What if my marriage was a mistake?
On Mondays I like to post a reader question and take a stab at answering it, and today’s is rather sad. A woman writes:
Can you offer resources toward unequally yoked marriages? Also info on how to deal with a severely emotionally disturbed spouse? I slept with my best friend ( but we were also in love), got pregnant, and got married. My husband isn’t against my faith, he accepts it and promotes it to the kids, but he doesn’t have it and won’t consider going to church, etc. He has some different morals, values, etc. also, it turns out he has major issues. Several people in his immediate family committed suicide and he’s dealing with depression, etc. I know that God can redeem this, but how do I know if our marriage was just a result of my mistakes or if it is something that God will use for good. I don’t want to be a martyr in my own life, but I do want to do what God wants.
I can feel her pain and her dilemma. She got married because she thought it was the right thing to do in the circumstances–but she’s not happy now and she’s wondering if her marriage was a mistake. She’s wondering if she’ll ever feel the loved she’s dreamed of, or if she’s just stuck in this relationship.
I know many other women asking themselves that question, especially if the marriage wasn’t originally planned. They got pregnant. They wanted to escape their home life. They were single moms and just wanted a roof over their heads. And now they wonder if they chose wrong, and if they missed out on what God really wanted for their lives.
So let’s try to tackle this one today: what do you do if you feel like your marriage was a mistake?
Let’s Stop Thinking About “The One”
Part of the reason that we feel like we made a mistake is that we think God had a Plan A for us, and we chose Plan B. If we hadn’t have married this person, then we would have found the one that God really wanted us to marry–our perfect soulmate, so to speak–and we would be far happier. Instead, we messed up. We didn’t follow God’s plan for our lives. And so doesn’t it follow that if we’re going to get back on track for Plan A, we’re going to have to ditch this Plan B? If we married the wrong person, then we can never really be on track with God in this life.
I understand that thinking. But I also think it’s totally off base. Here’s why:
God doesn’t have just one person for you to marry. God lets you choose.
This idea that there is a perfect soul mate for us out there to complete us is actually not biblical. Gary Thomas did a great job explaining this in a recent blog post, “Why God Didn’t (and Won’t) Tell You To Marry Your Spouse.”
Gary writes,
There is, quite frankly, nothing in Scripture that ever tells us it is our sworn duty to marry one particular person. Whether we marry, and who we marry, are spoken of in Scripture as part of God’s “permissive will,” something He allows us to choose.
Gary goes on to show that Scripture gives several reasons for marrying and help on choosing someone of the right character, but it doesn’t say that there is only one person for each of us. We’re given the chance to choose for ourselves.
Let’s Own our Choices
Why does this matter? Because if you realize that there wasn’t a specific Plan A, then it’s not about getting back in line with what God wants for you. It’s more about realizing that God lets us choose, and now it’s time to figure out how to glorify God in the midst of those choices.
Gary writes,
Far healthier, spiritually, than to sit in resentment against God, is to say to yourself, “I chose this man/woman. It might or might not help to explore why. But since I made the choice of my own free will, I bear certain responsibilities for the commitment I have made.” Then God becomes your ally, not your enemy, in helping you face the future. Instead of, “God, why did you lead me into this mess,” you’ll pray, “God, help lead me out of the mess I’ve made.”
So many of us believe that God led us to our spouse, and then when that spouse becomes abusive or becomes mean or has an affair we blame God. “But you told me to marry him!” Or else we think, like this letter writer, that we missed the boat and so we have to jump off the one we’re on and row really hard to get back to where God wants us to be.
But what God wants is to have us submit to Him where we are right now. That’s God’s will for us–to serve Him in the everyday, even if our everyday has taken some bad turns. It’s not to get back to a perfect life He had planned for us. It’s to let Jesus shine through where we are.
It’s Freeing to Realize “I Chose Him”
When you realize that you yourself made the choice to marry him–God didn’t make you, your parents didn’t make you, your husband didn’t make you–you made that choice, then you can also see how you have a responsibility to make that marriage the best it can be. If you feel that somehow you were coerced into marriage than you can never really throw your all into it. But if you realize, “I made those vows myself”, then you can see that you have a responsibility to them.
Where Do You Go From Here?
What does God want you to do in a difficult marriage? What is the best way to serve God right now?
I’ve written a lot on this topic, and so I’m going to link to different posts that can give you some practical ideas about what to do now. But the main thing I wanted to leave you with today is that it’s not about finding that Plan A. It’s about recognizing those choices you freely made, and then figuring out, “how do I serve God today, right where I am?”
Could you have made different choices? Of course. But you didn’t. And you don’t know how those choices would have turned out anyway. But you did choose this, so let’s work with it and see how we can find contentment and peace right now.
When You’re in a Loveless Marriage
Living in a Loveless Marriage
When You’ve Checked Out of Your Marriage
Why the Vow Matters
When is it Okay to Give Up on My Marriage?
Encouragement for Those in Really Tough Marriages
10 Truths About Emotionally Destructive Marriages
How to Get Back on Track in Your Marriage
Changing the Dynamic in my Marriage
The Two Ingredients of All Successful Marriages
Be a Spouse, Not an Enabler
Tackling Huge Marriage Problems
I’ve also got a ton of posts on how to spend time together more, how to ask for help, and so much more. You can find those on my Marriage FAQ page.
I hope some of those are helpful.
But for today, I just wanted to dispel this idea that we may have married the wrong person, missed out on God’s specific, perfect will, and now we need to get back to it.
God’s will is for you to glorify Him today, where you are. It’s for you to love in a healthy way that points people to Jesus (it’s not for you to enable sin, though!).
So now let me know: what do you think of this idea that there is one perfect person for us to marry? Let’s talk in the comments!
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
When you say “I do,” something supernatural happens and God now sees the two of you as a single unit. Whether or not it was a good choice to marry this person, it is now God’s will for you to make that marriage work. So telling yourself it was a mistake (which it may have been) isn’t all that helpful. Fixing the problem does not involve backing out on your vows. You can only go forward now, doing the best you can where you are now. God wants you to have a good marriage with the person you are now married to. That’s what the Bible teaches.
So true, Lindsay! We have to watch how we think, because the purpose should be to build the marriage and honor God, not to focus on our own feelings.
Hi Shiela,
I think you’ve given some great advice here. Really, this falls into the same category as dealing with any other bad choice we’ve made that has lasting consequences. We have to deal with these consequences with integrity, and trust God that He always knew we would make that choice, and He will sustain us through the ramifications. Look at all the bad choices the heroes of the faith made! But God works for our good in all things.
And it’s not always even a bad choice. The woman in the original post is in the same position as someone who came to know Jesus after having gotten married. It’s sad that her husband doesn’t share her faith up to this point, but no one is hopeless. Nothing is impossible with God. It’s also sad that he’s going through depression, but the truth is that all of us have baggage of one sort or another. Different personality types are often attracted to one another, and then find living with one another difficult. But God works all these things out for good. It is possible that, through his emotional struggles, he will reach a crisis point in which he will accept Jesus. I don’t mean to minimize her struggles at the present time. But I do agree with you that regretting her decision to marry is not helpful.
Funny, this dovetails exactly with my most recent post!
God bless.
Thanks, Keith! And thanks for sharing your post. It’s great!
Thanks for dropping by, Sheila! (This time I’ll get your name spelled right. 😉 )
I feel for the poster so much! The same thing happened to me – I slept with my boyfriend, whom I loved, got pregnant (first time out the gate!) and got married. After the wedding he turned into a totally different creature. I thought he was going insane and I was doomed to be married to this horrible creature. I spent the first two years of my marriage thinking that God was punishing me for my sin and I had made a huge mistake. Turns out, he was an alcoholic
Things got progressively worse (to the point where he threatened to kill himself the night of my daughter’s second birthday party) until I finally left while pregnant with our second child (while seeking counseling from a couple from our church). I didn’t seek a divorce, I just knew that things were not healthy for me or our child(ren).
It took a while after I left, but he eventually got sober and was like a whole new person. Only, he no longer wanted anything to do with church or religion.
That was five years ago and in that time I can personally say that God has completely redeemed and transformed our marriage. We have grown closer together than ever, we now have four kids and he is beginning to come back to the Lord (and has really challenged me in my own walk as well). I would rather be married to my husband than anyone else in the world.
Do not underestimate the Lord’s power to transform lives, but we have to be willing to give Him the chance. If when I had left I had written my husband off as a mistake and a lesson learned and taken things into my own hands, I would have missed out on so many blessings that the Lord had in store for me. I am so so grateful, even for that beginning period, because in the end, it has strengthened our marriage even more.
Sarah, I know someone dear to me walking through this same thing right now. Thanks for sharing your story–it’s so great to hear how God can redeem, and I pray that God does so for my friend, too.
I’m sorry for your friend and their spouse – it’s not fun. One advantage that I did have was the counsel and wisdom of several people close to me who are recovering alcoholics (including my mom!). I also attended al-anon for a time.
Great post!
I think that a sense of entitlement, fueled by both mass and social media, is responsible for a lot of the discontent in marriage. “Go for the gold!” and “Don’t settle!” look fine on moto posters, but they’re a remarkably stupid way to live. Life is lived in the interstices, the time between the great things that sometimes never happen. Life is lived with others; it’s messy, and only we can define a winning season.
And there’s also a matter of perspective.
That aspect of the question struck me in the letter you quoted, in the phrase “I don’t want to be a martyr in my own life”.
I worked as a paramilitary in some bad places. I have seen martyrs. They died horribly, and some of them were my friends. It’s not a word that can even vaguely be applied to the “did I marry the wrong person” question.
Thanks for your thoughts, Andrew. They’re great! And I appreciate your thoughts on the word “martyr”, too. In a similar vein, it always bugs me when in political debates people throw the term “Nazi” around. No matter how much I may disagree with certain political parties, they are not Nazis–and to say that diminishes the lives of the people who perished under Nazi rule. We do need to be careful with our words. Great reminder!
Hi. This is my life the post is referencing. These are my words, but many other points were not included. They aren’t included in their entirety. I was not comparing myself to actual martyrs. I really should have used better wording, but I was very distraught while writing that. I meant giving up my own happiness and peace (figuratively dying to self for God) to love my husband even if he mistreats me and rejects me. He is so depressed from losing his twin to suicide that he is not the same person. He doesn’t want to work on anything. I am carrying the weight all myself. He pushes me away. We also have a special needs child. I am hurting and alone in so many ways. I pray for real martyrs every day and have cried for our brothers and sisters in Syria etc. so please forgive my poor choice of words.
Oh anon. I’m so sorry. It’s very hard to live with someone with depression. I’ve been the on both sides of that.
If it’s any consolation at all. Your husband probably pushes you away because he doesn’t want you to have to deal with this. It’s so hard. Depression really is like a giant crushing weight. You can’t do anything, you don’t see any hope of light or even colour in the world. Everything is just heavy and exhausting. And you’re stuck with all your awful thoughts. No matter how hard you try you just can’t shake them off or muster any energy for anything. And after a while you forget how it felt before and you despair of ever feeling different. You get so sick of it yourself that you don’t even want to talk about it to other people, ’cause you just feel like the giant thunder cloud that rains on everyone’s parade.
On the other side dealing with a person caught in depression is so hard. It’s frustrating and you’re basically powerless to help them. And it hurts cause they hurt. Just know that being there and even helping with the simplest things, like cooking, or making a doctors appointment or going for a walk with them means a lot. Even if the person can’t express it at the time.
If it’s an option at all you should try and get him into treatment. Therapy is hard and exhausting but it’s worth it. Anti-depressants can be a life saver as well.
It would be a good idea for you to get into a support group of some kind. Your husband can’t help you right now and all this is too heavy to carry alone. Let people help you.
Praying for you.
Sheila, thank you for having the courage, fortitude, and compassion to address such difficult situations. I appreciate you.
Thanks, Debi!
Awww, man. It’s incredibly rare that I disagree with you, but I do this time. Respectfully, of course! I read the Gary Thomas blog before and felt it was also a little skewed towards deism – but only in marriage which makes almost no sense. I wrote a blog about that. You can’t say God cares about the number of hairs on your head but not what person you marry. But I’m also one of the few Christians against marriage following a pregnancy as a way to “right” it. I do agree that every choice we make is ours and God isn’t to blame for any of them. We do choose our spouse, but I think God is a little more romantic than Thomas is giving him credit for.
Scripture say that you cannot control yourself you should marry because its better to marry than to burn with passion. I don’t think its healthy for a child to only have one parent. A child needs both a father and a mother. God created us different for a purpose, both contributing to shaping the child while its growing. There is definitely exceptions this where its better to raise the child alone. But like I said, a child needs a father and a mother.
Ok, how about this – while there may not be “one” right person for us, would you agree that there is a such thing as someone being wrong for us? I mean, all of our husbands and wives aren’t interchangeable, right? My point is that just because two people “burned” together and it resulted in a pregnancy, that doesn’t mean marriage is a cure-all. Marriage doesn’t guarantee the parents or child will be happy or the relationships will be healthy. What I’m saying is this bandaid theory about marriage is kind of dangerous because it employs guilt and shame as miracle modifiers to “fix” a pregnancy.
PS – please do not misunderstand me here; I am not judging the poster AT ALL. I’m talking about this belief in general.
Hi DC,
I commented above regarding my own marriage after getting pregnant. I just wanted to add, speaking to my own experience, that getting married after an unexpected pregnancy isn’t necessarily a way to make things right so much as it is, at least to me, giving the Lord a chance to work through the medium of creating a family. It obviously isn’t the right path in every situation, but even when things were at their worst on my marriage, and even when I thought I’d made a huge mistake, I never once regretted trying to at least make a go of creating a family unit.
In my case it turned out marvelously in the end, and I wonder how much more often that would be the case if people gave it a shot and stuck it out through the trials. Again, not always, but probably more often than you’d think.
Dang, that’s awesome! I love hearing stories like that!
For those of you who have felt like you made the wrong choice or wished you weren’t married how long did it take until you were happy again? I’m going on two years now. We are both still kind to each other so I kept expecting the feelings to return but they haven’t.
Erin, the best I can say to you is that there is no set time. Every couple moves through these times at different rates. My husband and I have been working our way back to the romance we shared as a young couple after 10 years together, 6 of those years married, and two kids later. We had to accept that there were differences in our relationship. We had to understand that not all differences were bad, just different, understand that we will not be exactly as we were but we can get close, and understand that we have both changed. We started by accepting that the other has changed. Did that change our feelings for one another, and, at its core, it did not. So, then we began a journey to relearn the other, like dating all over again.
My parents went through a similar time as I was preparing for college. They worked through it by finding things to do together even if the other did not like it. My dad did the after Thanksgiving shopping thing, and my mom camped long beyond when she’d said she’d stop. They reconnected during those times. My friends went through a small time like this just after they were married. It was different being a mother and father living together to raise their child than husband and wife. They went back to God and starting dating again.
I think the biggest thing you can do is find ways to reconnect. People look down on one person doing all the work, but in the beginning you just might. However, if you make the effort, your spouse sees you making the effort, sometimes that is all it takes. It sounds corny when you say it out loud, but if you have tried to reconnect and it seems to have failed try reconnecting in a way that speaks to your spouse. I, personally, killed my husband in several video games before we really started to take off again (BTW, I hate video games).
Great quote by author and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar:
“I have no way of knowing whether or not you married the wrong person. But I do know that if you treat the wrong person like the right person, you could well end up having married the right person after all. It is far more important to be the right kind of person than it is to marry the right person.”
That’s an awesome quotation! Love it.
Love this!
This is awesome!!
hi Sheila! I loved your blog post, but wanted to add my two cents. While I don’t think God necessarily leads everyone to that one person, I believe he CAN if he so chooses. I also think if we prayerfully seek a spouse and one comes about that we suspect could be an excellent potential mate, that God can help our hearts know if this is right or not. Obviously how that looks can/will vary from person to person. So while I agree that he doesn’t give us each one special someone, I won’t put it beyond his ability to put two people together as he sees fit or to lead someone’s heart to know if that union is a good decision or not. 🙂
Excellent post.
And I love Gary Thomas’ writing.
This post was so great–it was exactly what I needed to hear. I’ve been married 7 years now but I was married only a couple weeks when I realized I’d made a mistake. My husband had been dishonest about a number of this when we were dating. Once we we married and the truth came out I felt completely betrayed. I basically married a man I didn’t know. I made a choice to stay married and make it work but I’ve always harbored feelings of resentment. That I maybe missed out on the “true” love of my life. After reading your post I’m realizing that I need to let go of those feelings and focus on making my marriage the best it can be. I also love that Zig Ziglar quote!
I have to keep rechoosing my husband over and over each day. If I hadn’t decided to do this, I would not have my beautiful bAby girl. My husband admitted to cheating on me the day I found out I was pregnant, 8.5 years into our marriage. I came within a hairs breadth of leaving him and having an abortion. He totally repented and has turned from a less than loving jerk into a real man and a great partner, through hard work on our relationship and THERAPY. I also went through post partum depression after birth. What if he had left me then?
I’ve been with my husband for 29 yrs..he cheated on me a few times when we was younger .we have 6wobderful children and 4amazing grand children.. A year ago he accused me of cheating on him with his cousin right in front if his cousin. I didn’t cheat on him it made me so mad and embarrassed I left him there and I ended up acting out and doing what he accused me of. Here we are a year latter trying to fix are marriage all he does is question me about sex I had with the other guy. My question is will this relationship with my husband work after all this? I need advice..
While I understand the spirit of the idea that God doesn’t have one right person for us, I do believe He can tell us whom we should marry. As a Christian, we should be seeking out God’s guidance with all of our life decisions, including marriage. If God doesn’t want us to marry someone and if we are in communication with Him about it, He will let us know that we should walk away. Whether we listen or not is where our choice comes in. However, as a previous commenter mentioned, if we marry anyway then we become one and, at that point, God wants to protect our union.
An example from my personal experience: I was 17 and had just met my future husband at a youth convention. I was going to college soon and, after a bad relationship a couple years prior, had made peace with being single for the rest of my life. I truly felt that is what God called me to. So along comes this boy, and God whispers (actually, more like shouted so loud it literally knocked the wind out of me and I had to sit down) that this was the one I should marry. I have only ever received that clear of direction one other time in my life (when I became pregnant with our third son and I thought I would miscarry and He said, “trust me”). I know that my husband is the one God wanted me to marry. We have been married over 11 years and it hasn’t always been easy but I have never doubted that he is ” the one.” If anything happens in the future and the devil drives a wedge between, I will know that it is not because God did not intend for us to be together. I will know that it is because we live in a broken world and must continually battle the devil’s attempts at stealing the blessings God has given to us.
As for the original question, I believe that God does want her marriage to work, maybe forever, maybe it will end up being just for a season. If it was fully up to Him, it would be a beautiful union for ever but, at the end of the day, it is a choice between two people living in a fallen world. But God will work all things for our good. He will allow us to live with the concequenses of our choice, if we disobey Him, but if we confess and follow Him, He can bring us that joy and peace, regardless of our circumstances. Our circumstances are temporary but His perfect love is eternal.
I’ve been married for nine months my husband and I live in different cities I was preparing to move with him after our marriage,my husband has been having affairs every sense,I confronted him about and delayed my move,after having the woman intuition that God gives us,I looked on his Facebook page seen a new comment, wow,there he was posted in a picture with another woman with that woman claiming to be madly in love with him,I called his phone there he was with the woman told me he’s now in love with her to let him go.He texs now and then says he loves me but he still lives with this woman she justified his behavior and her own, I pray I pray I pray I should be going crazy right now but through prayer God is keeping me..I believe God will open his and her eyes to the error of their ways,there is nothing good that will take place in a unholy union, people believe that God says we reap what we sow,my message is this take heed and find peace pray and let God work it out for you.
Sometimes I feel marriage and kids were a mistake. Not necessarily because of what they do or don’t do. But what I do or don’t do.
I read things about how wives and children want to be lead, but I don’t see it in my own home. I don’t see the evidence that they want to be lead.
Sometimes, the mistake isn’t that person you’ve chosen. What feels like the mistake is that you’ve chosen to enter into something that no matter how hard or smart you work at it, you don’t seem to be getting better at it.
I had little to no problem leading my soldiers. They would follow and do what I say. I can do my job. I can lead a computer system installation, lead a Sunday School class.
But can’t seem to lead a family.
I can balance my spending, but then when married, have debt that I didn’t have before.
Sometimes, the mistake isn’t the other person. The mistake was thinking I could be a good husband or father. Or at least being one who is compelling that your family wants to follow.
I’m not saying I’m perfect. But what I’m saying is I see little evidence that wives are looking to follow their husbands.
I’ve had two wives. Neither seems genuinely interested in that prospect.
What is the point of trying to lead when you look at back and see no one following?