Transcript
Ben Fallon: Paul, last week on “Episode 90,” you answered some questions from women, a wife, and an adult daughter, about discovering hidden sexual sin in the lives of their husband and their adult father. Today, we have a heartbreaking situation from a husband who keeps discovering that his wife is having affairs. He starts by saying:
I found a video of yours on YouTube where you mentioned that giving grace does not mean being abused or something like that. So here is my story. I've been married for twenty-five years, and my wife has been unfaithful more than once or twice. As a matter of fact, she has been unfaithful more times than many would even have stayed married this long. The last time was a couple years ago. This time around, she admits that she needs help, but what matters most would be seeing a desire to have a deeper relationship with the Lord and a greater understanding for his Word in her life. And this is just something that she does not do. In the end, I just feel it will happen again because she must be the one seeking change. My question is, “When is enough enough? Do I just continue being married because the Lord hates divorce? We don't argue every day, and I've matured as a Christian over the years, and I know that the Lord has a purpose in this, yet deep down, I am just so tired. Please share any insight that you may have that would help me. It would be great. Thank you.
So Paul, how would you counsel this man or any spouse who finds themselves in this situation of a devastating betrayal of trust?
Paul Tripp: This question is sad to have to answer. And my quick answer is how many affairs are too many? The answer is one. But here's what's important to understand about marriage, and this is going to get us to some direction. Marriage is the only human relationship that, like our relationship with God, is called a covenant. No other relationship is called a covenant. Now, God's covenant with us is an unbreakable bond of commitments, promises, and trust. So is the bond of marriage. It's meant, by God, to be an unbreakable bond. Listen to these words, of commitment, promises made, and trust. That third word is significant and vital. Commitment without trust doesn't mean anything; promises without trust don't mean anything. And this is why God hates divorce, because marriage to Him is so holy and so unique; it's only comparable to our spiritual marriage to him.
But I have to have an amendment here. God hates divorce, but He does not completely prohibit it. Let me read Matthew 5:31–32.
It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
Now, God clearly is making, in this passage, a prohibition of divorce, except for one reason–marital unfaithfulness, sexual immorality. You see, an affair shatters the marriage commitment, it shatters the marriage promises, and most of all, it shatters that essential bond of trust. Trust is the glue that holds a marriage together. Trust is the bond that allows couples to live and work with one another. Let me say more about this.
You should never have to fear or have a moment of anxiety when your spouse leaves the house. You should never need to wonder what's on his/her phone. You should never have to worry about what He/she is saying. You should never have to wonder if he/she is telling you the truth. You should never have to cross-examine a story your spouse tells you. When this bond of trust is broken by marital unfaithfulness, the kind of trustful cooperation that makes a marriage work becomes extremely hard, if not impossible, because I am not meant to follow my spouse around like I'm my own hired private detective.
I counseled a couple where the man hired a private detective. That means those three things have been shattered. The commitment has been shattered; the promises have been shattered; the trust has been shattered! And so because of the shattering of the critical elements of the covenant of marriage, just like you've thrown a glass goblet down on concrete, it's there, but it'll never hold liquid again. In the same way, the marriage still may be there, but it cannot be what a marriage is meant to be because the essential elements of that have been shattered. Because of this, because this is true, God says you are permitted to exit the marriage. You're no longer bound by the marriage covenant, and you can leave that covenant without sin and without guilt.
Now, often when a person threatens to do that, because when I was in counseling, and I would be counseling a person whose spouse had been unfaithful, I felt it was my moral responsibility to tell them that they're not bound anymore by the covenant. I wasn't encouraging them to leave their marriage. I just wanted them to know the freedom that God had given them. What we long for is repentance and change. Wouldn't it be wonderful that a marriage would be restored? I had the wonderful opportunity to do premarital counseling with a couple that got divorced, and God had worked in the heart of the one person and they were now getting remarried. That's a beautiful thing.
But there's a passage that really helps us understand what you need to look for when the other person is saying they're repentant. This is 2 Corinthians 7:10–11:
For Godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what earnestness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal…(and the passage goes on.)
Notice in this passage there's a contrast between godly grief and worldly grief. Godly grief is characterized by earnestness, anger, fear, longing, zeal. ‘Earnestness’ means ‘seriousness.’ ‘Indignation’ is, ‘I'm angry with sin, and I don't want it to dominate me.’ ‘Fear,’ ‘I'm standing with awe before God, and I don't want to be the object of his wrath,’ longing to be something radically different than what I am now. ‘Zeal,’ ‘the zeal of change.’ So, godly grief then means the repentant spouse will gladly submit to loving confrontation. If you have a person who is saying he/she is repentant, but he/she gets mad when you confront them, that's red flags. They will accept the natural consequences. If they're mad because of those consequences, red flag. They will submit to the loving discipline of the church. If they fight that, are resist against it, treat it as if they're being abused, red flag. They will gladly welcome loving accountability. Listen, this is what's true about accountability. Systems of accountability are always made to work by the person being held accountable. Because this is a big world, there are many places to hide, and you can say you want to be held accountable and not answer your phone and give non-answers to questions and run and hide. So, willingly submitting to confrontation, willingly accepting consequences, willingly submitting to the discipline of the church, willingly submitting to loving accountability are all signs of true repentance. And when they're not there, red flags, red flags, because there's another kind of repentance, that's worldly grief.
Worldly grief means I'm upset by the losses that I'm now having to deal with because of my sin, but I'm not really grieving over my sin. If the true fruit of repentance isn't in this person's heart and life, the marriage cannot work. God is patient, God's kind, God's forgiving, but he does this all in a way that will not compromise his holy law.
We should not be willing to stay in a marriage if it means that we are part of an ongoing cycle of sin. We should always give the repentant person the gift of patient grace because repentance is a process and not an event, but we must look for the clear signs of the fruit of repentance. So, “Yes, you have the right to go free, but if it is your choice to stay in the marriage, you can only stay in the marriage if you're going to require true godly grief which leads to real repentance, and there is fruit of that repentance that you need to see. And if you don't see it, red flags, red flags; you're just marching to the next affair.
BF: Well, Paul's book, Marriage: Six Gospel Commitments Every Couple Needs to Make, is the most in-depth resource that we have on building a relationship of unity, understanding, and love with your spouse. Now, it doesn't address all the various and specific challenges that a marriage will experience, but it lays a foundation that, by God's grace, will help you experience the best trusting relationship that you and your spouse could ever have. That's available at paultripp.com/marriage.
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