A4P Guest: I’m 28 years old and I got married a year ago. My husband is a nice person. I decided to marry him because I thought I was attracted to him but to my nightmare, I now realized that I was only attracted to his spiritual life, not to him. He used to tell me about God, the word of God and what God had done in and through him when we were dating. It was my joy to see him on stage. He is a solo singer and he also leads worship. He is loved and adored by everybody in our church. When he leads worship, Missy, the whole congregation gets lost in the worship. I was very excited when he asked me out because he was the dream man of many of my single friends and mine too. I now come to know that I am in love with the man on stage, not off the stage. I don’t know if you understand what I am saying. I still love to see him on stage, leading worship and everything but other than that, I am totally not attracted to him, especially sexually. Whenever he approaches me to kiss me and everything, I get dis – – – because there is nothing in him that draws me close to him. No chemistry! Every interaction with him feels like chores. And on the other hand, he doesn’t have that much spiritual life outside the church. He doesn’t pray that much. I thought he would help me to grow in the Lord. I am now the one to remind him to pray. I feel stuck!!!! What do I need to do?

A4P: While I think about her question, I want to hear how you advise this young woman.

Remember, when you advise her, you are actually advising many wives who are in a similar situation. So, be wise with your words. Don’t jump into conclusion about who she is, her background story and her spiritual condition because you don’t know any more than what she revealed above. Don’t judge her for finding herself in this situation. Just focus on her problem and come up with a practical solution which shouldn’t include divorcing her man. If you quickly pray for God to help you before you type, you may give her some useful advice that she may use.

Try not to be emotional. Write your advice using your brain and heart; engaging your brain helps you to tailor your advice according to the word of God and according to “common-sense” and engaging your heart helps you to put yourself in her shoes so you don’t come out to be judgmental.

And try not to make her feel guilty. Believe me, she already carries too much guilt and regret and the last thing she needs is a person who puts more loads of guilt and regret on her. So, be gracious and merciful as God has been gracious and merciful to you many times. ///