What would you do Wednesday!
Today’s situation is unusual – beyond unusual. The scenario involves twins who married each other. Keep reading.
A married couple from church who confides in you is coming to dinner. They have something very important to share. They also need your advice.
It is dinner time.
While at your dinner table the couple brings up a very difficult issue to discuss asking this be kept in complete confidence. They begin discussing their marital back ground. They have been together three years with the first being the dating/engagement stage. In fact, it was just last month they celebrated their two-year wedding anniversary.
However, just last week they discovered something shocking and very disturbing. Together they embarked on a journey to find their birth parents since they were both adopted. A few months of research came to a head last week when they made the disturbing discovery.
The official documents showed that your married friends were actually twins separated at birth.
Even though they loved each other they can no longer love each other as husband and wife. But they don’t know what to do about their marriage. Do they divorce? How do they explain their situation? Do they explain their situation? Should they talk to their pastor? What if the church finds out? What do they tell their families?
How would you advise them?
Here I blog…
Mark
P.S. Unfortunately, this post is based on a true story. Cf. Married Couple Found to be Twins Separated at Birth – New Adoption Regulation Called For
HT: Brent Crawley
tagged as ethics, WWYDW in Christianity,Church Issues,Culture,theology
About the author
Mark is a Christian, husband and father. A businessman by day; he attends seminary in the off hours working toward an M.Div. More->
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
I have no idea.
I would say divorce is definitely not the answer. It was a true marriage. Secondly, I’d ask, why didn’t their parents say something?!?!?!
@rhology Difficult one, huh?
MarieP I’m not sure the parents knew the relations or family from where each twin came. Plus, the adoptive parents probably would not know each other nor would they recognize the grown twin (if they ever even met them).
This is a difficult one for today, but I’d say that looking at the Old Testament it is clear that marriages between siblings were considered genuine marriages. Abraham was the half-brother of Sarah, for one example. Of course, some care must be taken since, after all, polygamy was also permitted at the time, and we know from the words of Christ Himself that originally it was intended to be one man and one woman period.
Still, the fact that God in general hates divorce, and the fact that sibling marriages are considered real marriages in the Scripture, I’d say that it does constitute a genuine marriage in the eyes of God. Obviously, it’s not optimal–but then, giving up one’s children for adoption in the first place is not optimal either.
My $0.02.
One thing a Facebook reader brought up is the twins not questioning that they have the same birthday. Seems like that would have started a conversation about their families and such leading them to talk about their adoptions.
Mark Lamprecht An excellent point!
I waited to see what sort of answers this one would get. It’s just so creepy; especially for me, an adoptee. My advise would be to seek an annulment, since “they can no longer love each other as husband and wife.” Surely in this case it would be granted. Then, they need to move far away from one another and establish lives where no one would know their past relationship and perhaps seek some good counseling. However, if they wish to remain married they should still seek counseling and undergo genetic profiling before considering having children. Eew.