Couples
"Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it."
Psalm 127:1
Marriage, Relationships, Divorce and Remarriage
Marriage questions can touch some of the deepest places of the heart: hope, fear, love, disappointment, sin, betrayal, loneliness, conscience, family life, church life and our walk with God.
This page is being redesigned as a growing hub of biblical guidance for those preparing for marriage, those already married, those in difficult marriages, those married to unbelievers, those living together, those facing separation or divorce, and churches seeking to care wisely.
First: Are You Safe?
Before thinking about communication skills, reconciliation, forgiveness or counselling, we need to ask a more urgent question: are you safe?
If you are being threatened, controlled, intimidated, sexually pressured, monitored, isolated, physically harmed, financially trapped, or made afraid in your own home, this is not simply a “marriage difficulty” or a “communication problem”.
Biblical counselling should never be used to silence a cry for help, pressure someone to remain in danger, or cover over serious sin. Where there is abuse, coercive control, criminal behaviour, safeguarding risk, or danger to children or vulnerable adults, appropriate protection, pastoral action, specialist support and, where necessary, civil authorities may be needed.
If you are in immediate danger, please contact emergency services. If you are unsure what to do, speak to a trusted church leader, safeguarding lead, GP, domestic abuse service, or another safe person who can help you take wise next steps.
Choose the Situation That Best Fits You
You do not need to read everything at once. Marriage and relationship questions often feel overwhelming, especially when conscience, fear, children, church life or past wounds are involved. Start with the section that most closely describes where you are now.
What Is a Biblical Marriage?
A clear foundation for understanding marriage as God’s covenant gift, not merely a romantic or legal arrangement.
Preparing for Marriage
For those brought up in Christian homes, courting, engaged, or prayerfully considering marriage.
Living Together but Not Married
Why marriage matters, what repentance may look like, and how to move forward carefully.
We Became Christians After Marriage
For those already married when one or both spouses came to faith in Christ.
Married to a Non-Christian
Biblical help for walking faithfully, prayerfully and wisely with an unbelieving spouse.
Honesty Within Marriage
Truthfulness, secrecy, trust, confession, financial honesty, sexual integrity and faithful speech.
If You Are Having an Affair
Clear, urgent biblical guidance for ending sin, telling the truth and seeking wise help.
After Betrayal
Can trust be rebuilt after adultery, pornography, lying or serious secrecy?
When Marriage Feels Unsafe
Biblical care must never silence danger, coercion, intimidation or abuse.
What the Bible Teaches About Divorce
A careful look at marriage, covenant-breaking, separation, divorce and pastoral care.
When It Is Biblical to Remarry
Considering biblical freedom, conscience, repentance, reconciliation and wise counsel.
When the Single Life Should Be Considered
Singleness after divorce, widowhood, unresolved conscience, or for the kingdom of heaven’s sake.
Guidance for Churches
Helping pastors, elders, deacons and church members respond with truth, care and safeguarding awareness.
How Counselling May Help
What biblical counselling can and cannot do in marriage, relationship and remarriage situations.
What Is a Biblical Marriage?
The Bible presents marriage as God’s good creation ordinance: a covenant union between one man and one woman, designed for companionship, faithfulness, fruitfulness, sexual purity, mutual help and the glory of God.
Marriage is not merely a private emotional attachment. It is not simply living together, sharing a home, raising children, or being sexually involved. It is a public, covenantal, lifelong union before God.
In Ephesians 5, marriage is also shown to be a living picture of Christ and His Church. This does not make marriage easy, but it does make it sacred. Husbands are called to love with self-giving, Christlike care. Wives are called to honour the Lord in their own calling within marriage. Both husband and wife are accountable to God for humility, faithfulness, repentance, patience and love.
This is the foundation article for the marriage series.
Preparing for Marriage
Some readers have been brought up in Christian homes and are now looking towards marriage. This can be a joyful season, but also a searching one. We may know the language of Christian marriage, but still need wisdom about character, maturity, purity, expectations, church life, family patterns and spiritual readiness.
Questions to Consider
- Are we both seeking first the kingdom of God?
- Are we able to confess sin and seek forgiveness?
- Are we honest about money, family, church, purity and expectations?
- Do wise Christians who know us believe this is a godly match?
- Are we seeking marriage “in the Lord”, not merely companionship?
Areas for Careful Preparation
- Spiritual life and church commitment
- Communication and conflict
- Sexual purity before marriage
- Leaving and cleaving
- Finances, work and home life
- Children, fertility, grief and expectations
We Are Living Together but Not Married: Why Marry?
Many couples live together for complicated reasons: affection, fear, finances, children, housing, past divorce, family pressure, or simply because no one has ever explained why marriage matters before God.
If this is your situation, the aim is not to crush you with shame, but to bring light, clarity and hope. The Lord calls us out of confusion because His ways are good.
Cohabitation may resemble marriage in some outward ways, but it is not the same as a public covenant of marriage. Marriage gives clarity, protection, faithfulness, accountability and honour before God and others.
The right next step will depend on the situation. Some couples may need to marry. Some may need to separate. Some may need pastoral counsel because of previous divorce, unequal faith, coercion, children, conscience or unresolved sin.
We Became Christians After We Were Already Married
Sometimes a person is already married when the Lord saves them. This can bring many questions, especially if the other spouse does not share their faith.
The Bible does not teach that conversion makes a lawful marriage unclean. If a believer is already married to an unbeliever, and the unbelieving spouse is pleased to dwell with them, the believer is not commanded to leave. The Christian spouse is called to faithfulness, prayer, patience, holiness and wise love.
This may require patient endurance, wise boundaries, church support and careful counsel, especially where there are children, hostility, spiritual loneliness or pressure around church attendance.
I Am Married to a Non-Christian Spouse
Being married to a non-Christian spouse can be deeply painful and lonely, especially when church, prayer, children, worship, conscience and life choices are involved.
We must distinguish between entering an unequal marriage knowingly and remaining faithful in a marriage that already exists. A Christian should seek marriage “only in the Lord”, but a believer already married to an unbeliever is called to honour the Lord within that marriage, unless the unbelieving spouse departs or there are serious safety concerns.
Biblical faithfulness in this situation may include quiet witness, prayer, patience, kindness, wise speech, careful parenting, church support and a refusal to despise or manipulate the unbelieving spouse.
Honesty Within Marriage
Trust grows where truth is cherished. Marriage cannot flourish where there is secrecy, deception, hidden sin, manipulation, financial dishonesty, sexual secrecy, private messaging, concealed friendships, pornography, or spiritual pretence.
Biblical honesty is not harshness. It is truth spoken before God, with humility, love, repentance and a desire for restoration. Equally, honesty is not partial disclosure designed to reduce pressure while keeping the heart hidden.
In counselling, we may need to consider what truth has been hidden, what patterns have developed, what repentance would look like, and how trust may be rebuilt patiently over time.
If You Are Having an Affair
If you are having an affair, the first step is not to “work out your feelings”. The first step is to stop sinning.
End the relationship immediately, completely and truthfully. Do not keep a private door open. Do not continue secret contact. Do not blame your spouse for your sin. Do not turn confession into self-pity. Bring the matter into the light before God, and seek wise pastoral and counselling help.
- End the affair, including hidden messages, emotional intimacy and secret meetings.
- Tell the truth without blame-shifting.
- Seek pastoral accountability.
- Accept that trust may take time to rebuild.
- Do not demand instant forgiveness, comfort or normality from the spouse you have sinned against.
- Take practical steps to close doors to further sin.
After Betrayal: Can Trust Be Rebuilt?
Betrayal in marriage can feel like the ground has opened beneath our feet. Adultery, pornography, lying, secret spending, hidden friendships and long-term deception can leave deep wounds.
Reconciliation may be possible, but it must not be forced, rushed or pretended. Real rebuilding requires truth, repentance, protection, patience, accountability and visible fruit over time.
The betrayed spouse may need care, time, clarity and support. The offending spouse must not use biblical words such as forgiveness, grace or submission to avoid the painful work of repentance.
When Marriage Feels Unsafe
Some marriage situations involve fear, intimidation, coercive control, threats, sexual pressure, violence, stalking, financial control, isolation, or danger to children. These matters must not be reduced to ordinary marital conflict.
Biblical counselling must never be used to silence a cry for help, pressure someone to remain in danger, or hide serious sin. Safety, truthful reporting, pastoral wisdom, safeguarding action and specialist support may all be needed.
Separation, Divorce and Remarriage
Divorce and remarriage questions require great care. They should not be answered hastily, abstractly, or without knowing the facts. Scripture upholds marriage as a lifelong covenant, while also recognising grave covenant-breaking sin and the painful realities of life in a fallen world.
Some marriages are strained but not biblically dissolved. Some separations are necessary for safety or wisdom, but do not automatically mean freedom to remarry. Some divorces may be biblically permitted because of sexual immorality or desertion. Some situations are complex and need careful counsel from faithful church leaders.
What does the Bible teach about divorce?
Divorce should never be treated lightly. Scripture gives serious grounds, commonly understood as sexual immorality and desertion. In situations involving abuse, coercion or danger, safety and protection must be addressed urgently, while biblical and pastoral counsel carefully considers the wider situation.
When may remarriage be biblically considered?
Remarriage should only be considered where there is biblical freedom, a clear conscience, wise counsel, and no unresolved obligation to pursue reconciliation. Each case needs careful attention to Scripture, facts, repentance, church counsel and the welfare of any children involved.
When should singleness be considered?
Singleness may need to be considered where there is no clear biblical freedom to remarry, where conscience is troubled, where the previous marriage situation is unresolved, or where the Lord is calling a person to serve Him contentedly without remarriage.
Considering the Single Life
Singleness is not failure. It is not a lesser Christian life. It can be a painful calling, a temporary season, a wise restraint, or a fruitful way of serving the Lord with undivided attention.
Some people should not rush into remarriage. This may be because their previous situation is unresolved, because conscience is not clear, because children need stability, because there has been trauma or betrayal, or because there is no biblical freedom to remarry.
The single life may also be embraced positively, not merely endured reluctantly. The Lord is able to give grace, usefulness, companionship in the church, and deep fellowship with Himself.
Guidance for Churches
Churches are often called to walk with people through painful and complex marriage situations. This requires both doctrinal clarity and tender wisdom.
Churches Should Uphold
- The goodness and sanctity of marriage
- The call to repentance and forgiveness
- The seriousness of adultery, desertion, abuse and deception
- The honour of singleness where remarriage is not wise or permitted
- The need for truth, patience and careful shepherding
Churches Should Avoid
- Pressuring unsafe joint counselling
- Rushing reconciliation after betrayal
- Minimising coercion, fear or abuse
- Labelling the vulnerable as bitter or unsubmissive
- Treating every divorce or remarriage case as identical
Wise church care separates observed facts from reported experience, listens carefully, protects the vulnerable, calls sinners to repentance, and refuses to use Scripture as a weapon to silence suffering.
How Biblical Counselling May Help
Biblical counselling is not a place to win an argument against your spouse. It is a place to bring our hearts, words, desires, fears, sins, wounds and responsibilities under the searching and healing light of God’s Word.
Sometimes counselling focuses on communication, repentance and rebuilding habits of love. Sometimes it helps one spouse walk faithfully when the other will not. Sometimes it helps a couple face betrayal, secrecy, sexual sin or broken trust. Sometimes it helps a church think carefully about a complex marriage, separation or remarriage situation.
Where there is abuse, coercion, intimidation, criminal behaviour, safeguarding risk, or danger, counselling must not be used as a substitute for appropriate protection, reporting, pastoral action or specialist support.
