Some conservative Christians teach that God puts women in abusive marriages so they can better glorify Him through their suffering. What kind of a god requires the suffering of women and children in order to be glorified?
There is a predictable pattern of behavior your emotional and spiritual abuser will follow when you set healthy boundaries. When you know what to expect, you’ll be able to hold steady in the middle of the kickback.
He wants to treat me better. He just doesn’t know how.
He says he’s sorry. He really hates how he acts.
He’s struggling. He can’t help it.
Do you have these thoughts about your husband?
Have these thoughts led to anything good? More peace? Change (on his part)? Hope that lasts? A better marriage? A never-ending bucket of fried chicken?
Didn’t think so.
I have some other thoughts to offer. You can take them or leave them. They might seem cynical and hopeless on the surface. But I believe they’re the means to all the things you’re hoping for…except one.
This episode comes with not one but two guarantees:
Adults have 100% control over their behavior. And you have a 0% chance of making someone grow or change when they don’t want to.
I have two presents for you.
One is a regift. The other is brand-spanking, hot-off-the-waffle-press new.
First, I compiled some of the best (and by “best” I mean absolute trash and worst) things people say to Christian women in abusive marriages when they seek help or divorce.
Second, I’m giving you a comeback. A burn-it-to-the-ground, shred-it-to-cheddar-cheese, drop-the-mic, break-the-wrist-and-walk-away comeback for every single one.
I know how hard it is to stand before people who attack your character, deny your reality, determine your destiny, and demand your unquestioning allegiance…to your own destruction (in this case…as a married woman). The endless, useless, conflicting platitudes they give instead of real help and logical advice.
I also know how gutted you feel, how tongue-tied and mind-mushed you are when people spout off what sounds holy and bossy and right but is actually idiotic and damaging.
So unwrap your presents (press play) and revel in the ridiculous while I slaughter these silly arguments once and for all.
And you can regift these babies with my blessing.
If you break abuse down to the nitty-gritty, at its heart is something called “emotional childhood.” Abusers think everybody should make their life work. Everyone should cater to their whims. Everybody is responsible for their emotions. For fixing them, moment by moment. They shouldn’t have to do anything. Like a stunted emotional child.
If you’re a wife in this situation, you come to believe that you are supposed to fix your husband. You think you’re the only one who can (and that “fixing” him is even possible).
Any movement to protect yourself, to detach, to assign responsibility to him for HIS OWN LIFE and CHOICES, feels like betrayal and selfishness and just plain gross. Your husband and many religious people would agree.
Which leads us right back to: Am I responsible for fixing my husband? Is detaching from him to protect myself wrong?
I’ve been asked these questions hundreds—if not thousands—of times, so I’ve fleshed out an answer that addresses them AND all those icky rabbit trails in your mind.
And unlike what you’ve been told in church, online, or by your husband, this answer doesn’t require you to throw yourself in a pool to save a person who wants to drown…and drag you under too.
If you are tangled up in a confusing relationship, one effective strategy to gain a solid footing (and eventually a voice) is to write things down. It doesn’t matter if you are a good writer or not. Your purpose isn’t to win a Pulitzer prize. Here are three important things you can record on paper (or on your computer) that will be tremendously helpful to you over time.
Get the first chapter of my book, Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage, recommended by therapists. That chapter will help you figure out what’s going on in your marriage.
