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

What predisposes a marriage to infidelity?

• Undisclosed medical issues going into marriage, such as impotence or vaginismus, create a deceitful foundation and can justify walking away
• Hiding a child from before the marriage and hoping for forgiveness after the fact
• Greed and ingratitude, an ungrateful man looks at his wife and decides she's not enough, an ungrateful woman does the same to her husband
• Generational patterns, a father's sin unresolved in one generation is often multiplied in the next
• Pursuing pleasure itself rather than the person, once you see pleasure through God's eyes, its pull weakens

Romans 1:21

Ingratitude is described as the starting point of moral decline: not honoring God, not being thankful.

What starts with us doesn't end with us. It's perpetuated across generations. A man who watched his father humiliate his mother grew up to cross sexual lines his father never did, even while hating what his father modeled.

Should I have ended a relationship because my parents disapproved?

It's important to get parental consent before marrying, family remains family and you may need them later. But if you've genuinely tried, through the elders, through the church, and still don't have peace, and the leadership around you agrees you've done everything, you can move forward, with the church committing to walk with you if there's trouble ahead.

Turning painful family history into purpose

Trauma doesn't have to be only a wound, it can become a weapon in your hand, the way David used Goliath's own sword against him. Joyce Meyer, molested by her father more than 200 times, now brings healing to many. What wounds people further is hiding their struggle in silence, believing their story was meant for them alone.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

God comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others with the same comfort we received.

Three things that let abuse and addiction flourish

1. Environment, the setting where secrecy is possible
2. Enablers, the people who trigger or excuse the behavior
3. Triggers, whatever predisposes a person toward the addiction or affair

Deal with these three and you are most of the way out of any addiction.

My grown children don't want me to remarry after divorce

That is a selfish request from grown children with their own lives. God places the solitary in families, marriage at any stage is still his blessing to give, and it isn't theirs to withhold.

Living with an unrepentant, unfaithful spouse

Anything that takes more of your attention than God is idolatry, and obsession with an unfaithful partner can become exactly that. Unaddressed pain compounds: each new wound lands before the last one heals.

• Adultery is a scriptural ground on which a marriage can be dissolved, since it shows the partner values pleasure over their vows to God
• Don't stay silent, find someone to talk to and plan next steps
• Remove yourself from the environment for a season if the person is unrepentant and gaslighting you
• The goal is always to resolve the marriage where possible, but resolving requires two willing people

A caution was shared about a pastor's wife who died after contracting HIV from a husband's affair, underlining that remaining silent in a dangerous situation can cost more than reputation.

Waiting for marriage without desperation

If you keep attracting the wrong kind of person, it isn't a flaw in you, it may simply be the enemy trying to contaminate something valuable before the right person arrives. Set a standard for your life and don't lower it out of fear that time is running out.

God is not only the God of your 20s and 30s, he is the God of your 40s, 50s, and 60s. Testimonies were shared of women who married or had children at 49, 50, 60, 61, and 65.

• "Don't wait long and get it wrong," desperation after long waiting can lead to settling
• Stay social after church and in daily life rather than rushing home alone, relationships are often built through ordinary community, the way Naomi connected Ruth to Boaz