Yet you say, “For what reason?”
Malachi 2:14, NKJV
Because the Lord has been witness
Between you and the wife of your youth,
With whom you have dealt treacherously;
Yet she is your companion
And your wife by covenant.
One of the many awful ideas spouted in my first marriage’s demise was the suggestion it was a “starter marriage.”
For those unfamiliar with the term, it denotes a short-lived first marriage usually in one’s 20s (article explaining it more here). It is an idea borrowing from our concept of “starter homes.”
I think this a demonic attack on the institution of marriage, personally.
It sickens me.
What doubly sickens me about this concept is how Christians sometime talk about it as a valid way to think about marriage! Such is utterly pagan thinking, in my opinion. It is wicked.
Would we accept advice to a mourning parent that says to consider their young child’s death, the death of a “starter child?”
I hope not.
Marriage ought to be a precious, lifelong relationship. Something has gone horribly wrong for the relationship to have died. Someone killed it.
Calling a marriage, a “starter marriage” is utterly repulsive to me. It is as if that first marriage was an inferior, cheaper “product” compared to a subsequent marriage…as if marriages are products as opposed to an enduring, sacred institution.
The reason why a marriage ending in divorce hurts so much for the well-adjusted adult is this adult cares about this relationship. This is healthy, by the way.
With divorce, the marriage is now dead. Adultery circumstances make it a rather traumatic death on top of that.
Calling the marriage a “starter marriage” trivializes and minimizes our pain over the marriage’s end.
The unspoken “ought” is that we “ought” to see that first relationship as a mere stepping stone to better things. It served its purpose (Really?!). We ought not to grieve too deeply about its death.
My advice to those seeking spiritual counsel on matters of divorce and infidelity recovery:
Reject any so called “Christian” counselor or pastor who employs this sort of pagan (demonic) labeling of marriages.
God honors marriages. He does not dismissively talk about them as “starter marriages.”
