Aftershock - Confronting Your HusbandSample

What If He Never Repents?

Sadly, some husbands may choose to stay willingly stuck in unrepentant sexual sin. While a separation plan can and does activate the great redemption available to a wayward spouse who will embrace it, the fact remains: A husband can permanently refuse to renounce (and perhaps even pridefully nurse) the connection with his sin. This may become obvious either by his words or his long-demonstrated actions.

Scripture is the clearest about how you can respond to unrepentant physical infidelity if that is the stark reality you’re facing. Divorce is a concession God’s Word overtly lays out when a hard heart manifests itself in unrepentant physical infidelity. Likely more complex, however, is biblically discerning what the course of the marriage looks like if perpetual, volitional, and unrepentant pornography use alone is the case.

To be fair, there may be varied theological conclusions, but simply standing by and “making peace” with pornography’s devastating presence is not a viable one. Nevertheless, the decision to divorce should not be rushed, adopted without close counsel, nor eagerly enacted as a “simple solution” to the pain that sexual sin inflicts. Still, for some, this may indeed be the conclusion they arrive at due to the headlong choices a spouse repeatedly makes, proving their long-term, willful, and covenant-violating hard heart.

If, when, and how to release someone to the rebellion they have chosen is again a matter of wise biblical counsel and something a wife’s closeness to God and His Spirit must guide. In even the darkest valley, there will be provision and the presence of the Always-Faithful One who “sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).

If you find yourself at such a crossroads, remember that your own health and recovery still remain vital and entirely possible with God. Victim is not your identity; overcomer is!

Next devotional in Aftershock series: The Road to Recovery.

Previous devotional in Aftershock series: Making Decisions and Preparing for Action.

For more help, visit focusonthefamily.com/tag/pornography; FocusontheFamily.com/Aftershock; or you can call the ministry’s Counseling Department for a free consultation at 855-771-HELP (4357).