Does a GOOD God want you to stay in a BAD marriage?

Marriage hot potato

The unseen part of the marital dilemma?

What is a bad marriage?

I cannot believe that a good God wants me to stay with such horrible man

There is not such thing as a bad marriage -
only marriages where people treat each other badly
Hilton

Benefits of Families

The Barna Update, December 20, 1999
Born-again Christians continue to have a higher likelihood of getting divorced than do non-Christians (27% and 24% respectively, a statistically significant difference)

Types of marital illnesses

• Emergency
• Acute
• Chronic

Power of the family

Family is the best institution to supply the needs of it's members

A well-ordered Christian household is a powerful argument in favor of the reality of the Christian religion—an argument that the infidel cannot gainsay. AH 36

What God wants

• God wants families that reflect him
• God wants to restore families
• God wants us to be one

What God does not want

• Broken relationships in any form
• Hidden silent divorces and separation

What to do?

Types of bad marriages

• Abuse
• Lies - bigamy
• Mental health issues
• Abandonment

Domestic violence

• Chronic
• Situational

Possible solutions

• Deal with issues before working on relationship
• Pray and wait for God to intervene
• Separate
• Divorce
• Seek help - Intervention

A word about Divorce

Divorce

• A necessary evil - like amputation
• God hates divorce but understand it may be required
• Problems

Problems

Legally, divorce is a single event, but socially, emotionally, and psychologically it is a chain of events, relocations, and radically changed relationships that result in broken families, changed lifestyles, economic hardships and a series of transitions that challenge, disrupt and modify the lives of individuals, promoting growth for some, and exposing personal vulnerability’s for others

Surprising benefits of marital problems

God's will for you

Growth

Rom 5:3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
Rom 5:4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
Rom 5:5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Witness

Wives, in the same way submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, 2 when they see the purity and reverence of your lives.
1 Pet 3:7

How to deal

Mindset and perspective

L.G.B.P

Make their strategy ineffective