What are valid reasons for breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend?

As we have already seen Scripture clearly speaks about the relationship between one man and one woman. Engagement should therefore be seen as a serious step of firm commitment to marry (having received clear guidance from the Lord in the decision) and not as a trial period. I would hasten to say that should a mistake be realised before one is married it would be far better to admit it and end the relationship, than to continue in a path which is not the Lord's will.

To choose first and then to pray – is this not a trap set by Satan before many a child of God? This is especially so when one’s heart is already committed to marry a person outside the will of God. Perhaps the person is unconverted or walking in a path where true Christian fellowship is not possible. Or perhaps this person will entice the believing partner into a worldly lifestyle. Whatever the reason, the person does not answer to the will of God for His own.

Advice is sought from one’s parents or possibly from an experienced brother: the situation is explained and prayer is requested. They raise again the question of the will of God and point to the dangers involved in such a marriage. However, the heart has already decided and will not turn back. Similar situations arise in matters other than marriage. How important to acquire the habit of seeking the Lord before making decisions in one’s heart. Then it will be natural to turn first to our well-known Friend in the decisive hours of life.

It is God's firm command: "Come out from among them, and be ye separate." If one has formed a yoke wrongly, then if at all possible to break it without injustice to the other party, he should do so. As to marriage, he is not at liberty to break this bond (1 Cor. 7:10); and in certain other cases the same may apply, in order that the believer may, through experience, learn the governmental results of disobedience. Compare Joshua 9:15-19. But the general rule is that of separation; and if one has put himself in a position where he cannot separate righteously, then through painful experience he may still learn what separation means in moral reality.

Such an action certainly shows the seriousness of the evil of sinful associations. We must not diminish the seriousness of this, though in our day, under grace, we cannot require the putting away of wives, though they are not saved. The nations Israel was involving themselves with were actually demon worshipers, so that God had absolutely forbidden any marriages with them. Believers today are not under such a law, though they are told, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers" (2 Cor. 6:14). If they disobey this scripture, they are not told to put away the unbeliever, but rather, "a wife is not to depart from her husband" (1 Cor. 7:10), though "if the unbeliever departs, let him depart" (1 Cor. 7:15). Once the marriage is consummated, the believer is not free before God to leave it except in the case of the partner being unfaithful (Mt. 19:9). Today, a believer who marries an unbeliever must learn by experience the painful results of this disobedience, rather than being relieved of such results.

Fornication would virtually itself be a breaking of the marriage bond, which is only confirmed by a divorce in this case. The partner who was not guilty would not therefore be committing adultery in marrying another after divorce, though generally there may have been fault on both sides, and before another marriage, one should be broken before God, seeking only His will. 1Corinthians 7:15 shows also that desertion is considered a breaking of the marriage bond, so that the one who was deserted would be left no longer under that bond.

Scripture says "Do not ye judge them that are within." Oh, what divine wisdom is needed here, for we should remember what is due to Him. Yet the most unsparing judgment should be of ourselves (ver. 31). Israel's sad condition it was that led to this permission, but from the beginning it was not so. But then there may truly be a cause, and where that is, then before God the marriage tie is broken. If one were rightly exercised as to what was due to the Lord, I do not think any would care to marry while the one who had sinned was alive. But if they did, I do not see how the assembly could rightly interfere.

But verses 9 and 10 are not simply Paul's advice, but the Lord's commandment. The wife is told positively not to depart from her husband. Of course, if he were unfaithful to her, this would be a different matter. If circumstances were such however, that a wife did leave her husband, she is told to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband. If of course in the meantime her husband had remarried, this would change things completely. She could then never be rightly re-united to him, even if his second wife died (Dt. 24:3,4).

But verses 9 and 10 are not simply Paul's advice, but the Lord's commandment. The wife is told positively not to depart from her husband. Of course, if he were unfaithful to her, this would be a different matter. If circumstances were such however, that a wife did leave her husband, she is told to remain unmarried, or to be reconciled to her husband. If of course in the meantime her husband had remarried, this would change things completely. She could then never be rightly re‑united to him, even if his second wife died (Deut.24:3,4).

p130 [To the same.] R T Grant, My meaning in saying the tie was broken was this, that God never allowed the Christian to break the tie; but when adultery was committed the one doing so had broken the tie, and the Lord allowed the other party to hold it to be broken and act on it by formal divorce - did not require it, but allowed it. The legalisation of it is submission to the powers that be, for common order, just as the divorce was in Jewish law. Things are so loose in many parts of the States as in Illinois, that Christians should be very particular. A person having left and being a long time away is not sufficient, as they may come back, and the tie had not been broken - only that, as to criminality, after some seven years, in England the courts would not hold a person guilty of bigamy.

On the other hand, according to 1 Corinthians 7, I cannot doubt that the Christian, deliberately deserted by the unchristian partner, was in every way free, free that is to marry; but it assumes deliberate forsaking by the one who went away. The Christian was never to do it, and if obliged to leave, to remain unmarried or return. Romans 7:3 has nothing, I think, to do with it; the case supposed is of being (not "married") to another man while the tie subsists; then she is guilty of adultery - not, if the husband be dead. Divorce is not in question, but acts of sin while the marriage subsists. This is evident. Mark 10 does not annul Matthew 19: a man putting away his wife is looked at as his act or will. If he puts away, he has broken a tie God formed, by his own will; then marrying another is adultery. By act of sin the tie was broken already, and judicial divorce allowed.

Again, there are cases in which separation may be a necessity or allowable, where divorce could not be according to God; separation leaving yet room for the mercy of God to come in and restore; and this door the apostle opens in Corinthians (1 Cor. 7:15), not too widely. Divorce he does not touch: for the Lord has decided there.