The Death Spiral of Separation
Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.
Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets.
Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee.
Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth.
Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.
Proverbs 5:15-19
Violating your contract is not a great way to honour it. The idea that a married couple should ‘separate’ to ‘fix’ their marriage is a horribly unBiblical idea. Proverbs five speaks as if it would be the equivalent to denying water to a man dying of thirst.
Extra for Experts
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil.
She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life.
Proverbs 31:11-12
Over the last few years… probably about fifty… the Christian church has turned God’s ideas about sex in marriage literally on their head. It has gone from treating sex as a duty, to a privilege. It has gone from treating it as a responsibility, to an extra.
Scripture does not treat it so. Scripture manages to combine the two concepts of ‘duty’ and ‘rejoicing’. Proverbs five puts the word ‘rejoice’ in the command form!
Death Spiral
Let the husband render unto the wife due benevolence: and likewise also the wife unto the husband.
The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband: and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife.
Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.
I Corinthians 7:3-5
All too often a ‘Christian’ marriage will begin with the concept that the husband has to earn sex. This concept is not only false, it is also deadly. It is the beginning of a death spiral.
Perhaps in the beginning the wife is happy enough, or tolerant enough, that she gives her seal of approval to the husband’s advances. But then, one day, the husband does something wrong, or not as right as it should be, and, bang, the door is closed. The couch awaits.
If the world is to be believed (hint: it shouldn’t be) then the result will be a chastened husband, eager to please his wife in all things. What really happens is that he subconsciously realises the contract has been broken, the covenant violated, and so he begins to check out.
Which, of course, his wife does NOT appreciate. So she… closes the door again.
You can see where this is going… but we’re missing part of the picture. Because ‘checking out’ is not the only option. Other options are anger, pornography, adultery, workaholicism.
And for the wife, she is now convinced that she has been fully justified in all of her actions. She calls on her friends and family to feel compassion for her suffering. Suffering which has been brought on by unBiblical actions by the two of them over their whole marriage.
Out of the Spiral
Now, cometh the counsellor and suggests… a separation. Brilliant move. Take the cause of the problem and try to make it the solution.
What if, instead of breaching your contract, you fulfilled it? What if you said, “Hey, Honey, I don’t care how mad I am at you, how much I think you’ve failed… I’m still going to do my duty. You are always welcome in my bed.”
What if you flew the aircraft of your marriage up, instead of down?
Conclusion
It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:
But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.
Matthew 5:31-32
A failure to live up to your marriage obligations is… adultery. Adultery is not merely a man sleeping with the wife of another man… it is also a man not sleeping with his own wife. And a wife refusing her husband.
And yet we have supposedly Christian counsellors advancing this idea of ‘separation’ as if it wasn’t a blasphemy against the God they claim to serve.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Links
I Cor 7 and Separation
When you have the right to do something, does it become the right thing to do? Well, obviously not. The question is silly. You have the ‘right’ to do millions, even gazillions, of things that not only shouldn’t you do, but you can’t do, and don’t want to do.
The Insanity of 'Separation'
The idea that a married couple should live apart for a while is literally insane. I’m sure you have heard of it, it’s called a ‘separation’. This is an insane idea.
My wife had a psychotic break (2017). After about 8 days in psychiatric emergency rooms she was discharged. She didn’t return home to me. She didn’t return home to her teenage daughter (my step daughter). She didn’t even return home to her parents (who lived nearby). Instead she went to a Christian ministry (a downtown homeless shelter), hiding from all of us. She stayed there, of her own choosing, for five and a half months, until they kicked her out for not complying with their rules.
I imagine that there were many people along the way who could have said, “what the [bleep] are you doing? You have a husband and a teenage daughter waiting for you at home - why are you here?” But there is a strong culture of “women can do no wrong” out there. Don’t get me wrong - some did confront her over her disastrous choice. But it has always bothered me that many people would just let this happen - even encourage it.
I’ve come to believe in the necessity of the instruction from Paul - “Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.” [Colossians 3:18 NIV] Men constantly correct men - we’re submitting to authority all the time. The church needs to assert its authority over families to prevent these sorts of tragedies.
I have only one demand of her today - submit to my authority - because I know how to protect my family members. She will not. When an evangelical/baptist pastor instructed her, she initially complied, but then stopped when it required her to look at her inner spiritual condition. She didn’t believe in submitting to church authority. I was more submissive, as a former US Army officer, than she was as a woman.
[I’ve commented on your posts before - but this subject never becomes old for me.]