My pastors told me that what I was experiencing for over two decades wasn’t serious enough to be called “abuse.” They said I had to be physically hurt for it to cross the line of “hard marriage” to “abusive marriage.” Their beliefs kept me spinning in a turmoil so great that I thought a lot about ending my life.
If you find yourself wondering if you’d be better off dead or secretly praying your spouse might never come home again, but you’ve been told you’re making a mountain out of a molehill…then listen in. I want to help clear up some of that confusion by sharing a workshop I did a while ago that answers the question, “How do I know if it’s abuse?”
Key Takeaways:
- Chronic self-doubt and relational chaos are signs something is genuinely wrong.
- Your sensitivity is often your body’s response to prolonged stress.
- I’ll give you three important questions you can ask yourself to cut through the fog.
- Language matters: Abusers redefine love as obedience and respect as silence — naming what’s actually happening is the first step to inner freedom.
- God is not asking you to suffer in silence: Scripture used to justify staying in harm ignores that God defends the oppressed and sets captives free.
Get Today’s Free Resource:
🧐 Are you wondering what is happening inside your own painful and confusing marriage? I wrote a book just for you called Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage. Get a free chapter by going to isitmebook.com
I will also send you my weekly Hope Letters for Christian women in emotionally and spiritually abusive marriages.
The Comments
Sheri L McWilliams
Wonderful! Thank you for such an encouraging message.
Do you have any episodes that you could recommend that cover how to leave someone when they have no one else?
I look forward to hearing from you.
May God bless you for all you do.
Natalie Hoffman
→ Sheri L McWilliamsCan people only leave someone if that other person has someone else? What if that other person needs to learn how to manage himself on his own? What if he needs to learn how to be an adult? I know literally hundreds of women who have left and the women have nobody else. And they do it! They do it for themselves, and they manage themselves. I wonder what would be possible when we manage our own lives and allow a dysfunctional spouse to manage theirs?