It is a self­ish deci­sion. You are mak­ing a choice that affects pri­mar­i­ly me, then the kids and every­one else we love.

After lis­ten­ing to you last night, I real­ized we are not here because of what you believe. We’re here because of what you don’t believe. 

You’ve con­vinced your­self of cer­tain key ideas, most of all your “what,” and you’ve found evi­dence to sup­port your deci­sion, whether it’s cer­tain arti­cles on attrac­tion or research show­ing the age kids can best han­dle divorce. (I have yet to hear you say you talked to some­one who advised you on resources to stay mar­ried and make things work.) And none of what you have told me as your rea­sons for mak­ing this choice are in line with what God says about rela­tion­ships in gen­er­al, mar­riage in par­tic­u­lar, and just god­ly liv­ing as a whole.

For the past three years, maybe even 13, you have been on a solo jour­ney, not invit­ing any­one to walk with you or to give you a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive. In your vac­u­um, alone, you have been wrestling with God. And you have lim­it­ed God to speak to you in one par­tic­u­lar way — your thoughts. 

He pri­mar­i­ly speaks through His Word, and you have noth­ing from the Word to sup­port your deci­sion. He speaks through wise coun­sel, and you have sought no one else’s god­ly guid­ance before mak­ing this dev­as­tat­ing choice. Our mind is a bat­tle­field, and our heart is deceit­ful and des­per­ate­ly wicked above all things (Jere­mi­ah 17:9). You’re choos­ing to live by your thoughts and feel­ings, and not the Word. And then you’re telling God “con­vince me oth­er­wise.” He can’t be any clear­er than the prin­ci­ples He’s already laid out in the Bible.

Our inner dia­logue should be, “This is what I think. This is what I feel. How does that line up with the Word of God? If it does­n’t, what I am think­ing and feel­ing is not of God.” (Psalm 139:23–24 — Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts. And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way ever­last­ing.)

So then you turn to the Word, and do as He com­mands there in black and red, not as what you think (Proverbs 3:5 — Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own under­stand­ing. Isa­iah 11:2–3 — the Spir­it of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spir­it of wis­dom and under­stand­ing, the spir­it of coun­sel and might, the spir­it of knowl­edge and of the fear of the Lord; And shall make him of quick under­stand­ing in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the see­ing of his eyes or the hear­ing of his ears.)

And as we are trans­formed by the renew­ing of our mind (Romans 12:2), we see our super­nat­ur­al, mir­a­cle-work­ing God, the same One Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead, do in us what we can­not effect on our own. 

Because that’s what He does, in all who are willing. 

And that’s what He promis­es.

You said Psalm 51 has always been your favorite scrip­ture. It’s David’s prayer of repen­tance after he com­mit­ted adul­tery with Bathshe­ba (Psalm 51:1–2, 10 — Blot out my trans­gres­sions… wash me thor­ough­ly from my iniq­ui­ty, and cleanse me from my sin. Cre­ate in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spir­it with­in me).

What I can’t under­stand in all of this, is if you have actu­al­ly repent­ed. To repent is not just to feel sor­ry for what you did. It’s also being com­mit­ted to no longer make sin­ful choic­es, to turn away (shuwb) from your wicked ways.

• Acts 3:19 — Repent there­fore, and turn back, that your sins may be blot­ted out.
• Ezekiel 18:30 — There­fore I will judge you, every one accord­ing to his ways. Repent, and turn your­selves from all your trans­gres­sions; so iniq­ui­ty will not be your ruin.
• II Chron­i­cles 7:14 — If my peo­ple, which are called by my name, shall hum­ble them­selves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heav­en, and will for­give their sin, and will heal their land.

How can you pray Psalm 51 in one breath, and then say in the next it’s inevitable you would cheat again if our covenant of mar­riage con­tin­ued? That’s not repen­tance (Romans 6:1–2 — What shall we say then? Are we to con­tin­ue in sin that grace may abound? God for­bid! How can we who died to sin still live in it?).

Since when did cheat­ing ever become an option, much less a giv­en? Mar­riage is a covenant between a hus­band, a wife, and most of all, God. Where is your com­mit­ment to God in all of this? I did­n’t cheat on you just because of me or you; I did­n’t cheat on you because cheat­ing on you would also be cheat­ing on Him (Psalm 51:4 — Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight.)

What it comes down to is a mat­ter of char­ac­ter. There are thou­sands of god­ly men and women who come from abu­sive back­grounds and do not cheat. There are thou­sands of god­ly men and women in present­ly-unful­fill­ing rela­tion­ships, who also do not choose to cheat, not because of their com­mit­ment to their spouse, but because of their com­mit­ment to GOD.

You speak of going on stage and min­is­ter­ing to oth­ers. I hon­est­ly don’t see what you could be teach­ing from the Word, whether to a crowd of thou­sands, or most impor­tant­ly, to our two chil­dren, if you’re not liv­ing your life and mak­ing your choic­es accord­ing to the Word (Psalm 51:13 — Then will I teach trans­gres­sors thy ways; and sin­ners shall be con­vert­ed unto thee).

God won’t bless any­thing you put your hand to if you don’t.

I don’t under­stand why you’ve already decid­ed a mul­ti­tude of things won’t work, with­out ever try­ing out a sin­gle one. I don’t know how to explain that to the kids as they grow old­er and ask what we did to keep their fam­i­ly togeth­er.

His needs, her needs — All I’ve heard about is your needs. Mar­riage is a part­ner­ship, and it’s not about mak­ing one per­son hap­py. As I said, only God can make you whole, and spous­es are part of the process. Eph­esians 5 is an amaz­ing chap­ter about god­ly liv­ing, and espe­cial­ly instruc­tions on god­ly mar­riage. Hus­bands, love your wives. Wives, sub­mit to your hus­bands.

There is no per­son too far gone as to be out of reach of God’s trans­for­ma­tive, redeem­ing pow­er. And there is no rela­tion­ship too far gone, espe­cial­ly when it’s a covenant. You think this mar­riage can’t be healed, restored, renewed, trans­formed. But that’s exact­ly what God does. The same pow­er that raised Christ from the dead is alive in us. But it can only work when we have faith, and believe.

Mark 9:23–24 (NKJV) — … All things are pos­si­ble to him who believes… Lord, help my unbelief. 

Rev­e­la­tions 2:7 (NKJV) — He that has an ear, let him hear.