How can I restore my marriage?

Now I say as a husband, have I failed? What do I do if I have failed as a husband? Obviously the first thing to do is to get on my knees and confess my failure to the Lord in exactly the same way as I would confess any other failure. There is no difference. Let us be preserved from thinking that any failure in the home can be glossed over lightly because it does not reach the public eye. God sees us. We are under the eye of God. Any failure in the home must be confessed in exactly the same way as any public failure. And if the wife fails in any of her responsibilities she has exactly the same recourse for help and for blessing, to confess it. Then we must do something that we are not always prone to do, to confess it to each other that we might not fall into the same snare again and so avoid anything that would hinder the interests of the Lord. I believe with all my heart that Aquila and Priscilla would be such a couple, so concerned about doing what was right for the Lord that they would be harmoniously knitted together, united in the interests of the Lord. This is the attitude that governed their lives. What a delightful couple indeed.

It must be entirely a question of individual faith. You must walk before God in happy loving fellowship. You should both wait upon God together and seek to be of one mind in the Lord. This is your happy privilege. It is of the utmost importance for man and wife to cultivate the daily habit of waiting together on the Lord. It has a marvelous effect upon the whole range of domestic life. Bring everything before God, pour out your hearts together. Have no secrets, no reserve. Then will your hearts be knit together in holy love, and the current of your personal, conjugal and domestic life will flow peacefully and happily on, to the praise of Him who has made you one and called you to walk together as heirs of the grace of life.

"Debate thy cause with thy neighbor himself; and discover not a secret to another; lest he that hears it put thee to shame, and thine infamy turn not away." How guarded must be the doors of our lips! Now that disagreement, discord, ill-feeling has come between neighbors, is it to be settled by spreading it elsewhere? Let us have grace and honest courage of heart to face our neighbor in a spirit of meekness and true concern, that a proper understanding may be obtained. How painful the innumerable cases of offense that have never been settled, but only aggravated, by selfish, thoughtless gossip, when a word of simple apology might have dismissed it forever!

Imagine, for a moment, that I am a happily married man, which I am! Imagine, also, that I love my wife very much, which I do! Imagine, further, that I try very hard to avoid upsetting her, which, again, I do try to achieve! Imagine, however, that, one day, I do something which upsets her very much. What am I to do, to put things right, to make amends? I know. I will go out and buy the biggest box I can afford of her favourite chocolates. I do so. I give it to my wife, saying how sorry I am for what I had done. She accepts my apology. She is duly placated. She enjoys the chocolates. We are back to where we were before I offended her. Everything is fine. The enjoyment of our long-term relationship is restored. Well and good.

Satan is very active today in the homes of the saints. I want to address myself to those who are husbands and wives because we cannot expect a true functioning of the assembly, either in worship or in testimony, if there are not proper conditions in the home, with both husband and wife fully committed to the interests of the Lord. Much of the weakness and declension that exists in the Christian testimony begins at home. Many of the problems that are in the homes are carried into the assembly and the conditions are sadly affected. Paul is saying ‘Husbands, wives, settle all your difficulties, get right with the Lord, get right with one another and find your true place in the assembly for the glory of Christ and for the glory of God'. Dear brethren, Satan is attacking the homes of the saints in perhaps a way he has never done before. In our part of the world in recent years we know of six Christian homes that have been affected by Satan, divorce has come in and how sad that is. Dear brethren, let us hear the warning, the enemy is attacking the homes of the saints. Divorce and breakdown in the family is a dishonour to the Lord. I cannot state it in stronger terms. Husbands and wives need to be devoted to the Lord and sink their differences, whatever they may be, forgive each other and live together in a way that is becoming to the Lord Jesus Christ and to God. What was happening at Corinth was a disgrace to the position that God had brought them into. Young men, young women, if you are looking to get married do not enter into it casually, do not trifle with each other's affections. Marriage is a matter of the greatest importance. Think about it, pray about it, and enter into it with all the solemnity that it requires because if this breaks down, again I say, it is a positive dishonour to the Lord's name. Do not think that because this kind of thing characterises the world that it can be allowed in the Christian circle; it must be refused.

In the painful case you name, we do not believe it to be the right thing for a son to “try and manage a reunion” between the father and mother. If the husband wishes to come back, the wife should receive him. This is clearly involved in 1 Corinthians 7:13. “The woman which has an husband that believes not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” If he wishes to come back, it is tantamount to “being pleased to dwell with her,” and if she be told “not to leave him,” it is tantamount to being told to receive him. At least, so we judge. It may be the Lord is about to bring the husband to Himself. If so, it would be very sad if a Christian wife should prove a stumbling-block by failing in grace. No doubt, he has greatly failed in his duty as a husband by leaving his wife, even were there nothing more serious. But if he really desires — apart from any management or any influence brought to bear upon him — to come back, we cannot but judge it to be the duty of a Christian wife to receive him and to seek “by her chaste manner of life, coupled with fear,” to win him for Christ. Should she refuse and he be then driven away into sin or hardness of heart, she could never forgive herself. Back

The attitude of the injured one should be that of forgiveness—a forgiveness forthcoming the moment repentance takes place. The attitude of the injurer should be that of repentance.

But there is another danger, into which, if not very watchful, any one of us might very easily fall. I might go to the brother who has trespassed against me, not so much with a desire to "gain" him as to satisfy my own conscience, in a hard, legal way, that I have acted scripturally toward him. Suppose such a case. I go and "tell him his fault;" but instead of finding him hard and unrepentant, he is thoroughly broken down. He freely owns that he has trespassed against me, and shows every sign of genuine contrition. But what follows? Alas' I am more concerned about the injury which I have sustained than I am for my brother's restoration to happy fellowship with me. The pangs of wounded pride spur me on, and I make it but sadly too manifest that I would prefer my brother getting the discipline of the unrepentant, rather than the forgiveness of the repentant. Grace has wrought in him, but not in me, and in my heart I do not forgive him.

It was the more notable that Jehovah should counsel His own, who might feel embarrassed by His command to love the neighbour as oneself. Instead of leaving it to human judgment or its conflict with amiable sentiment, He warns of the dangerous consequence in yielding to impulse. If the unwise step has been taken, it is right to acknowledge it, and wrong to break the words which have passed though to hurt. What then is becoming? "Go, humble thyself, and importune thy neighbour." This is painful, but wholesome. Jehovah will not fail to bless subjection to His word, and make a way of escape for both, though each may have to suffer for his own measure of fault in the transaction.

The case supposed is that of two believers, and one has offended against the other, though neither apparently are entirely free from blame, and consequently both are suffering in their health. The main offender comes with heart-felt confession of the wrong he committed. The other is thereby moved to confess anything which may have been wrong on his side, and then melted before God they begin to pray for each other. If they have really forsaken their wrong-doing and are going in the way of righteousness they may expect to be heard of God and healed.