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Marriage Articles Steps to Heal Marriage After Adultery Ask
Angie
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Steps
To Heal Marriage After Adultery My email is flooded with
brokenhearted wives and husbands who are deeply hurting because
their spouse had an affair. Last week when I wrote the marriage column for
the ministry I included four of those emails. It’s very sad because when
these young couples get married they certainly did not expect to be
hurting like this. They want a speck of
encouragement, a glimmer of hope for their marriage. Here at Heaven
Ministries we
can give you some encouragement and even a glint of hope, but for an
everlasting marriage built upon commitment and love you absolutely need to
seek out Jesus Christ for your marriage and live the design that God
created for marriage. Marriage without God is
like oatmeal cookies without oatmeal. Without oatmeal where is the
substance that holds the cookie together. In the same way without couples
following the principles for marriage designed by God, what is holding
them together? Where is the substance, the core, and the basis for keeping
the marriage together? The Betrayed Spouse
Are you the spouse that
has been betrayed? Has your husband or wife committed adultery? What can
you do? You can allow God to work His will in your marriage. Even if your
spouse is in the midst of an affair right now, you can try and find
peace through your source—Jesus Christ. Depend
on God What does that mean to
depend on God? Well it means to stop depending on your negative feelings
to tell you what to do and how to behave and go to God with your burdens.
It means to stop going to friends, family, and others who will obviously
tell you to divorce your spouse. Most people depend on the wrong sources
for their marriage and they remain unhappy in the marriage, if it even
lasts. “So
do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I
will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous
right hand.” “Be
still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10) It is through Jesus Christ that we receive our contentment and peace of mind. We cannot look out into the world for comfort because it is not where we find spiritual peace and comfort. God is our peace! Let God Breathe His Peace on You! SEE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcyfwiaQawE Pray
For Your Wayward Spouse
Prayer is undeniably a
comfort to us in the midst of suffering. Although God hears every word as
you pray, don’t expect God to suddenly answer your prayers. It doesn’t
work like that. Pray for your spouse to turn from sin and be the loving
individual that God created them to become in Him. God
shows us how to pray. It may seem a bit
backwards to pray
for the spouse who is sinning against the marriage, but this is what
God asks us to do. Selfish motives and self-seeking actions that only help
ourselves will not get answered by God. If you are looking for worldly
answers and advice then go out into the world for your answers. But if you
truly want your marriage to thrive and be blessed then go to your source--go
to God. Jumpstart
your mind with spiritual prayer and affirmations Make God Your #1 PriorityHave you put God first
in your marriage? Why not? If our source for peace and blessings is at the
bottom of our priority list, could it be the reason for so much discontent
in our marriage? We make God a priority in our marriage when we live by
His design for marriage. God
commands for a husband to love his wife…that means even if he
doesn’t feel like it. Love is not a feeling—it is an action! God
commands for a wife
to respect and submit
to her husband…even if she doesn’t feel like it. God’s ideal for
marriage is a design that works! You can make your marriage work too! Find
unity between the both of you—make your marriage important to you and
follow God’s will for your marriage. Encourage Your Spouse to
do what’s Right
Notice I didn’t subtitle this section, “tell your spouse what to do”. Instead you should encourage your spouse. So how would you do that? Let them see you working Christ-like principles for yourself. Let them see the light of Christ in your actions. Do what’s right and then let them to decide which way they will go. We certainly can’t make someone do something, but we can offer encouragement through our actions without ever saying a word. Forgive Your Spouse Before marriage can be
restored you have to forgive
your spouse for sinning against the marriage. did you know that true
forgiveness heals? It does. Pray about it and ask God to give you the
strength to forgive. To The Spouse Who
Committed Adultery
If you happen to be the
spouse who committed adultery, pray for your marriage and ask
God to help you heal within and stay
faithful. Ask God to give you the faith, trust, and hope in Him that
you need to stay strong for your marriage. There is no reason for me to
bring up “why” you committed adultery and hurt your spouse because I
already know the answer to what
makes a spouse cheat. But what I’m going to do is offer some
principles taught to us by Christ for inner healing and spiritual
strength. If you have been
receiving Heaven Ministries
marriage column for any length of time then you know how God hates divorce
and marriage
is permanent. Dependence on God is giving up our pride and allowing
God to go to work in our personal lives and marriage. It is doing His will
in our marriage because it is the right thing to do. Give up Your Proud Life
and Turn Away From Sin
Once you give up your
pride and selfish actions and walk behind God instead of in front of Him
you won’t feel the need to cheat on your spouse because, and I think you
already know the answer to this, you will be receiving your contentment
from the Lord rather than from others. We all want to feel good about
“who we are” and some of us go way out of our way to feel that
feeling. We use others to receive the admiration and praise we need. But
that’s not right. Our
proud hearts is what makes us sin! This is why God talks so much about pride because it negatively affects our lives and those around us. Pride is almost like an addiction or a virus. But once we can actually give up our pride (past life, patterns, lifestyle, and ways) we realize the power of Christ in our lives!! And we can begin living for Him rather than for self and we truly know what real love is. How
can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort
to obtain the praise that comes from God? (John 5:44) Too much pride in our attitude
and beliefs (self-importance) makes us think we deserve to have whatever
our hearts desire – we think we are free to have sex with whomever we
want even when we are married. But our Creator - our Source for REAL love
now and eternal life later has not given us this freedom—we have stolen
it! Love The Wife of Your
Youth
Enjoy
life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life
that God has given you under the sun—all your meaningless days. For this
is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun.
(Ecclesiastes 9:9) Learn
to be committed to your marriage and make your actions speak and show
love. Remember love is NOT a feeling but an action. Ninety nine percent of
marriage should be be based on actions and not on how we are feeling from
moment to moment or from day to day. How
sad it is when married couples do not appreciate and enjoy one another.
God blessed you both with each others companionship—learn to show love
to your spouse and watch love come back to you. “He
who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the Lord.” Renew
Your Heart and Mind Through Jesus Christ—Your Source Two
people are hurting. The spouse who was betrayed is suffering and the
spouse who feels guilty for the infidelities may be suffering. Ironically
you are both pulling away from the source that created you and created and
designed marriage for you! You are moving away in your own direction,
further and further away from God. Sermon
on the Mount For Your Marriage What
will you do with your lives without God? Without God and without faith you
will continue to walk on a road that is consumed with selfish desires. You
will never really understand what it feels like to really love someone and
be happy. You will always be tempted into lustful situations, even if you
remarry. Without God you will
not build the kind of character that knows how to honestly love another.
You will not build strength, determination or perseverance.
Secrets
To Looking and Feeling Your Best "The wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings. Let food be your medicine."
Part
I: The Fundamentals of Nutrition
********************************** My Husband Blames Drugs on Adultery -- Is This an Excuse? Ask Angie: My husband says drugs caused him to commit adultery; can this just be another excuse? Marriage Guidance: Yes, sadly your husband is bringing into play what he has read about drug addiction and then using it as a justification to commit adultery. Alcoholics and drug addicts should be responsible and accountable for their actions. Although, I do believe that addiction does control people’s actions somewhat, but they still need to face the consequences of their actions. Anger controls people’s actions too and if they hurt someone while enraged in their anger should they not be accountable for their actions? Of course they should, and so should the addict. Addicts love manipulating people and feeding them with “reasons” why they did something wrong against the marriage, but the fact is, they chose to continue doing drugs knowing the temptations are there. Addicts tend to hang around with the wrong kinds of people – people who are also addicts and have loose moral standards. The addict is spiritually bankrupt and needs inner healing, and until that happens they will be facing many more temptations just because of where they hang out and the people they choose as friends. The simple fact is addicts have episodes of sobriety; therefore, they have the scruples to make the right choices. Just as angry people can choose to get help for their anger, so can the addict choose to get help for his or her addiction. It is up to all of us to make the right choices, whether we’re addicts or not. Am I being too harsh? I don’t think so. I was an alcoholic for years, most of my choices were the wrong ones, but one day, when my husband stopped enabling those choices and had me stand on my own two feet I chose to do the right thing, and with the help of God, I conquered my addiction and accepted Jesus Christ for my life. Of course, I could not have overcome addiction on my own. I’m not where I am at in my life on my own doing. God is the greatest blessing in my life. God does not create addicts we create in ourselves what we decide and choose to be. And if others enable that behavior the addict may never become the person that He was meant to be. Your husband needs spiritual guidance more than anything else and then maybe he can ask God for the healing he needs to conquer his drug addiction. I am sorry that you have had to endure such a hardship as addiction and adultery. If you want to help your husband you need to learn how to detach from the addicts behavior, stop enabling and rescuing him. Have him be accountable for his actions – make him be responsible for what he does, and let him face the consequences. And do not blame yourself because it is not your fault. Our book written for the ministry called The Alcoholism Trap is a great book on addiction that focuses on two main areas of addiction, “how the addict can come out of their addiction to total sobriety” and “what the loved one of the addict can do” to help them. I have had wives that bought the book and inconspicuously left the book somewhere where the husband will ultimately find it and read when she is not around. Alcoholics that are still in denial will secretly read materials about addiction. Do You Love an alcoholic? – Stop Rescuing and Enabling Do You Love an Alcoholic? - Set Boundaries
Book
Resources:
Take care and God Bless! Angie and Frank Promoting Marriage God's Way!! ********************************** Copyright
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