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.
Context
Let me set the context. I am talking about people who are actually married here. In fact I am specifically speaking about Christians, although it is true for everyone. God holds everyone to the same standard… most people just reject His standard.
I am talking to people who understand that their marriage covenant is before God, and includes certain duties and responsibilities. And even privileges. And that He does, and will, hold them responsible for how they fulfil those duties, and even exercise those privileges.
Definition
Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.
For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body.
Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.
Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;
That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.
Ephesians 5:22-28
What is ‘separation’? What am I railing about?
Well, first of all, I am not talking about unintentional separation. There are times in all of our lives when we need to be away from our wives and family. Our goals should be to minimise those times, and maximise our time with our family.
Which means that my first definition of separation is when those times are not minimised. When we deliberately take a job which leaves us in another state, or in any condition so as to not being able to be with our wives and children. And, on the other side, politicians and business owners which encourage such separation.
But that is not the core definition by any means. The core definition is when a man and his wife ‘agree’ to ‘live apart’. The most common form of this (and one of the most blasphemous) is when the wife kicks her husband out of ‘her house’, and she stays with the children. But it can also mean that she goes and lives with her mother in law.
Another bizarre form of separation is when they agree to live together, but not sleep together. Lots of couples, in flagrant violation of their marriage covenant, don’t have sex, or don’t have as much sex as they should; but this couple makes it a ‘thing’.
Covenant
What has been committed to in an actual marriage? Well, there is one specific commitment, and several duties.
Sex
Sex is required in marriage. It is not optional, it is not extra for experts, it is not some sort of reward. It is mandatory.
A separation violates this mandate in two different ways, although I doubt most people think of it this way. First of all, separation makes sex more difficult.
But, obviously, most people don’t think of it like that, because, for most people, a lack of sex is one of the purposes of the separation. They may well have been defrauding each other before the separation , but they assume that they will defraud each other during the separation. Indeed when you read what lawyers say about it, a lack of sex is one of the requirements of a separation. You can even live ‘separately in the same house’… ie the lack of sex might be the only qualifier of your separation!!
Parenting
One of the duties of a husband and his wife involves their children. The wife should be mothering them, the father should be fathering them. Except for the bizarre ‘separately in the same house’ idea, parenting is made more difficult by a separation. How is the father to father when he is not there? In the arena of parenting (and marriage) quality time does not make up for quantity time.
Provision
Again except for the bizarre idea of separated in the same house, the job of the father to provide for his family is made more difficult in a separation. He will need to keep two households going, two rent payments, two fridges full of food…
Leadership
And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
Deuteronomy 6:6-7
It is the father’s job to lead his household… spiritually and in a more secular sense. I don’t know if any couple who ‘separates’ even takes this into consideration, but I can’t imagine how they think it would work.
Indeed, is the separation itself not a signal of either his lack of leadership, her lack of submission, or both? Did he lead, and she submit, in the idea that separation was the right thing?
Abandonment
To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words;
Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God.
For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
Proverbs 2:16-18
The King James for ‘abandon’ might well be ‘forsake’. The Scriptures condemn a wife who forsakes her husband, but we can look beyond that to the result on her children. We are living in an age where it is almost shocking to find a two parent family… meaning a family who has a father and a mother, a man and a woman, living with the children that they had because of their sexual union.
Let alone to find a household where the first sexual relations a man had was with the wife he is living with, and vice versa. And we see what that does to our children. This epidemic of abandonment has devastated our children.
And that is what we should expect. Whenever we stray from God’s plan, we should expect God’s judgement. Sometimes natural judgement, sometimes miraculous judgement, but always judgement.
Objections Anticipated
Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
II Corinthians 11:24-27
But he did these bad things!
One nice thing about the old marriage vows was how they tended to anticipate issues. So when the old vows said, “for better or for worse” the idea of ‘he does these bad things’ was actually part of the marriage vow. The modern vows seem to be more ‘as long as he is a perfect husband’.
When a human woman marries, she marries a human man. A sinful human man. And yet, despite his sin she, if she really marries, agrees to have sex with a sinful human man, to obey a sinful human man… knowing he is sinful, and will sin. And will sin against you. His doing bad things was part of the program.
But I don’t want to have sex with him!
Well, that’s tough, but it is what you signed up for. No, far too mild. It is what you covenanted before God to do. If you are married to him, it is your job to have sex with him. And he with you.
But he is dangerous
Ok, lets work this out. First of all, is he ‘he committed a crime’ dangerous? In which case, why are we talking about a separation instead of a criminal complaint? Are you ‘fleeing for your life’ or ‘working on your marriage’?
Because if the second, let me ask you, are you still willing to have sex with him if it is not dangerous? Are you still willing to live with him and raise your children with him if you could make it not dangerous?
Because if not, you are really back in the ‘I don’t want not in the ‘he is dangerous’ excuse.
(If so, then have you thought about how to do that? What if you hired a ‘babysitter’ whose job was not to watch the baby, but sit in the house with his phone on speed dial? You might be able to get a church volunteer, but even hiring someone might be cheaper than separate housing and all.)
But it worked for us!
This is an extremely common logical mistake. I believe it’s official title is ‘Post hoc ergo propter hoc’. That because something comes after something, it is therefore because of that thing.
One of the problems with this fallacy is that you have no clue what would have happened had you not done the thing. Not done ‘nothing’, but done a different things What would have happened if, instead of walking out on your covenant, you had fulfilled it?
It is not given to any of us to know the future, let alone an alternate past. But the expression ‘it worked for us’ is meaningless.
Conclusion
I, [name], take thee, [name], to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth
It is literally insane to think that the best way to carry out the duties and responsibilities that you have covenanted to in marriage would be to spend awhile breaking them. That is not the way God calls us to act. He calls us to learn how to obey… by obeying. Every minute of a separation is a minute of disobedience to God.
Note: Most of this post might make it seem as it is always the woman’s fault that a couple ‘separates’. Well, first of all, from what I have heard it is often the woman that pushes it. But I wish to make it very, very clear that anyone who pushes for or agrees to a separation is at fault. Indeed the failures of the man to lead might even be what led the woman to push for the separation. For all I know she might have been desperately wanting him to say no.
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Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
My wife “ran away” multiple times, and I attributed it to “mental illness” (morally neutral), before I diagnosed the real problem. I never required submission - I was always on treadmill trying to run down and catch her mental wellbeing. And obviously, you don’t go anywhere on a treadmill.
Once this became clear I drew a boundary and told her, “I will not chase after you if you cross this line.” And she crossed the line. And she did not understand why I enforced the consequence. She forgot the past. Sometimes she even stated, “let’s forget the past.” She was addicted to the idea that I would rescue her - from herself.