Question about divorce

[KimT]

I was married at 18. At the time my husband was an agnostic and I was raised Catholic but had not accepted Jesus as my Savior. We divorced when I was 22.

At age 44 I was saved and joined a Methodist church. I met a Christian man online and we got married after only courting for 4 months. We had no contact before marriage. I did not realize my husband had mental illness and was abusive. After 7 years of this we separated. He rarely worked and his parents sent him money. I am a CPA/college professor about to go on disability. My husband and I are still legally married but we have never lived together since we separated (6 years.) He is still having major psychological problems and lives with his sister and mother. I take care of his finances.

He recently asked me if I thought we would ever get back together. I suggested he seek pastoral counseling and psychiatric evaluation. He did. He did not thing the Methodist counselor was a "Christian" and would not take the meds the Mayo Clinic psychiatrist prescribed. He was diagnosed with depression and psychosis along with social anxiety.

Not long after that diagnosis he said he wanted companionship and wondered if we should get divorced. I did not give him an answer.

I know what Jesus said concerning divorce. I also know I will never let my husband live in my house as he is troubled.

What options do I have?

 

[wifikitten]

If he has been abusive to you, and you still feel unsafe with him in your home, I would say get the divorce. I'm guessing you were looking for a religous reply but in this case I believe when your personal safety is at risk, it's time to end it. If by companionship he meant a sexual relationship, with another person, that would be a Biblical reason that divorce is allowed.

 

[mrfun83]

God is gracious and understanding if nothing else - even when we don't quite understand. Obviously mental illness is a sticky wicket, and I am no marriage counselor. If what you state is true, and he is looking for "companionship" - to most men that means one thing - and initiating the divorce proceedings, I would think that would release you under the auspices of I Cor. 7:15 as the gentleman above stated.
May the Holy Spirit give you wisdom in this.

 

[PrincetonGuy]

I was married at 18. At the time my husband was an agnostic and I was raised Catholic but had not accepted Jesus as my Savior. We divorced when I was 22.

At age 44 I was saved and joined a Methodist church. I met a Christian man online and we got married after only courting for 4 months. We had no contact before marriage. I did not realize my husband had mental illness and was abusive. After 7 years of this we separated. He rarely worked and his parents sent him money. I am a CPA/college professor about to go on disability. My husband and I are still legally married but we have never lived together since we separated (6 years.) He is still having major psychological problems and lives with his sister and mother. I take care of his finances.

He recently asked me if I thought we would ever get back together. I suggested he seek pastoral counseling and psychiatric evaluation. He did. He did not thing the Methodist counselor was a "Christian" and would not take the meds the Mayo Clinic psychiatrist prescribed. He was diagnosed with depression and psychosis along with social anxiety.

Not long after that diagnosis he said he wanted companionship and wondered if we should get divorced. I did not give him an answer.

I know what Jesus said concerning divorce. I also know I will never let my husband live in my house as he is troubled.

What options do I have?

Stay the course, knowing that your course is the biblical course and that staying the course will have the very best possible outcome. Beginning especially in the early 1960’s, nearly every imaginable tactic has been employed to alter the teaching of Jesus on divorce and remarriage, including the so-called “Pauline privilege” in Cor. 7:15, dismissing completely these words by Paul:

1 Cor. 7:10. To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband
11. (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband)—and that the husband should not divorce his wife. (RSV, 1971)

1 Cor. 7:10. But to the married I give instructions, not I, but the Lord, that the wife should not leave her husband
11. (but if she does leave, she must remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. (NASB, 1995)

(Note: I am a member of the Church of the Nazarene)

 

[RomansFiveEight]

First off..

Psychosis is a very, very serious diagnosis. ESPECIALLY without medication and supervision. Psychosis means he is unable to function normally in society or have a healthy relationship.

I sense a bit of legalism here. What makes you think you're still married? I don't believe that God is bound by what human courts say. You've been apart from your Husband for years and it's an unhealthy relationship. God wants us to take marriage really seriously. God doesn't want us to lock ourselves down to a marriage that isn't healthy.

I am appalled that anyone would think staying in an abusive relationship is the "right" or "biblical" thing to do. You are doing the right thing.

My mother stayed married to a physically and emotionally abusive man for 20 years because people told her that it was "best for the kids" and that it was the "right thing to do". People told her that the Bible said she had to stay married. I've been diagnosed with PTSD because of what life was like living with him until I left home as a teenager. (I returned home when they divorced). My mothers divorce was one of the most important things she ever did for herself, her children, and her faith. We MUST, as thinking, breathing Christians, understand the difference between lustfully looking for other partners (the context of "Divorce" that Christ was talking about, in a world several hundred years before weddings or marriages in today's construct. Anyone studying marriage in the Bible MUST understand that it was very different in the first century.) and leaving an unhealthy, dangerous relationship. And granting a legal civil divorce to someone that I'm convinced God already understands you to have divorced. (Are we humans so arrogant to think we can fool God with our courts?)

 

[KimT]

I appreciate your reply. God bless.