The liberal world tries to twist the Bible to meet its sensual needs or ignores it altogether. What a heartache, if true, for this woman to be in that situation with her husband. However, both need counseling in several facets of their lives to overcome their difficulties. Her husband has the right to divorce her for infidelity, but this does not absolve him of his responsibility for creating a wretched relationship, if he did.
If she divorces from her husband, she can not scripturally marry again per what Jesus says in Matthew 19. People simply need to excercise a lot more discretion BEFORE marrying and get their spiritual lives in order BEFORE marrying. Such would go a long way toward resolving problems.
I gave this advice once before on another thread and suffered mental abuse from the vicious attack of another FReeper. Oh well, I have recovered, LOL.
Christians need to marry christians and they need to make a commitment to live openly with one another before God, thats what their vows are all about. Confessing their sins and forgiving one another, daily, if need be.
The so-called "exception clause" is interesting. It appears only in the two passages in Matthew and not in Luke or Mark. Because Matthew is the "Jewish gospel," I tend to think that this exception for porneia was applied to the Jewish betrothal period, something that gentile marriage did not include. That would explain Joseph's plan to divorce Mary, before their marriage was consummated.
You know, the big picture of marriage and divorce is really missing in our culture. Divorce causes wounding and has effects so far beyond the parties most immediately effected, but people who are in a bad marriage lack that perspective. And marriage is such a strong commitment, much stronger than most people, even evangelical Christians who claim the Bible as their authority, understand.
There's an interesting story from the OT that illustrates the seriousness of covenant relationships. I'll try to be concise and don't have the references here, but you can look them up on your own.
You remember when Joshua and the Israelites were occupying the promised land, the Gibeonites deceived Joshua by claiming they were from a far away land who came to pay their respects to the Israelites. They dressed in old clothes and took moldy bread to make it appear that they had traveled a long distance, but in reality they were almost next in line to be obliterated from the promised land. Joshua did not inquire of the Lord about the Gibeonites claim and instead made a peace covenant with them. Then he found out that he had been lied to, but he knew better than to break the covenant.
Hundreds of years later, when David was king, there was a famine and when he asked the Lord what the cause of the famine was, God said that it was because Saul had tried to break the covenant with the Gibeonites by killing them. David sort of reinforced the covenant by undoing the damage that Saul had caused and the famine ended.
People who think they can end a covenant relationship with no consequences should take that story to heart. It shows how seriously God takes our covenants, even those made foolishly and without His guidance.