People who are Christian and remarried carry with them the guilt of a broken vow. It grieves them to the point that the remorse they feel burdens them with a guilt that is born daily. It may not be based on a conviction of any doctrine or interpretation of Scripture, but on the reality of the severing of what was once “one flesh” with another. Countless times in Scripture, husbands are called to ‘rejoice in the wife of your youth.’ Husbands are admonished to not covet the wife of another nor anything of another’s possessions. Jewish and Christian husbands have even read of the hatred God has for the practice of divorce for the reasons of grave consequence to the raising of godly children and the preservation of the sanctity in marriage (Malachi 3).
The revelation of God’s faithfulness to His bride Israel, and later to His church is revealed as the kind of bond that is ever forgiving, ever loving, ever lasting, and ever faithful. Men like Hosea had to be faithful to the point of redeeming an unfaithful wife from prostitution and disavowment of her unity with him. The example of Christ is illustrated by the kind of love that gives up His life for the sake of His bride the church.
In the same way we, as husbands, know that our devotion must likewise be unto death for the sake of our wife (Ephesians 5:25-33). Further agreement comes from 1 Corinthians 7 where it confirms that God commands that husbands and wife remain together and if separated from one another, allow room for reconciliation; that only death can annul the marriage union. Having not fulfilled the full extent of your vow of love to the wife of your youth, love will be void when attempted in another whose knowledge intimately has been violated by the joining to the former. To “uncover the nakedness” of a man’s wife is to indeed uncover the nakedness of the husband, and this leaves the Christian man to be in conflict with his soul because it is not her nakedness but his that he has uncovered (Leviticus 18 and 20).
What can be done? It must obviously follow that reconciliation should occur. To spouses who are remarried, it would be difficult to separate and return to your first spouse. If the occasion presents itself, it MUST occur. If, however, it does not, then each offending person must live in repentance of adultery as with any sin. And, like any person in repentance, he or she must bear the testimony of a wrong choice relaying to others the adverse affects adultery has had.