. Let say you find God or in whatever way it comes to you, you realize that you have done something horrendous. Okay, now you actually do care about those kids and that BW. Well too bad. You can’t fix it. Yes, God will forgive you if you repent. Not many others will. And you will have one heck of a time trying to forgive yourself. You will feel sick and ashamed all the time. You will cry many bitter tears.

You will not be able to look at your spouse and feel the same way you once did. All of your memories of when you first met, your first kiss, the early days of your relationship will be tainted. All of those memories that are supposed to be sweet will be sour. You will not be able to enjoy them because you know that whole time it was wrong, wrong, wrong! What are you left with? Not much.

You are going to try to offer apologies, you are going to try to figure out what you can possibly do to make amends and there are going to be no easy answers. You will be told by many that you can’t repent and stay married. You will be told by just as many that if God has forgiven you that another divorce would be just another sin. You will make yourself crazy over this because you want to do the right thing for once in your life and you have put yourself in a situation where it is impossible to know what that is.

Also, if you are one of the few who have this attack of conscience at some point down the road, you are still going to be dealing with all the same stuff above that the unremorseful affair partner is dealing with except it’s probably going to hurt you even more because you now genuinely care. Too bad no one will think you are sincere or trust your words. Why should they, remember what you did?? Of course you do, now go cry some more as if it will help.

There are no time machines people!! You are making a mess bigger than you can ever clean up!!…”

FB profile 7xtjw Standerinfamilycourt  Blogger’s Commentary:    Found this blog post while on a search to find a source for a statistic shared by a fellow stander on his page:  that the failure rate  is 97% for remarriages that originated in adultery.   Obviously, Jesus, Peter and Paul all taught the importance of the foundation upon which anything is built, but the figure was still very striking, if there indeed has been a statistically reliable study of this subject in the easy, sleazy “no-fault” era of the past 45 years when the government started actively undermining biblical, covenant marriages.    I was unsuccessful in finding anything specific, but my blogger’s antenna is now up.

Life usually has a way of playing out exactly as the bible describes, because this Book is supernatural.   The adulterer who once walked with Christ has first committed adultery in his heart toward the One who died for him, Who unconditionally remains in covenant with the bride of his youth along with him.   No non-covenant replacement can ever occupy the place of Christ nor the covenant spouse, and that person’s very presence in the adulterer’s life competes with Christ.   Coexistence, regardless of a corrupt family law system’s complicity in legalizing it,  is impossible because that person amounts to an idol in the adulterer’s life,  one who has been substituted for and placed ahead of Christ.

So, for now I leave my readers with the Book’s timeless wisdom which, before even factoring in the yielded stander’s powerful and unrelenting prayers for a stolen one-flesh spouse and his/her stolen soul, perfectly undergirds such a 97% statistic.   (Too bad the civil authorities, who arrogantly think they, not God, are the arbiters of what’s “best” for a family, don’t take serious heed):

Galatians 6:7 –  Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man [woman} sows, that he [she] will also reap.

(SIFC:  don’t miss the present tense in this next scripture, it’s important!):  Malachi 2: 13  – Another thing you do: You flood the Lord’s altar with tears.You weep and wail  because he no longer looks with favor on your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask,“Why?” It is because the Lord is the witness(between you and the wife of your youth.  You have been unfaithful to her, though she is  [not was]  your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.  Has not the one God made you?   You belong to him in body and spirit.

Ezekiel 34: 21, 27   –   Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another.  I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them…I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them.     I the Lord have spoken….They will know that I am the Lord, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them.

1 John 5:18, 21  –  We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them…..Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.

Proverbs 22:14 –  The mouth of an adulterous woman is a deep pit;  a man who is under the Lord’s wrath falls into it.

2 Timothy 2:19 – Nevertheless, God’s solid foundation stands firm, sealed with this inscription: “The Lord knows those who are his,” and, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”

1 Corinthians 3:10 –  By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it.  But each one should build with care.

Luke 6:49 –  But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.

Psalm 127:1 –  Unless the Lord builds the house, They labor in vain who build it.  FB profile 7xtjw

 

We’d love to hear your comments and/or related experiences about this author’s words of warning  in the comment section below.

 

Divorce, Marriage Restoration, morality

When Affair Partners Marry: 9 Reasons Why They Might Fail

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By on September 8, 2011 in Divorce, Sex and Marriage

when affair partners marry

What are the typical defects in the relationships when affair partners marry and why are they more likely to divorce?

In the past we have written about the some of our neighbors who have experienced infidelity in their lives, as well as my brother’s situation, and as a result of a neighborhood block party and some time talking with my mother, we were inundated with news of cheaters beginning their new lives with their affair partners.

We heard about divorces being finalized and new homes being bought and how excited they all were to begin their new lives.  I really couldn’t feel hopeful or happy for any of these people (even though one of them was my brother).

I really feel guilty about that because I want my brother to be happy but I just have a gut feeling that this wasn’t the right way to accomplish it.

I was feeling really frustrated and of course wondered why Doug didn’t take that same path to a new life.  I also began to wonder how happy these couples will really be once the shine of their relationship wears off.  So I searched the internet looking for answers about the success rate of second marriages, particularly marriages when affair partners marry each other.

I know somewhere on our site we mentioned the percentage of these marriages that are successful and I know the percentage was very low.  However, I wanted to know why.  I was lucky enough to find an article that summarized a chapter from Frank Pittman’s book, “Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy” that described the typical defects in the relationships when affair partners marry and why they are likely to divorce.

The intervention of reality.  During the affair the affair partners are in an intense state of stimulating unreality.  The second marriage itself seems to be the switch that illuminates the mess that has accumulated.  To them it was as if the romance appeared real while the divorce didn’t.  Only after their marriage did the divorce become real enough to see that it was a horrible mistake.  They were so caught up in the infatuation that they never got around to figuring out if what they were doing was sane.

Guilt.  People who have wrecked a family have inflicted much pain.  As reality sets in they see many things they were overlooking. They may have no or little guilt during the affair and divorce, so the guilt they feel after the remarriage may come as a complete surprise to both of them and they may not know how to handle that revelation.

Disparity of Sacrifice.  Divorces are expensive both financially and emotionally.  Anyone losing a great deal will be drained, exhausted and depressed.  It is particularly difficult when the exhausted partner marries one who feels triumphant that they have won the battle and took them away from their family.  When affair partners marry, the new couple may feel a disparity in what had to be sacrificed to bring them together.  They may not understand the emotion that was involved and what they had to give up in order to be together.

Expectations.  Then there is the feeling that anything that cost that much emotionally had better be worth it.  The greater the sacrifices, the greater the expectations for the new marriage.  They believe that everything will be perfect just as their affair was.  Unfortunately, what they will find is the ordinariness of real life.  The more people enjoy the battles involved in wrecking and escaping marriages, the less they are likely to enjoy the business as usual of the new marriage.

General distrust of marriage and of the affair partners.  It is obvious that when affair partners marry at some point in their marriage they will begin to question if their new spouse will also cheat on them.  How can a marriage that began as a lie have any trusting foundation?

Divided loyalties.  During the affair and the divorce the affair couples isolate themselves.  They not only erase the betrayed spouse from their awareness, but also the children, relatives, friends, etc.  They live in their own little world protected from the devastation that they have created, safe from anyone who tries to pull them apart.  After the remarriage, they long to reconnect with these people only to find that is not so easy.  Everyone involved is hurt by the betrayal and not as forgiving as they have expected. They often find that they only have each other and that can be very lonely.

Romance.  People who are in love with romance, or in love with being in love as Dr. Huizenga would say, do not understand the physics of relationships.  When the romance fades, romantics know little about how to solve those problems.  Rather, they believe that they have just fallen out of love.  They do not understand how to have a deeper more meaningful relationship.  They move on from romance to romance never finding true lasting love.

Blaming the betrayed spouses.  During the affair and the divorce the affair couples convince each other that the defective marriage was the fault of the betrayed spouse.  To acknowledge otherwise, now that the remarriage has taken place, seems a betrayal of the rescue fantasies that fed the affair in the first place.

Unshared history.  Even if a new marriage survives all of these obstacles, there is one further characteristic of second marriages: the absence of a shared history that brings familiarity to relationships that begin earlier in life.

If an affair wrecked the first marriage, the history is painful and embarrassing for both parties.  They also have a difficult time discussing the past because it may promote jealousy and insecurity.  When affair partners marry, they do not want to hear the good qualities of the previous marriage and spouses.  They also don’t want to hear about all the good times they had shared.  They are literally starting over and trying not to bring the past with them.  Often times this can be lonely and disheartening, and eventually causes them to forget who they really are.

I believe that most of us (betrayed spouses) realize that many of these defects would play out similarly if our spouses chose to leave and marry their affair partner.  I am pretty confident that none of these obstacles were discussed or even thought about while our spouses were involved in their affairs.  I imagine that it would probably take awhile before the fog lifted and the consequences of their actions were realized.

For a powerful post written by an “other woman” who married her affair partner, click here.

LINESPACE

citizenship, Divorce, Equal Protection, family law, Fundamental Rights, morality

Suffer the Little Children: Cohabitation and the Abuse of America’s Children

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by W. Bradford Wilcox,  April 22nd, 2011 –  The Witherspoon Institute / Public Discourse

Blogger’s Commentary:    The direct connection between rising rates of unmarried cohabitation and the entrenched stronghold of unilateral divorce has been repeatedly chronicled in recent years.    The much trumpeted “declining / levelling divorce rate”  attributed by both proponents and justified critics of the “no-fault” laws  to easy, unilateral divorce is unmistakable.   But what is a bit more mistakable is the fact that the divorce rate decline has ALSO been shown to be directly linked to the rise in unmarried cohabitation.   This is important context for the excellent, informed piece that follows about impacts of both evils on innocent, defenseless children, courtesy of the national family law system.    

Jesus’ Commentary:   (Amplified Bible)  “Temptations (snares, traps set to entice to sin) are sure to come, but woe to him by or through whom they come!

 It would be more profitable for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were hurled into the sea than that he should cause to sin or be a snare to one of these little ones [lowly in rank or influence].     Luke 17:1-3

Cohabitation does not serve the “best interest” of children, regardless of what the courts say.

In just one month last year, Tyari Smith Sr. of suburban New Orleans shot and killed his 2-year-old son, Tyari Smith Jr., and his girlfriend, Marie Chavez, because she was considering leaving him and heading back home to California. A week later, 4-month-old Aiden Caro was thrown into a couch by his mother’s boyfriend, Samuel Harris, when Harris could not get him to stop crying. Shortly thereafter, the Louisville baby stopped crying forever. The next week, in Gaston, South Carolina, 5-month-old Joshua Dial was shaken by his mother’s boyfriend “in a manner so violent that the baby immediately lost consciousness and suffered severe brain trauma,” according to local police reports. Joshua died soon thereafter.

Are these tragic cases of fatal child abuse around the nation in one month just random expressions of the dark side of the human condition? Not according to a recent federal study of child abuse and neglect, the Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect.

This new federal study indicates that these cases are simply the tip of the abuse iceberg in American life. According to the report, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are about 11 times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than children living with their married biological parents. Likewise, children living with their mother and her boyfriend are six times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents. In other words, one of the most dangerous places for a child in America to find himself in is a home that includes an unrelated male boyfriend—especially when that boyfriend is left to care for a child by himself.

But children living with their own father and mother do not fare much better if their parents are only cohabiting. The federal study of child abuse found that children living with their cohabiting parents are more than four times more likely to be sexually, physically, or emotionally abused than their peers living in a home headed by their married parents. And they are three times more likely to be physically, emotionally, or educationally neglected than children living with their married biological parents. In other words, a child is not much safer when she is living in a home with her parents if her parents’ relationship does not enjoy the legal, social, and moral status and guidance that marriage confers on relationships.

This latest study confirms what a mounting body of social science has been telling us for some time now. The science tells us that children are not only more likely to thrive but are also more likely to simply survive when they are raised in an intact home headed by their married parents, rather than in a home headed by a cohabiting couple. For instance, a 2005 study of fatal child abuse in Missouri found that children living with their mother’s boyfriends were more than 45 times more likely to be killed than were children living with their married mother and father.

Cohabitation is also associated with other non-fatal pathologies among children. A 2002 study from the Urban Institute found that 15.7 percent of 6- to 11-year-olds in cohabiting families experienced serious emotional problems (e.g., depression, feelings of inferiority, etc.), compared to just 3.5 percent of children in families headed by married biological or adoptive parents. A 2008 study of more than 12,000 adolescents from across the United States found that teenagers living in a cohabiting household were 116 percent more likely to smoke marijuana, compared to teens living in an intact, married family. And so it goes.

One reason that children do not tend to thrive in cohabiting households, besides the abuse factor, is that these homes are much more unstable than are married households. One recent University of Michigan study found that children born to cohabiting parents were 119 percent more likely to see their parents break up than children born to married parents. And, as anyone who has children can attest, children do not do well when they are exposed to changing routines, homes, and, especially, caretakers.

This growing body of new research has been deliberately ignored by the ACLU, which has been engaged in a longstanding legal campaign to gut state laws designed to support and strengthen marriage as the preferred relationship for the bearing, rearing, and adoption of children. This month in Arkansas, for instance, the ACLU convinced the Arkansas Supreme Court, in Cole v. Arkansas, to strike down a state law that prohibits cohabiting couples from adopting or fostering children. The ACLU argued that the Arkansas law violated federal and state constitutional rights to privacy and served “no child welfare purpose at all.” The Arkansas Supreme Court bought this argument, ruling that the Arkansas law, Act 1, violated cohabitors’ “fundamental right to privacy… to engage in private, consensual, noncommercial intimacy in the privacy of their homes.”

But what about the rights of the children in Arkansas to be raised in a safe and stable home? The state of Arkansas argued, rightly, that cohabiting homes are no place for children in need of safe and stable homes. Infants, toddlers, and older children who have been given up by their parents, or who have been removed by the state from the custody of their parents, need safe and stable homes above all else. And the latest federal study provides yet more evidence that households headed by cohabiting couples are not likely to supply good homes for such children. Apparently, none of this mattered to an Arkansas Supreme Court keen to put adults’ desires ahead of children’s needs.

Thankfully, the family news from the states has not been all bad this month. On Monday, Arizona governor Jan Brewer approved a law that gives married parents preference in the adoption process in her state. Arizona thereby joins a number of other states—such as Mississippi, Utah, and Virginia—that privilege married couples in the adoption process.

Let’s just hope that the courts in Arizona and these other states do not fall prey to the ACLU’s ongoing campaign to disconnect parenthood from marriage. Because—as study after study tells us—children are more likely to thrive and to simply survive when they are raised in an intact, married home. This is no small social fact, given that the primary purpose of family law is not to serve the desires of adults but rather the “best interests” of children.

W. Bradford Wilcox is Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow of the Witherspoon Institute. He is also an adoptive father.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  |  Lets Repeal No-Fault Divorce!

www.standerinfamilycourt.com 

 

 

Church Discipline, Discipleship, Divorce, Marriage Restoration, morality

How One Local Church Let A Young Family Down Due to Tainted Denominational Doctrine

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by:  standerinfamilycourt.com

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.” – Matthew 5:13

“The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted. “ –  Proverbs 29:25

“But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.   I gave her time to repent, and she does not want to repent of her immorality.”   – Message to the Church at Thyratira, Revelation 2:20 

 

She was a 30-something never-married daughter in a large and important family in the small congregation.   He was a civilly-divorced father of a young son.   Let’s call them Jack and Jill,  not their real names.   They met online, dated briefly and then moved in together.   Soon Jill was expecting a child whom they learned would be born a special-needs child.    Jack and Jill  were enveloped in the loving, accepting arms of the body of Christ in that fellowship, and somewhere along the way, one of the men led seeker Jack to the Lord.

 

Even though the word of God clearly states that Jack already has a covenant wife we’ll call Jane (Romans 7:2; 1 Corinthians 7:39),  the senior pastor agreed to wed Jack to Jill, probably out of very understandable empathy for the special-needs child about to be born, but also because the official position paper of the denomination set up that expectation of its pastors back in the early 1970’s when it was redrafted to accommodate church members who would be impacted by the legalization of unilateral divorce.

 

This conscientious pastor required every couple getting married in this fellowship to undertake Christ-based premarital counseling.   While there was no indication that this pastor knew about their cohabitation,  by this time there was obvious “probable cause” to ask a few questions in the course of the required sessions, but never did this pastor require Jill and Jack to separate and live apart for a time before the wedding.   There simply wasn’t time if the child was to be born into wedlock.   The official position paper on divorce and remarriage of this denomination  advises extensively on such matters, claiming God “permits” the divorce of covenant spouses on either of two purportedly “biblical” grounds commonly asserted by Protestant denominations, seminaries and national ministries (they all do so while brushing aside the compelling words of Jesus in Luke 16:18,  Matthew 5:19,32 and Matthew 19:6),  This denominational position paper then goes so far as to egregiously claim that God “exits” the original covenant in order to form a “new covenant” with remarriage partners whom Jesus unmistakably said were committing adultery.   My bible says God exits the marriage covenant only when one of the spouses dies.

 

[The Protestant church has traditionally misapplied three scripture passages in an effort to find “biblical grounds” to allow remarriage after a civil divorce:   Deuteronomy 24:1-4,  Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15.    An honest analysis of context, culture / audience,  and inconsistency with the vast body of clearer scriptures which contradict such interpretation,  makes “biblical grounds” justification pretty tenuous and the inferred leap to remarriage completely unjustifiable.   Discussion deferred to a future post.] 

 

Little is known about the circumstances of Jack’s covenant marriage with Jane, the mother of his young son, or of his manmade divorce from her, a matter Jesus Christ would almost certainly find a pithy way to say is biblically irrelevant in God’s eyes.   (This church and its denomination would say that if Jack and Jane didn’t happen to be believers when they married, and Jack came to the Lord after getting divorced from Jane, he has “biblical grounds” to remarry.)   Nevertheless, a very pregnant Jill walked down the aisle of that church one Sunday, right after services, and legalized her fornication with Jane’s covenant husband Jack, as solemnized by Jill’s pastor.

 

For a while, all seemed to be well in the ongoing household of Jack and Jill.   Jack’s young son was in church regularly with Jack and Jill.  The little girl born to them was as precious as the day is long, a blessing to the entire fellowship.   Jack seemed to be growing spiritually for a couple of years, and he joined the Sunday morning worship team.   Soon another baby was on the way.   However, as Jack grew ever closer to the Lord, it wasn’t long before the wheels all fell off the marriage wagon very suddenly and without warning.   Tragically, the new baby was born into an estranged home.

 

I have to confess to having no firsthand knowledge of exactly what went wrong, other than the external restlessness that came over Jack.   I only know that when God is beginning to lead a man by His spirit from within, things start to be laid bare and it would be unusual after being born again, being sealed on the inside with the living and active Holy Spirit, if Jack’s heart wasn’t drawn back to his covenant wife Jane, with whom he was still under the power of the indissolvable one-flesh relationship and of the covenant presence of God.   Jack may not yet be aware today of what exactly is making him restless.    That may take some time and working through more confusion, but the day of full recognition will eventually dawn for Jack.   Contrary to what this denomination teaches, God’s character is incapable of breaking holy covenant under any circumstances, and when He says He “hates” divorce, He uses a very strong Hebrew word for “hate” meaning violent revulsion, provoking retribution.    God actively fights for covenant marriages, and man’s divorce decree is meaningless to Him unless it is rectifying the civil legalities of an immoral subsequent union.

 

Meanwhile, it seems doubtful that a brand new believer,  hungrily digging deep into the word of God, and being discipled by the men in the church who are (wrongly) counseling him that his current non-covenant marriage is the righteous union, wouldn’t become very spiritually confused if it was actually the powerful Holy Spirit pushing him from within, toward reconciliation with his covenant wife as a wholesome and necessary milestone on his discipleship journey.    Yet the church members here would paint this move of God as “fresh sin”,  instead of redemptive repentance, because they fundamentally misunderstand covenant and how profoundly the marriages of our youth symbolize the Godhead in God’s design.   Nowhere would the pastor’s enabling role in cementing this broken family situation ever be called into question unless the Holy Spirit convicts this pastor’s heart supernaturally.

 

Though the wheels fell off Jack’s non-covenant marriage wagon, I pray that the spirit of God miraculously holds the wheels on Jack’s discipleship wagon, and that the Lord will send him a godly mentor who harbors no mistaken theology or conflict of interest.

 

After a brief stand, Jill chose not to stand in the way of a civil divorce.   It was wise and profitable for her to let go of the husband who was never rightfully hers, despite the children born from him.     I pray separately for her, that God will provide abundantly for her and the little girls, and in right timing, send her a godly, never-married or widowed husband after first preparing her heart to win that husband God’s way (instead of the world’s way which too often includes sexual entrapment).    I pray that Jack will still be the dad his little girls deserve, and if he reconciles with his covenant wife, God will give Jane a big heart for them.

 

I pray a misled and mis-taught pastor will learn from his part in this very brief marriage.   Even so,  it hasn’t been long since he again married an older widow in the fellowship to somebody else’s covenant husband on denominationally-contrived “biblical grounds” (i.e., that an estranged wife obtained a man-made civil divorce in order to legalize her adultery, and the discarded Christian husband was unwilling to take a biblical stand as a modern-day “Hosea”).   But what did Jesus say?    Luke 16:18 “ …and the one who marries a [spouse] who has been divorced from a [spouse] commits adultery.”    Jack and Jill’s divorce is an actual picture of the only true biblical grounds for divorce, and divorce that requires either celibacy while Jane is alive, or remarriage only to Jane.   Jill is scripturally free following her civil divorce to marry a never-married or widowed man, but not another divorced man.

 

There is a very small remnant of pastors out there who take God at the fullness of His word and in the fullness of His unchanging character.    Some of them minister under the same unscriptural denominational doctrine as this particular pastor, but they shepherd with biblically-correct conviction, elevating the truth, as it comes from the Holy Spirit, over any denominational mandates that conflict with the direct and plain word of God.   They ask all the right discerning questions when approached to do a wedding.   They flatly decline to solemnize any wedding that Jesus would call adultery according to Luke 16:18.    When otherwise biblically-eligible couples are cohabiting, they require them to separate for an agreed time, to denounce, repent and refrain from fornication, preferably moving in with people who will hold them accountable during this period until the wedding.    If the relationship is adulterous, that is, if either partner has the husband or wife of their youth still living, the couple is counseled to permanently sever and seek to be reconciled to their covenant partners, honoring their marriage vows in celibacy until the Lord intervenes and makes that possible.   Unrepentant fornication and adultery is still dealt with by biblical church discipline in these select few local congregations for the sake of the souls of those involved and all those watching.   These pastors understand deeply that violation of covenant marriage vows is spiritually lethal to the witness of the entire congregation (loss of “saltiness”) and to the next several generations of the impacted        famil(ies) , due to the evil soul-ties created.

 

None of this is easy or popular, but Standerinfamilycourt believes dealing biblically with sanitized adultery is what is going to be required to restore God’s blessing, favor and protection to His church and our nation, turning back the twin threats of virulent Islam and hostile atheism that are steadly leaching away the democracy and liberty God once gifted to our nation.     A liberal pagan Federal judge went so far as to call out this permissive hypocrisy  in his ruling which overturned Idaho’s homosexual marriage law  (Latta v. Otter, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, October 7, 2014):  “If defendants [Governors of Idaho and Nevada] really wished to ensure that as many children as possible had married parents, they would do well to rescind the right to no-fault divorce, or to divorce altogether.  Neither has done so.”    Jesus would concur.

 

When God allowed the Assyrians and Babylonians to invade / exile Israel and Judah,  it wasn’t because of the widespread sin of the people that caused Him to finally lose His divine patience.   It was the failure of the priestly class to lead righteously, or to confront and lay hold of their absolute authority under God to eradicate that widespread sin, instead of becoming complicit in it.   Church leadership failed to function as the purifying authority He expects.   The devastating loss of the kingdom and self-rule was God keeping the adverse half of His conditional promises in Deuteronomy 28.

 

Standerinfamilycourt believes what we are seeing today in our utter defeat as the body of Christ goes up against the violent, demonic cultural and international forces, is a repeat of this very dark chapter in Israel’s history as a nation.    I’m being blunt because I believe there is still time for the church in the U.S. to do something about it, after repenting from her heart and on her face before the God of Angel Armies.

In a recent broadcast, women’s discipler Nancy Leigh DeMoss  of the ministry Revive our Hearts.com captured very powerfully the issues around a church remaining faithful under circumstantial pressure and potential legal barriers; full-on obeying God’s word,  not neglecting church discipline to purge biblical disobedience in the body of Christ if we want to win battles that are too big for us against physical and spiritual foes.   The fear of man paints such things as “private matters” but God, whom we ought to be fearing more than we fear the opinions or retribution of man,  has a very different opinion!

https://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/revive-our-hearts/door-hope/

In dire times like these, the biblical heroes of old always confessed their nation’s sin as if it was their own, and vicariously bore the shame of that corporate sin as if they personally deserved the shame.    They were rewarded with a mighty move of God on their nation.  Examples are found in Daniel, Moses, Nehemiah and Ezra, among others.    Ezra, the quiet, studious prophet who led the successful rebuilding of the demolished temple of God, found out while on his face before the Lord that he needed first to purge all of the immoral and prohibited marriages within the fellowship before the Lord would be with them in their appointed, anointed task of rebuilding the temple.   His fasting prayer seems an appropriate wrap-up to this post….while being careful to point out that in God’s eyes, the only legitimate function for civil divorce is to correct biblically-unlawful marriages:

EZRA Chapter 9

[…and I fell on my knees and stretched out my [c]hands to the Lord my God; 6 and I said, “O my God, I am ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to You, my God, for our iniquities have [d]risen above our heads and our guilt has grown even to the heavens. 7 Since the days of our fathers to this day we have been in great guilt, and on account of our iniquities we, our kings and our priests have been given into the hand of the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity and to plunder and to [e]open shame, as it is this day. 8 But now for a brief moment grace has been shown from the Lord our God, to leave us an escaped remnant and to give us a peg in His holy place, that our God may enlighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our bondage. 9 For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

10 “Now, our God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken Your commandments, 11 which You have commanded by Your servants the prophets, saying, ‘The land which you are entering to possess is an unclean land with the uncleanness of the peoples of the lands, with their abominations which have filled it from end to end and with their impurity. 12 So now do not give your daughters to their sons nor take their daughters to your sons, and never seek their peace or their prosperity, that you may be strong and eat the good things of the land and leave it as an inheritance to your sons forever.’ 13 After all that has come upon us for our evil deeds and our great guilt, since You our God have requited us less than our iniquities deserve, and have given us an escaped remnant as this, 14 shall we again break Your commandments and intermarry with the peoples [f]who commit these abominations? Would You not be angry with us [g]to the point of destruction, until there is no remnant nor any who escape? 15 O Lord God of Israel, You are righteous, for we have been left an escaped remnant, as it is this day; behold, we are before You in our guilt, for no one can stand before You because of this.”

 

As was the case with Ezra’s fellowship, compromise and outright disobedience by church leadership to God’s clear instructions can be messy and ugly to clean up before watching worldly eyes,  but  this still does not let our church leadership off the hook for carrying through with the cleanup, nor does it justify that the immorality remain hidden, because it is a fallacy that it will remain hidden.    Cleanup is the unavoidable cost of restoring both the integrity and Spirit-led potency (salt and light) among the culture that God expects of His church, and especially of its leadership.    Ezra’s fellowship readily obeyed because they saw exactly what was at stake in the survival of Judah as a nation.    There was an ugly, public sending away (restitutional divorcing)  of over one  hundred pagan wives and their children that probably caught immense cultural “flak” among the nations from whence those wives originated–flak that would far exceed anything the church would likely experience from an equivalent move today.    The bible tells us in Ezra chapter 10 that this sending away included 17 pastors’ wives,  6 church board wives, a worship leader’s wife and 87 wives from the rest of the congregation and all their children.    It would have been far better to obey God upfront;  to not have the massive cleanup to face at the cost of public scandal / church shrinkage.    Nevertheless, the nation of Judah fully and promptly embraced the publicly painful program of restitution and repentance — and their Divine reward was the dramatic healing of their land for ceasing and purging all life ways which misrepresented God in His holy, sacred covenant with all of them (and with all of us) .  Neither is God likely to give the American church a “pass” on this one.

 

Related post: Rev. Al Mohler

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

www.standerinfamilycourt.com

Church Discipline, Discipleship, morality, Spiritual Warfare

Divorce — The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience

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by Dr. Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Evangelical Christians are gravely concerned about the family, and this is good and necessary. But our credibility on the issue of marriage is significantly discounted…

[Downloadable PDF]Wedding Cake Pulverized

Mark A. Smith, who teaches political science at the University of Washington, pays close attention to what is now commonly called the “culture war” in America. Though the roots of this cultural conflict reach back to the 1960s, the deep divide over social and moral issues became almost impossible to deny during the late 1970s and ever since. It is now common wisdom to speak of “red” states and “blue” states and to expect familiar lines of division over questions such as abortion and homosexuality.

In the most general sense, the culture war refers to the struggle to determine laws and customs on a host of moral and political issues that separate Americans into two opposing camps, often presented as the religious right and the secular left. Though the truth is never so simple, the reality of the culture war is almost impossible to deny.

And yet, as Professor Smith surveyed the front lines of the culture war, he was surprised, not so much by the issues of hot debate and controversy, but by an issue that was obvious for its absence — divorce.

“From the standpoint of simple logic, divorce fits cleanly within the category of ‘family values’ and hence hypothetically could represent a driving force in the larger culture war,” he notes. “If ‘family values’ refers to ethics and behavior that affect, well, families, then divorce obviously should qualify. Indeed, divorce seems to carry a more direct connection to the daily realities of families than do the bellwether culture war issues of abortion and homosexuality.”

That logic is an indictment of evangelical failure and a monumental scandal of the evangelical conscience. When faced with this indictment, many evangelicals quickly point to the adoption of so-called “no fault” divorce laws in the 1970s. Yet, while those laws have been devastating to families (and especially to children), Smith makes a compelling case that evangelicals began their accommodation to divorce even before those laws took effect. No fault divorce laws simply reflected an acknowledgment of what had already taken place. As he explains, American evangelicals, along with other Christians, began to shift opinion on divorce when divorce became more common and when it hit close to home.

When the Christian right was organized in the 1970s and galvanized in the 1980s, the issues of abortion and homosexuality were front and center. Where was divorce? Smith documents the fact that groups such as the “pro-traditional family” Moral Majority led by the late Jerry Falwell generally failed even to mention divorce in their publications or platforms.

“During the 10 years of its existence, Falwell’s organization mobilized and lobbied on many political issues, including abortion, pornography, gay rights, school prayer, the Equal Rights Amendment, and sex education in schools,” he recalls. Where is divorce — a tragedy that affects far more families than the more “hot button” issues? “Divorce failed to achieve that exalted status, ranking so low on the group’s agenda that books on the Moral Majority do not even give the issue an entry in the index.”

But the real scandal is far deeper than missing listings in an index. The real scandal is the fact that evangelical Protestants divorce at rates at least as high as the rest of the public. Needless to say, this creates a significant credibility crisis when evangelicals then rise to speak in defense of marriage.

As for the question of divorce and public law, Smith traces a huge transition in the law and in the larger cultural context. In times past, he explains, both divorce and marriage were considered matters of intense public interest. But at some point, the culture was transformed, and divorce was reclassified as a purely private matter.

Tragically, the church largely followed the lead of its members and accepted what might be called the “privatization” of divorce. Churches simply allowed a secular culture to determine that divorce is no big deal, and that it is a purely private matter.

As Smith argues, the Bible is emphatic in condemning divorce. For this reason, you would expect to find evangelical Christians demanding the inclusion of divorce on a list of central concerns and aims. But this seldom happened. Evangelical Christians rightly demanded laws that would defend the sanctity of human life. Not so for marriage. Smith explains that the inclusion of divorce on the agenda of the Christian right would have risked a massive alienation of members. In summary, evangelicals allowed culture to trump Scripture.

An even greater tragedy is the collapse of church discipline within congregations. A perceived “zone of privacy” is simply assumed by most church members, and divorce is considered only a private concern.

Professor Smith is concerned with this question as a political scientist. Why did American evangelicals surrender so quickly as divorce gathered momentum in America? We must ask this same question with even greater urgency. How did divorce, so clearly identified as a grievous sin in the Bible, become so commonplace and accepted in our midst?

The sanctity of human life is a cause that demands our priority and sacrifice. The challenge represented by the possibility (or probability) of legalized same-sex marriage demands our attention and involvement, as well.

But divorce harms many more lives than will be touched by homosexual marriage. Children are left without fathers, wives without husbands, and homes are forever broken. Fathers are separated from their children, and marriage is irreparably undermined as divorce becomes routine and accepted. Divorce is not the unpardonable sin, but it is sin, and it is a sin that is condemned in no uncertain terms.

Evangelical Christians are gravely concerned about the family, and this is good and necessary. But our credibility on the issue of marriage is significantly discounted by our acceptance of divorce. To our shame, the culture war is not the only place that an honest confrontation with the divorce culture is missing.

Divorce is now the scandal of the evangelical conscience.

citizenship, marriage, morality

Another Honey Maid Whitewash

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I’ve been struggling for days over just what to say about this Honey Maid commercial recently shared by the Coalition for Divorce Reform on their facebook page:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hOC7H32W20&feature=youtu.be.   I truly didn’t want to sound mean, but silence is not appropriate either, it seems.   Many Christians, even, have been given horrible and unbiblical counsel over many years by their pastors, who in turn were just following the official position of their Protestant denomination, whose leadership most likely sold out in the 1970’s to the tide of “no-fault” divorce sweeping the nation at the time.   Those denominational leaders felt compelled to make their position on divorce and remarriage more “relevant”  so as to head off the loss of membership and finances.    Never mind that Jesus was very clear about His views on “blended families” that don’t result solely from widowhood:   (Luke 16:18) “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.”

During the last Super Bowl, I believe it was Honey Maid whose similar schmaltz-offering likewise extolled homosexual parenting as though the ample evidence of toxicity in those arrangements wasn’t plainly manifest in news articles about pedophilia and child molestation in those homes,  or in the wistfully dysfunctional accounts of young adults who have been raised in lesbian homes, many of which were established in the aftermath of a heterosexual divorce – a situation that is increasingly common.    Of course, there was conveniently no mention of the results of a 20-year longitudinal study published by the University of Texas in 2012 that  showed the poor wide-ranging outcomes of every kind of childrearing arrangement vs. an intact, married heterosexual family (i.e. God’s model, eloquently described by Jesus in Matthew 19:4-6).

In this latest installment, the toxic outcomes of living out a culture of adulterous remarriage are likewise swept aside in a glisteningly sentimental display of affirmation.   Nowhere is the precipitously higher failure rate of second, third and fourth marriages mentioned.   Nowhere is it mentioned that spouse #2 might just be of the same gender these days.    Nowhere is there mention of the higher rate of teen pregnancy, substance abuse, same-sex attraction, suicide attempts / completions, or next generation marriage failure among the children of these “blended” families.    Nowhere is the high suicide rate among divorced, even remarried men such as Robin Williams mentioned.   Not broken, they say!

Why is it not OK to be broken and just admit it, Honey Maid?    King David, the ultimate “blended family” guy, showed us in Psalms 32 and 51 that the sort of brokenness that brings us to our knees, in sacrifice of our preference to just feel good, is actually the beginning of true wholeness.

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  / Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

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marriage, morality, Religious freedom

So WHAT IF We Couldn’t Get Divorced?

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In response to the blogger on yahoo! Aug. 21, 2014……

I think what’s really being asked is, what if one spouse could no longer unilaterally divorce the other spouse without cause (and without economic consequence) simply because modern civil government believes the spouse who wants out  “deserves to be happy”?      Divorce against God’s will goes all the way back to Moses – at least, and such all-or-nothing debate seems a bit pointless.    It would actually take far less than an all-out divorce ban to radically improve our nation’s security and prosperity.

Perhaps a more productive question is: “What if uncontested, mutual-consent divorce became the only ‘faultless’ divorce available?”

Here’s my take on that:

1) Basic Constitutional rights would be restored to the “Respondent” for the first time in 40 years in some states.

2) God’s hand of blessing would return to the United States after His long season of withdrawing Divine protection from prolonged political, social and economic hard times.

3)   The suicide rate for men and teens would decline precipitously.

4) Substance abuse and abortion rates would decline precipitously .

5)  People would see more of their pastors and counselors, and would take their advice more seriously.

6) The poverty rate would decline sharply and government budgets would be balanced again without raising taxes.

7) The homosexuality rate, particularly rebound lesbianism, would decline.

8) Pornography use would decline.

9)  Individual couples would retire substantially wealthier.

10) In time, we’d see an end to mass shootings in public places like day care centers, schools, malls and places of employment.

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

– standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

 

Equal Protection, morality

They may have “style” but they certainly have no “class”

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87123-82987http://www.nytimes.com/video/fashion/weddings/100000003010012/vows-an-imperfect-beginning.html?smid=fb-share

Surrounded by his young children (and the smug-faced adulteress these little ones are now forced to call “mom”) the “persecuted” groom in this video gets all misty-eyed at how “incredibly difficult and painful” his divorce was. Yet he went into court with protections extending to judicial bias in his favor, while his COVENANT wife, for whom God “stands as a witness” could probably tell a tale that dwarfs his.

“..the one who hates and divorces his wife does violence against the one(s) he was called to protect”, says the Lord God Almighty, so guard your heart and do not act treacherously.. ” Malachi 2

“But what does the Scripture say? ‘Cast out the bondwoman [non-covenant partner or concubine] and her son,
For the son of the bondwoman shall not be an heir with the son of the free woman ‘ [covenant wife of one’s youth].” Galatians 4:30

 

7 Times Around the Jericho Wall  | Let’s Repeal No-Fault Divorce

– by standerinfamilycourt.com

 

 

Let's Repeal No-Fault Divorce!