Angie's Marriage Column ~ October 17, 2007
What to do When Married to an Unbeliever

 

I have been married for 10 years this Saturday. I was not a Christian when I got married, and neither was he. I am a Christian now, however my husband is not. I am not sure what I am asking or if there is a question. I just am not sure how to be married to someone who is not a Christian. It seems like we are constantly fighting and are not able to work things out. I want my marriage to work and I love my husband very much but it seems to be getting harder and harder every day.

 

Marriage Guidance: I suggest that you try and focus your thoughts on yourself and God and not so much about your husband’s unbelief. The more we try and get someone to believe the same as we do, the more they will run away from us! The best thing you can do is to know in your heart that you are trying to do the will of God and therefore continue doing what you know to be right and true as a believer.

 

When we want something so bad we tend to “control the situation” or we try and “control the way someone feels or thinks” but what happens is we usually get let down because we’re trying to control an outcome so much that we become obsessed with it. I think that is where you are at with your husband. You want him to be a Christian so much and because he won’t you have become resentful and disappointed.

 

All you need to do is “let it go” by giving it to God. Believe me, the minute you take the burden of your husbands faith from your shoulders you will feel so much better. It is not your responsibility to make your husband believe in God, but it is your responsibility to take care of your own faith in God. If you undermine your own faith in Christ by arguing with your husband than it is time to let it go.

 

Pray about it, and ask God what it is that He would have you do. In other words "be" the person that Christ Jesus wants you to be according to your faith, abilities, talents, gifts, and calling, etc. Live what you believe and your actions will lead your husband to Christ when he is ready.  

 

I want you to know that even though your husband is not a Christian God still considers your marriage sanctified. This does not mean that you can save your husband. It means that through the marriage relationship and the actions of the believing spouse, the husband or wife may come to be a believer and become saved on his or her own. So the wife should not divorce her husband and the husband should not divorce his wife.

 

LIKEWISE, “ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives.

(1 Peter 1,2 KJV)

 

Let your husband "see" Jesus Christ working in you by your loving actions. Stay faithful and pray every day about it. 

 

And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by her husband. (1 Corinthians 7:13, 14 KJV)

 

Copyright 2007