“There’s such a thing as legal separation or even divorce.”
true, but then we have moved from the religious. “till death do us part thinking”, and right into “as long as we keep the paperwork straight with the state of New Mexico” kind of thinking.
If it’s just a legalistic paperwork drill, then it doesn’t matter -when- he meets someone that makes him happy and whom likes him. God isn’t suddenly ok just because a legal motion got filed. You follow?
Marriage is a natural institution, in that it fills a natural need: making a stable matrix in which children are provided with support, nurture, a kinship-based identity, and in which the adults have clear guidelines within which their normal needs can be reasonably fulfilled.
Even people who are not Christians or Jews ---I mean, people with no Biblical perspective, normal decent everyday Hindus and Buddhists and pagans too --- know that it is honorable for a man or woman to keep their honest given word, and dishonorable to go sneaking around trying to get some illicit action on the side.
Folks do truly say that a marriage is a lot more than a contract. But they treat it like it's a lot less.