Breaking Unhealthy Soul Ties: Do Your Relationships Produce Bondage or Joy? (3 page)

So they are no longer two, but
one flesh
. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.

Matt. 19:6 NASB

Because man’s deepest emotions involve his feelings toward his mate, or potential mate, this is a primary area for soul-tie danger. Man has mistakenly relegated marriage to an agreement between two people, rather than a lifelong, God-ordained, covenant tie. Thus like many other arrangements between people, it has, in at least fifty-percent of the cases, become doomed to failure.

Man Incomplete by Design

Man was designed with a need for a helpmate. God knew from the planning stage that man was incomplete and said,
It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him
(Gen. 2:18). There exists in man, as created, a need for a relationship and the absence of that relationship leaves a void unless filled with God.

Marriage was originally intended, as seen in the case of Adam and Eve, to be a covenant agreement between two people of the opposite sex whom God had made for each other. The covenant was pronounced in Adam’s own words:

This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and
shall cleave unto his wife
: and they shall be
one flesh
.

Gen. 2:23–24

Thus, by its nature, marriage existed with two dimensions: a horizontal dimension between the two parties and a vertical dimension in which they recognized themselves to be under, and indebted to, God for one another.

The Godly Union under Attack

It is both interesting and enlightening to observe that until there was a marriage, Satan didn’t bother directing an attack upon Adam. As soon as there was a marriage, Satan attempted to destroy the first couple!

Parenthetically, it wasn’t until the first godly soul-tie was established that Satan attempted to destroy the united participants. He obviously hates the enormous potential for good resident within a godly soul-tie.

Unfortunately Satan succeeded, and Adam succumbed to the disobedient suggestion (pressure) of his wife, rather than heeding the express Word of God. Satan caused Adam to come under the soulish influence of Eve by placing her wishes above God’s direct command. This resulted not only in loss of residence in Eden, and curses on both their ensuing lives, but an overall corruption of all creation due to the entrance of death.

Soul-ties, which began as godly bonds formed in marriage, can become perverted, distorted and even broken. A godly soul-tie even in a Christian marriage can become damaged or broken as a result of infidelity, which leads to guilt, resentment, unforgiveness, bitterness, and finally very frequently, converts the last vestiges of love to hate.

A healthy marital soul-tie can be permanently damaged as a result of broken vows or promises, such as those to stop drinking or doing drugs. Such failures often produce disappointment, resentment, bitterness, unforgiveness and finally divorce. The wife may leave as a result of the husband’s failure to quit drinking or doing drugs, but it can happen either way. The husband is most apt to blame himself for failures to live up to standards which he may have set for himself and the breaking of promises made, such as to have a house of their own within two years. This leads to guilt, often shifting the blame to the wife (for not cooperating, spending too much, etc.), and so he goes looking for solace in a bottle or with another woman.

Since Adam’s time, even in God-ordained marriages there can be wrongful soul-ties or abusive control of one partner by the other. For example, there is the typical emasculated husband who is dominated by a woman and lives a henpecked existence, escaping into fantasy, unable to assert his true personality. There are those Jezebel-type cases where control is exerted by a strong-willed woman who attempts to control her husband’s life. Finally, there are the opposite “he-man” types, who demand total acquiescence and subservience to their demands in order for them to feel truly masculine.

Even God-ordained,
Covenant Soul-Ties Can be Broken

Ungodly soul-ties can lead to the dissolution of marriage. A very common type of soul-tie which is involved in the breakup of marriages is that formed with another woman outside the marriage. Such soul-ties may be formed as the result of a physical, sexual union (as in I Cor. 6:16), or because of an emotional soul-tie which may or may not consciously start out with any type of dating or sexual overtones. These are often simply friendships which become something more.

The other woman initially either fills some sort of void, that of a mother figure, friend, companion, or workplace partner, or offers an easy escape from the necessary responsibilities and effort required to maintain a healthy marriage. In recent decades these problems have increased astronomically due to the epidemic of divorce and have placed so many divorced people (especially women) in the work place. Lonely people seek someone to alleviate their loneliness, and working together creates opportunities for many snares to be laid. Today there are many women who want to find a man at any cost, and many men devoid of moral standards.

The inability to break with
preexisting
ungodly soul-ties can also contribute to the breakup of marriages. The young man who cannot break free from “his mother’s apron strings,” as it is usually expressed, is a poor candidate for a strong or successful marriage. Some overcome this type of pressure by moving away which is usually a great help. I have counseled with several women whose husbands seemed to be unable to make any decisions without first consulting mother. Several have complained that his mother would demand (or expect) him to be at her house to take care of her needs and of her house, while the wife and children were neglected, and their own house fell into a state of disrepair.

The new husband who seems unable to grow up and face his responsibilities, and cannot break the soul-ties with his former evil or immature companions, is also a poor candidate for marriage. These men feel they have to go out every night with their male friends to bars, strip joints or other entertainment, and then cannot understand why they can’t quit drinking, smoking or doing drugs, as they have promised themselves and their wives.

A successful young businessman of about twenty-eight came and received salvation and the Baptism in the Holy Spirit in our prayer room; later he came back for deliverance. He confessed that he was having a problem breaking free from smoking pot. He had a history of drug use during his previous career as a professional athlete but wanted to be completely clean for his marriage and to be able to honorably follow the Lord. He admitted that a part of his problem in staying free was that his best friend, another very successful businessman, was still actively smoking pot and offered him some every time they were together. He usually met his friend at least one night a week. He and his wife were praying for his victory, but he kept failing due to the pressure from his friends. This illustrates the truth of the Scripture previously mentioned:

...evil communications [associations, fellowship] corrupt good manners [good conduct, good intentions].

1 Cor. 15:33b [Brackets Ours]

Forgiveness and kindness strengthen the healthy marriage bond between two people. Furthermore, as Ecclesiastes points out,
a threefold cord is not quickly broken
(4:12). God hates divorce, and certainly a shared, active faith in Christ will knit the two partners firmly together, causing their house to remain standing even after storms have come.

Family Ties,
such as a Father and Son

Judah describes a soul-tie between Jacob and Benjamin, spoken to Joseph before he revealed himself to his brethren:

Now therefore when I come to thy servant my father, and the lad be not with us; seeing that
his life is bound up in the lad’s life
...

Gen. 44:30

Judah stated that the life of Jacob was “bound up” in that of his son. The meaning of this phrase is very similar to that of cleave in the original Greek.

These are the family ties that exist between parent and child, brother and brother, brother and sister, where “blood is thicker than water” (which is the world’s commentary upon such God-ordained bonds), or “natural” bonding. God obviously intended for the parent-child relationship to be an earthly representation of His familial ties with us. We have been told that we are His children, His adopted sons.

But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the
sons of God
...

John 1:12a

The same characteristics of obedience and love should be found in the children, and wise training tempered with sacrificial love in the parent(s).

Symptoms of ungodly bonds are those of the son who hates his father, or the daughter who hates her mother due either to over-control and domination, or to lack of any reasonable discipline. These obviously are perverted and unnatural feelings. A parent who can’t or won’t maintain his authority through proper discipline becomes bound to the dominion and control of the rebellious and demanding child.

There can likewise be idolatrous soul-ties of a parent-to-a-child. God helped Abraham deal with Isaac and that very issue at the altar. God intends that we love our children but does not want us to make idols of them. It is a matter of degree and of priorities. Similarly, sometimes there are idolatrous soul-ties of child-to-parent. Jesus wants to be first in our hearts and lives, as He said.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

Matt. 10:37

Prenatal Vulnerability

If a child picks up parental demons of fear, addictions, or curses, then he becomes far more susceptible to unhealthy soul-ties after birth. The Scripture makes it clear that evil forces may come into play in a life while a child is still in the womb.

The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies.

Ps. 58:3

Children with physical problems can easily become dominated by authority figures, unless the parent wisely encourages their independence.

Post-natal Vulnerability
(Discipline Failures & Control Issues)

God’s judgment came upon the priest Eli and his household because he failed to exercise his authority in restraining his sons.

...I will judge his house for ever for the iniquity which he knoweth; because his sons made themselves vile, and
he restrained them not
.

1 Sam. 3:13

Many parents today, like Eli, are too permissive with their children, and refuse to punish them from a fear of losing their love (especially after a divorce), from a fear of their rage or violence, or to compromise with the world (everyone else is doing it). The net effect is summed up in Scripture as a judgment of God upon the failure to discipline:

And I will give
children to be their princes
, and
babes
shall rule over them
. As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them.

Isa. 3:4, 12a

Parents who yield to a child’s manipulation soon come into a form of bondage to the child. We encountered a case where the child threw a tantrum and vomited when his parents attempted to go out for an evening. When they finally made it a practice to go anyway, he got the message.

Quite often an evil soul-tie between a mother and child causes a man to forfeit his God-given headship in his adult relationships. Where the umbilical soul-tie to the mother is never completely broken, the son remains in childlike submission to her even after he becomes an adult.

I recall a college classmate whose mother called the college each morning it looked like rain to leave word for her son to be sure to wear his raincoat and boots. This was an unnatural control that she was attempting to continue to maintain over his life. He responded finally by moving to the opposite end of the country to avoid her control. Conversely, if a child, especially a daughter, is unable to bond (form a proper soul-tie) with her father, it can have a lifelong effect upon the young girl. She may spend the rest of her life trying to find the deep bonding and love she has missed. This void may cause her to seek out the very same type of man as her father (alcoholic, drug-addict, one unable to express emotions, womanizer, workaholic), attempting to fill the void within her by completing the bond with the man like her father. Even as an adult, she may still try to find, or complete, the soul-tie which was never fully formed in the formative years of her childhood.

Fortunately, there is One who offers a three-fold solution to being forsaken or unloved by one’s parents. He promises that He will fill the void.

[Jesus] is a
friend
that sticketh closer than a brother.

Prov. 18:24b

[Jesus]
will never leave thee
, nor forsake thee.

Heb. 13:5b

When my father and my mother forsake me, then the
Lord
[Jesus]
will take me up
.