Last year, a woman named Joan opened a letter from a local law firm and immediately burst into tears as she read its contents. The letter stated that her divorce from husband John “had been completed.” She was in disbelief—the couple from Sheffield, England, had been happily married for 36 years!

It was later discovered that the law firm had used the wrong letter template in composing the paper bombshell Joan and John received. Although the message mix-up initially caused them to be shocked and saddened, they’re still married and happy today.

Jesus’ words in Matthew 19:6, “Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together,” make plain the reality that some people have unhappy marriages. Instead of embracing divorce, however, Jesus calls troubled couples not to destroy what they have become—one.

What does this mean? In Genesis 2:24, which the Lord references in Matthew 19:5, God said of married people, “The two are united into one.” As one writer puts it, married people “shall be considered as one body, having no separate or independent rights. . . . Their union [shall result in children], exactly resembling themselves as they do each other.”

Their child reflects their oneness! The attributes possessed from parents cannot be separated—a child is one body and a living metaphor of the sacred unity of marriage in God’s view (Ephesians 5:31).

The key to living in a happy marriage is to love one’s spouse sacrificially: “A man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it” (vv.28-29).

For a couple to stay together and not split apart requires both husband and wife to truly see that they are one.