Question And Answer Session On Relationship Part 2 by Rev. Christie Bature: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

What causes infidelity in marriage?

Rev. Sam Oye asked what predisposes couples toward infidelity, while stressing that nothing justifies the choice to cheat. Rev. Christie Bature responded with patterns she has seen in counseling:

• Undisclosed medical conditions entering a marriage as deception, such as a husband hiding impotence, or a wife's undiagnosed vaginismus making intercourse impossible without medical help
• A child from before the marriage, hidden and only revealed after the wedding
• Ingratitude, described in Romans 1:21 as the first step in a chain of decline. An ungrateful husband decides his wife "is not enough," and an ungrateful wife does the same of her husband
• Greed

Ingratitude is one of the doorways to addiction. People who are truly grateful rarely become addicted to anything; addiction tends to travel with complaining and blame. Paul's instruction to "cultivate gratitude" implies it does not come naturally and must be deliberately farmed.

Generational patterns repeat until someone deals with them

She told the story of a man whose father openly brought other women into the marital home and forced his wife to serve them, while the children watched in anger. Grown and strong enough to retaliate, the son beat his father to stop the abuse, yet later crossed sexual lines his own father never had. As much as he hated what his father did, he became what he hated. What is not resolved in one generation is compounded in the next, because the father is a seed, the children are fruit, and fruit is always multiplied over seed.

Rev. Sam Oye added that the real struggle in temptation is rarely the act itself but the pleasure attached to it, and that seeing pleasure through God's eyes removes its pull, the way thirst doesn't justify drinking from a poisoned source.

Ending a relationship over parental disapproval

Asked whether it was right to end a four-year relationship because of parental disapproval, despite feeling spiritually confirmed about the person, she was cautious about a direct verdict, but advised:

• Getting parental consent before marriage matters greatly, because family becomes a place of refuge if the marriage struggles later
• If parents still disagree after genuine effort, take it to community elders, then church elders, then pastoral leadership
• If leadership has heard everything and you remain convinced, you may proceed, but the church covering you should commit to standing with you if problems arise, rather than judging you afterward

Healing from a dysfunctional, abusive family

Responding to a woman raised in an abusive blended family who asked if trauma ever ends, she said:

• If you are old enough and able to sustain yourself, removing yourself from the environment of the trauma is a legitimate and recommended step
• There is no "getting back to normal." What can be done instead is to take the trauma and turn it into a weapon against the enemy, rather than staying in self-pity and regret

She shared her own story: her father was an alcoholic who introduced all eight of his children to drinking; six of her siblings eventually died from addiction-related causes, leaving only her and her mother. She asked God why she had been spared, and He showed her that the next generation was repeating the same patterns because they had no other model. She took in fourteen of her siblings' children; most have turned to Christ, though a few still struggle. She turned her pain into a rehab ministry so other families would not suffer the same losses.

David didn't fight Goliath with Goliath's sword, he used it only after the battle was already won. Whatever the enemy meant to destroy you with, God can put it in your hand as a weapon once you let Him.