What Does the Bible Say About Unhappy Marriage?

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 7 helpful votes

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. ...

1 Peter 3:7 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes

Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous.

James 1:1-27 ESV / 4 helpful votes

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings. Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. ...

Titus 1:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes

If anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, ...

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?

Matthew 19:8-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes

He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:3-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ...

Proverbs 12:22 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.

Exodus 20:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes

“You shall not commit adultery.

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.

Philippians 4:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Ephesians 5:33 ESV / 3 helpful votes

However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.

Ephesians 5:22-24 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands.

Ephesians 5:22-23 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Ephesians 5:1-33 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. ...

1 Corinthians 7:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For the unbelieving husband is made holy because of his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy because of her husband. Otherwise your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy.

1 Corinthians 6:15-20 ESV / 3 helpful votes

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ...

Romans 3:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes

By no means! Let God be true though every one were a liar, as it is written, “That you may be justified in your words, and prevail when you are judged.”

Mark 7:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes

For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,

Matthew 19:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes

So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes

But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Malachi 2:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes

“For the man who does not love his wife but divorces her, says the Lord, the God of Israel, covers his garment with violence, says the Lord of hosts. So guard yourselves in your spirit, and do not be faithless.”

Genesis 1:1-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day. ...

Hebrews 4:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her,

Ephesians 4:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,

Ephesians 2:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But I want you to understand that the head of every man is Christ, the head of a wife is her husband, and the head of Christ is God.

1 Corinthians 7:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband.

1 Corinthians 7:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes

(but if she does, she should remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and the husband should not divorce his wife.

1 Corinthians 7:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion.

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,

1 Corinthians 6:1-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes

When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, ...

Romans 7:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Or do you not know, brothers—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law is binding on a person only as long as he lives? For a married woman is bound by law to her husband while he lives, but if her husband dies she is released from the law of marriage. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies, she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress. Likewise, my brothers, you also have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead, in order that we may bear fruit for God.

John 8:44 ESV / 2 helpful votes

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

John 3:1-36 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. ...

Luke 16:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

Matthew 19:3-12 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” ...

Psalm 119:105 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes

“When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house, and if she goes and becomes another man's wife, and the latter man hates her and writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, or if the latter man dies, who took her to be his wife, then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the Lord. And you shall not bring sin upon the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.

Genesis 2:18-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. ...

Genesis 1:31 ESV / 2 helpful votes

And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Genesis 1:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

52 Bible Verses about Unhappy Marriage

1 Corinthians 7:1-40 ESV / 7 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Peter 3:7 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 13:4 ESV / 5 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

James 1:1-27 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Titus 1:6 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:22-33 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Corinthians 6:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:8-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:3-9 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Proverbs 12:22 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Exodus 20:14 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 2:24 ESV / 4 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Philippians 4:8 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:33 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:22-24 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:22-23 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:1-33 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:14 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:15-20 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 3:4 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Mark 7:21 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:6 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 5:32 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Malachi 2:16 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 1:1-31 ESV / 3 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Hebrews 4:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Timothy 3:16 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 5:25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 4:15 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Ephesians 2:10 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Galatians 5:19 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 11:3 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:34 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:11 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:5 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

1 Corinthians 6:1-20 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Romans 7:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 8:44 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

John 3:1-36 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Luke 16:18 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:9 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Matthew 19:3-12 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Psalm 119:105 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Deuteronomy 24:1-4 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 2:18-25 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 1:31 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

Genesis 1:27 ESV / 2 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful

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