Walking as a Christian Separated Man

Walking as a Christian Separated Man.

It is more complicated and harder than I had ever imagined.

I got an email from the person I am still married to.

I hesitate to call her my wife as she has joined herself to another man.

I am presently "married" to a woman but hesitate to say I am in a marriage since a marriage seems to imply that both parties in said marriage are still together.

I unhappily am not.

My party of the first part has chosen to take the last name of her lover as her own and she is presently in an adulterous relationship with him. She has been with this person for the last 7 months.

Which leaves me (to quote my counselor) in a very unfortunate situation.

Turns out she cannot apply for legal aid for at least a year as she has just moved out to Calgary with her lover a couple months or so ago. So divorce is not an option for her. At least not for a year.

She wants me to file for divorce. Yippee! I will get right on that! NOT.

As a Christian I cannot file for a divorce in good conscience. I neither want to be the instigator of the divorce, nor wish to pay for it as it was not my idea for her to run away with another man.

Two camps of thought from friends of mine:

The Biblical law states in the very words of Jesus that I can divorce said wife for adultery. I could do that and this would be all over. I could not live with myself for doing that, but I could divorce her for adultery.

That would be living by the law.

Mercy and Grace (and the Holy Spirit) tell me to leave the door open for said wife to repent and come back. If she does not come back and divorces me, then I have done all I can to stay married. The old college try as it were.

That is living in the path of love and forgiveness. Or is it?

Herein lies the problem. I am not really sure I want her back.

I am not sure if I could forgive her.

If God said so, yes, I guess I would have to be obedient and believe that He has the best for me and would enable me with the forgiveness I would need towards her.

But in my heart It seems so impossible to trust someone who has thrown away 15 years of marriage for an adulterous relationship.

My "wife" may be legally still married to me, but in her heart she has married herself to another. She just has not done this in the sight of a congregation or the legal system.

If my "wife" repented and returned. in the back of my mind I would always be wondering when, not if, she would do this to me again.

So here I live in limbo land. Neither able to go on with my life in a new romatic relationship, nor end the old one.

Would not be so bad but alas, I do not do alone well.

I miss being in the arms of a woman, and the prospect of living like this for the next year (minimum) fills me with despair and agony.

Some people can rejoice in singleness, the freedom and the liberty to do any and all the things they want without being accountable, to do what they please without consulting anyone, to go anywhere without question.

And all these things are good and well.

For them.

However, after sharing your life with someone, you experience what that intimacy felt like and you long to have that back.

As God said about Adam, It is not good for man to be alone.

Being alone with no one for company but an invisible God, a furball of a cat, and a hyperactive dog is a lonely existance at best.

My arms ache to hold someone but I cannot for fear of becoming an legal adulterer myself.

I wonder if Adam and Eve had this problem, or their immediate descendents?

I mean, there was no Justice of the Peace to legally marry them, no state sanctioned legal pastors.

How did they marry / divorce back then? The Priests and Elders married and sanctioned divorce.

I am wondering if marriage and divorce is the soley the domain of the heart, not the legal system.

I believe that Marriages, like baptism are an outward expression, in and to one's Christian community of an inner change to love one person to the exclusion of all others. A very oath before God to carry that out, and the onus of the community the couple is in to see that oath fulfilled by any help possible.

Anyone else uncomfortable with the thought that you have to go get a marriage "licence" to get married? Did anyone get permission from God to (a.) Allow the state to make money off of HIS institution? (b.) license something HE ordained? (c.) Pervert something that HE called holy?

We have just seen the legal institution of marriage now be redefined as marriage hetersexual and homosexual. It will not be long before intergenerational marriages are allowed as are already before the system. What is next? Japan is marrying animals, is beastiality the next rung on the ladder? How about brothers and sisters? Where is it going to end?

If we go to the beginning, to Adam and Eve, I think Marriages and Divorces are church and heart things, not court and legal things. The court and legal things were an afterthought.

I am reminded of the Scottish in the middle ages having secret non-legal marriages in the woods so that the english lords could not know that they were wed and not take their wives to bed to breed the "Scottish out of the Scots." These marriages were totally spiritual and non legal. the Scots revolted against Legal marriage on the basis that it was no longer Godly and led to the rape of their new wives and ultimately the destruction of their marriages.

I wonder if we are getting to the same place in our legal system.

Today the legal system classes common law marriage and legal marriage as the two ways to have a legal relationship in this country.

But has anyone noticed how similar the two classes and the rights they provide are looking?

So what is the difference? Society and the church says one group is married, the other is not.

But what does God say?

With Adam and Eve and their immediate descendents, I cannot see people waiting for their divorce to clear the justice system before they started another marriage, as there was no justice system back then.

A group of elders / priests sanctioned a marriage or divorce in a community based on God's law.

Read the story of Ruth and Boaz. Read how marriage and divorces were dealt with in Leviticus.

If pastors and elders can marry, why cannot they divorce? Has anyone other than me wondered about this?

Proof of a broken relationship, that one person or the other has forsaken the marriage covenant should be all that is needed for a divorce.

Division of assets should be a civil matter.

We wonder at the ability of the old testament Jews who all they had to do is say I divorce you three times and were divorced, legally and spiritually.

But today, it seems that you are still married legally and still bound to be, even if under God that covenant has been broken, until it is legally dealt with. This leaves you not quite married, and not quite divorced.

We have a multitude of people in our society that are married divorcees feeling like the walking dead. Not quite free, but still in bondage.

Who have no closure. The direct result of legal marriage.

The only people who have closure are the people who have lost their spouses to death.

At least they can go on in life.

Which makes me really think.

With legal marriage becoming more twisted and perverse as far as the law, homosexual marriages, marriage contracts with get out of jail free cards written into them...

What is more close to the real marriage God intends?

Is it a legal thing? Or a heart thing? A lot of churches would say both. I disagree.

I am reminded of the Anabaptists.

Until the Anabaptists, you were not legally baptized until you were baptized by the state as an infant.

Didn't matter if you were baptized by a pastor and in your heart you confessed Jesus as Lord and then were baptized as per the Bible.

You had to be legally baptized by the state before you could be officially baptized "by God" emphasis mine.

And in the end all the state was looking to do is keep a census through baptism so that they could keep track of their tax base. The state did not care if baptism was of God or not, as long as the tax roll was continuing to be accounted for.

So people namely pastors, deacons, elders, baptized people in secret with non legal baptisms. Under God.

I wonder if we have reached the same place in legal marriage.

Why do we have legal marriages?

So we can legally apply for benefits? So we can be legally represented as a couple?

So what makes that different than what the homosexuals want? Do we honestly believe they want the stamp of God on their relationships? No. Most of them hate God. They just want to be recognized as a couple in society, under the law, so that they can get the same benefits heterosexuals do. It is all about rights, greed and self-centeredness, not God centeredness.

I am beginning to believe that Canadian legal marriage has nothing to do with God, and what he wants.

We see in our Bibles obey the law of the land, except when to do so contradicts the word of the Lord. Does homosexual legal marriage not contradict the word of the Lord?

What is the "institution" of marriage?

Is it leaving mother and father and cleaving to one another as the Bible states?

Or is it some twisted legal thing?

I would love to hear a sermon from the pulpit on legal marriage and the defense thereof.

Every sermon I have heard on marriage uses the definitions and biblical references of the Bible. I have yet to hear in my humble 15 years of Christianity a sermon on legal marriage. Why?

Just something to think about.

How does this affect me?

It seems to avoid living under the law regarding my attitude towards my married other, I am living under the law regarding my own life and happiness.

On one hand I feel so very ready for another relationship, but on the other hand so not.

When I spend time with the opposite sex, and especially those I find myself attracted to, I feel the agony of my loneliness subside in their presence, but the fear of drawing too close slams into me like a wall and in fumbly awkwardness I short circuit conversations with people I could see myself having a meaningful relationship with.

As an introvert I have just beaten myself further into my shell. Again.

I actually have to fight myself to get out into public to talk to people so I don't become some derange miser type hermit with 78 cats who smells bad and yells at people all the time as the voices only talk to HIM!

Ok., ok, not quite that bad. But you get the picture.

Then there is the whole issue of what if my divorce did go through.

This is going to sound bad but...a divorce would feel like I won the lottery to get on with my life.

Then there are all the new Christan rules...

Before I got saved, I could just find someone interesting at the local pub, get drunk with them, yadda, yadda, and hopefully end up in a long term relationship.

Now there are threats like AIDS so now that type of dating is like playing Russian Roulette. Not even an option.

Now I must find someone who is a Christian, and who hopefully does not have AIDS or some other death disease.

The Bible says that the person I find must be a Christian so that I am not unequally yoked with an unbeliever.

Not quite sure what egg yolkes have to do with any thing but I digress...

So that means that the Christian dating rules are different. And I have no idea what the new rules are.

See, I thought I would be with my wife forever.

Not so said life. Or at least at this point of my life.

So as a Christian it is no sex before marriage, try to figure out if someone is interesting enough to spend the rest of your life with and get to know people enough to take the plunge and express your feelings to them, further vulnerablizing yourself.

That is all I know at this point.

Did I mention I was an introvert?

Guess that is why people say that God puts those type of relationships together.

Right now it seems like it would take a miracle for me to be in another intimate relationship with a woman.

I guess what Miracle Max said from the Princess Bride is true.

"Don't rush me, sonny. You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles. You got money?"

Seems God has me in the waiting room of life wanting me to figure something out.

To quote another character from the Princess Bride Inigo Montoya, "I hate wait"

So here I am going to a Marriage Tuneup seminar at my church under the unction of my pastor, and accountability friends, and God.

I don't wanna go! (Sounds like a 6 year old eh?)

But for some twisted reason unbeknownst to me, the Holy Spirit put this on my heart to attend.

And if I want peace I must, in obedience go.

So I am going.

Pray for me.

I still got a LOT to learn.

Blessings. -Moose