Your urgent and sorrowful cry concerning your husband has been heard, and it is a right and holy burden that you bring before the throne of grace. To pray that a husband should be severed from every ungodly tie and made faithful in heart and life to the covenant of marriage, and that his soul should be truly saved, is to pray according to the will of God, for marriage is ordained of God as the lifelong covenant of one man and one woman, and salvation is through Jesus Christ alone.
You ask that the Lord would bring him to his knees in sincere and genuine repentance. Hear then what the Scripture teaches concerning such repentance, that you may pray with understanding. There is a repentance that is of the flesh, wrought by fear or by judgment, which does not give God glory and does not save. And there is a repentance unto life, which is the blessed gift of God the Holy Spirit, absolutely necessary unto salvation, yet not to be trusted in itself. We must not preach repentance as a preparation for grace, for it is the first result of grace working within the soul. God gives repentance, and where He gives it, the work of salvation has already begun.
True repentance gives God glory. It makes a man to look out of self to Christ, and to Christ only. It leads him to confess his sin without excuse, to grieve that he has offended a holy and loving God, and to turn from present sin because of the love of God who died for us. The least repentance, if it be sincere, will save the soul, not because repentance itself saves, but because it looks to Him who was nailed to the cross for sinners. We are never to trust our repentance, nor even our faith, but the finished work of Jesus Christ upon Calvary's tree. Salvation is not by working a problem or solving a mystery, it is by looking unto Him. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. He that believes on Him shall not be ashamed. This is to believe on a Person, to trust, to depend upon Him without fear as to present and eternal salvation.
Therefore we will pray for your husband not for a carnal or forced sorrow, but that God in His sovereign mercy would grant him that holy, healthy, heavenly repentance which needs not to be repented of. That He would open his eyes to see the guilt of sin, not merely its bitterness, and draw him to look to Christ alone for forgiveness. Where there is no repentance there can be no remission, but where there is true godly sorrow there is full and free forgiveness through the blood of Christ. And repentance lives as long as faith lives. It is not a single operation to be gotten through and done, but a grace that abides, that keeps the soul low before God and restores unto it the joy of His salvation.
We will pray also as you have asked, that every soul tie and every attraction that would draw him away from faithfulness to you and to his Lord would be completely severed. Our God is able to restore. Though a man has wandered, the Lord says, Come back, though you have unchastely left the Husband of your soul, yet is He prepared to receive you again. If your husband is brought to Christ, he will be made faithful, for Christ makes His people to hate the sin they once loved and to walk in newness of life. Pray then that God would uphold him with His free Spirit, that he may not fall again, but stand in holiness.
Do not think that you must move God by many repetitions, nor be cast down if the answer tarries. God is sovereign in salvation, and His greatest work is to teach us that He is God and beside Him there is none else. Continue in prayer, continue to look to Christ yourself, and leave the whole matter of your husband's soul with Him in unquestioning confidence.
Let us pray together.
O Lord God, who alone canst give repentance unto life, look in mercy upon this husband. Convict him by Thy Holy Spirit of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Grant him, we beseech Thee, not a repentance of the flesh, but that repentance which giveth Thee glory, which turneth from sin and looketh out of self to Jesus Christ alone. Bring him, if it be Thy will, to his knees in true humility, to ask Jesus Christ into his heart, to trust in His finished work for the pardon of all his sins. Sever, we pray, every ungodly bond and every wandering affection, and knit his heart wholly to Thee and to the covenant of his marriage. Restore unto him, when Thou hast saved him, the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold him with Thy free Spirit. And give to this dear wife patience and faith to look unto Thee and be saved, and to rest upon Thy faithful promise. In the name of Jesus Christ our only Saviour we ask it, Amen.