Loving Your Spouse by Pursuing a Divorce

After I asked Bob Lepine to send us an article featuring his excellent book Love Like You Mean It, I was shocked when I saw that Bob, the cohost of Family Life Today’s long running radio program, sent me an article entitled “Loving Your Spouse by Pursuing a Divorce.” If you know Bob as I do, including his commitment to Scripture and his passion to sustain and build healthy marriages, you would have been equally surprised.

But I agree with what Bob says here. It definitely has a When to Walk Away vibe, and I’m grateful to him for sharing it with us this week. His book, Love Like You Mean It, is one of the best marriage books I’ve read over the past several years. If you enjoy his thinking here, check out the link at the end of this article for his book. If you want more explanation along the lines of what Bob addresses here, check out the link for When to Walk Away.

Loving Your Spouse By Pursuing A Divorce

By Bob Lepine

(names and details have been changed)

Rebecca needed help.  She didn’t know what to do or where to turn.  She was frightened and confused.

She asked if she could meet with the church elders for prayer and counsel.  One of the staff pastors already knew some of what was happening in her marriage.  The rest of us were taken by surprise. 

I had been serving as a lay leader in the church for several years when Rebecca came to meet with us.  She and her husband Tony had been members for as long as I’d been there.  They came to church regularly.  Their three children were bright, happy, regular kids. 

So when Rebecca began to share about Tony’s explosive anger and his regular marijuana use, we were stunned.  We hadn’t seen any signs. 

The reason Rebecca had asked to see us this evening was that Tony’s anger had begun to escalate.  A week prior, in a rage, he had thrown a water pitcher – not at her exactly, but in her direction.  She had told him to leave or she was going to call the police.  He left.

As church leaders, we knew what we needed to do.  We scheduled another meeting quickly and asked Tony to meet with us to talk about his marriage.  We were encouraged when he agreed.

Tony admitted that on occasion his anger had gotten out of control.  He did not try to hide his regular marijuana use from us either.  His willingness to be transparent with us was heartening.  He began to weep when he talked about Rebecca and their children.  Through tears, he told us he would do anything to make his marriage work.  We had hope.   

We told him that he would need regular pastoral counseling.  We also told him he would need to be willing to take a drug test once a week to show his commitment to sobriety.  And we told him we would be in regular contact with Rebecca to hear from her about any fears or concerns she was having as they moved forward.  Our top priority was her physical and emotional safety. 

This was phase one of the restoration plan, we told him.  Long term, he and Rebecca would need marriage counseling.

Tony was on board.  He reiterated his commitment to do “whatever it takes.”

Two weeks later, he skipped a counseling session.  He also didn’t show up for his drug test.  Rebecca said there was a night when he didn’t come home and didn’t answer his phone.

Over the next few months, as Tony went AWOL, we continued to work with Rebecca, offering counsel and help.  Tony quit coming to church.  On any given day, Rebecca didn’t know if Tony was coming home or not.  Money was disappearing from their account.  Rebecca was staying strong, but hanging on by a thread.  She told us she still loved Tony and was praying for him regularly.  Her desire was that God would bring Tony to his senses, and that their marriage would be restored. 

After months of working with Rebecca and getting nowhere with Tony, we sat together at an elders meeting and I found myself saying something I never thought I’d say.  “Rebecca needs to file for divorce.”   All of us agreed.

For almost three decades, I’ve co-hosted a nationally syndicated radio program called FamilyLife Today.  I’ve spoken at marriage events throughout the US and around the world.  I’ve told couples that the “D” word – divorce – should be removed from their vocabulary.  I’ve stressed the sanctity of the marriage covenant.  There is no marriage that cannot be restored, I’ve said, as long as two people are willing to do the work it takes.

So to be suggesting that someone in our church should pursue a divorce felt like heresy to me.  Maybe it does to you too.  But in the years since, as I’ve continued in church leadership and in pastoral ministry, I’ve found myself giving the same advice again to other husbands and wives.  And I’m convinced there are times when encouraging someone to pursue a divorce is sound, biblical counsel. 

When Jesus was asked about divorce in Matthew 19, He knew His questioners were insincere.  The debate in Jesus’s day was not whether divorce was acceptable.  Everyone agreed that a husband could divorce his wife (it was not permissible for a wife to divorce her husband.  In that patriarchal culture, men had all the power).

The question the teachers of the law were asking Jesus was “is it permissible for a man to divorce his wife for any reason (ital. added).”  One group believed it was a man’s prerogative to be done with his marriage for any reason he chose.  All he had to do was say the word and the marriage was ended.  The wife was on her own. 

The other school of thought was that a husband needed grounds for divorce.  The Bible says that when Joseph found that Mary was pregnant while they were betrothed, he planned to quietly end the relationship.  The assumption that she had been with another man during the betrothal was grounds for “putting her away” – in effect, divorcing her (Jews saw betrothal as binding as the covenant of marriage).

So the question for Jesus was essentially, can a man divorce his wife for any reason, or does he need grounds, like infidelity?

Jesus’ answer affirms God’s design for marriage.  “From the beginning,” Jesus says, “God’s plan has been that a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife and the two become one flesh.”  Marriage is a sacred, divine institution.  It’s a picture of Christ and His church.  The one flesh union between a husband and a wife is meant to give us a living picture of the love and unity shared by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit for all eternity.  The one flesh union of the husband and wife in marriage is the final act of creation.  It’s the last thing God does before He rests.

“But,” Jesus says, “Moses allows for divorce because of the hardness of your hearts.”  The Jewish law regulates divorce, recognizing that a husband or wife may wind up needing protection from a hardhearted spouse.  The Mosaic law is there to offer that protection.

There were a lot of factors that went into our decision to recommend to Rebecca that she pursue a divorce from Tony.  Rebecca needed the protection that only a divorce could provide.  She needed economic protection, as Tony was taking money from their account, presumably for drugs.  She needed physical protection for herself and her children from a man whose behavior had become erratic and violent.  And she needed emotional protection from the trauma she was experiencing with her life and marriage in chaos. 

And our hope – our prayer – was that the reality of a pending divorce might be the shock Tony needed to see where his choices were leading him.  She loved her husband. And she realized that remaining married to Tony was enabling his sinful patterns and behavior.  Enabling those patterns is not an act of love.  Rebecca was pursuing a divorce in hopes that it might be the wake up call God would use to put their marriage back on a path toward restoration.  Even as she was initiating the divorce, she was hoping and praying for reconciliation and restoration of her marriage.

It’s critical to add here that Rebecca was not making this decision on her own.  She had not rallied the support of a few sympathetic friends who were cheering her on.  She had sought the godly counsel of church leaders who loved her and who she knew were committed to the sanctity of the marriage bond.  She was moving forward with the divorce only after she had our blessing and support. 

Over the years, I’ve talked to a number of couples who have told me that it wasn’t until they experienced the devastating reality of divorce that they finally saw clearly their sinful actions in marriage.  It took a divorce to break them and bring them to their senses.  Like the prodigal son in the pig sty, life after divorce finally caused them to say “what am I doing here?  How did I get here?”

Those stories are sadly atypical.  The experience of going through a divorce is excruciating.  It’s hard to recover.  The pain goes deep. Trust has been broken, and rebuilding trust takes a lot of time and work.  The thought of trying again feels risky.  Too risky.  Most couples who divorce are too scarred to want to even think about reconciliation.   

What Rebecca hoped for didn’t happen.  I wish I had the happy ending to report.  But Tony moved on.  So did she.  As a church, we saw God pour out his grace on Rebecca and her children as they walked a very hard path.  Rebecca clung to her faith and to the friends who came around her and supported her after Tony left.

Through it all, Rebecca did not become embittered against Tony.  I’m sure she had her dark nights of the soul where she had to fight against her flesh.  But she made it her aim to pray for him and to never speak evil of him.  With the support of her church leaders, she had pursued the divorce in part for her own protection, but also because she loved Tony.  She knew she had to do something to try to help him see his anger and substance abuse for what they were – sins against her and against God.  She pursued a divorce hoping it would provide a shock to his system.  It didn’t.

Rebecca’s motivation for divorce was not to hurt or harm Tony.  She was not consumed with bitterness.  She did not want revenge of some kind.  She was protecting herself and her children.  And she was trying to love a stubborn, hardhearted man.  She knew God’s design for marriage is for one man and one woman to become one flesh and stay together until death parts them.  That’s the outcome she was hoping for even as she filed the paperwork.   What motivated Rebecca to pursue her divorce was, in part, her love for her husband.