So I grew up in a spirit-filled church where we were taught that intimate relationships outside of marriage create this kind of spiritual bond, one that needs to be formally broken through prayer and renunciation. The idea being that these connections linger and can affect your walk with God. Especially if you’re getting ready to commit to a spouse.
There’s an old proverb that goes, “A rope braided in haste still leaves fibers on every hand that touched it.” That’s basically how the concept was explained to me. Pieces of yourself stay attached to former partners in some invisible way, and you have to deal with that before you can fully move forward. Made sense at the time.
But I’ve tried to trace this teaching back to actual chapter and verse, and I keep coming up empty. Nothing concrete. I have searched more than once, gone through passages people loosely reference, and it just doesn’t hold up the way I expected it to.
So I’m genuinely curious, is there a solid scriptural basis for this that I’ve somehow missed, or is this more of a tradition that grew within certain circles and eventually got treated as doctrine? (Because those two things are very different.) Would appreciate hearing from anyone who’s gone back and forth on this same question.