Best Books For Christian Women in Bad Marriages

Over the past decade, I’ve read hundreds of books about parenting, marriage, divorce, spiritual and verbal abuse, trauma, and what God says about women. Those books shaped who I am today. They are one of the biggest reasons I created and teach women in the Flying Free Sisterhood Education and Support program. In my opinion, these are the best books for Christian women in bad marriages

Emotional and Verbal Abuse

• Is It Me? Making Sense of Your Confusing Marriage: A Christian Woman’s Guide to Hidden Emotional and Spiritual Abuse
• The Verbally Abusive Relationship, Expanded Third Edition: How to recognize it and how to respond
• Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men
• The Emotionally Destructive Marriage
• Becoming the Narcissist’s Nightmare: How to Devalue and Discard the Narcissist While Supplying Yourself
• The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships
• Dance of Anger, The: A Woman’s Guide To Changing The Patterns Of Intimate Relationships
• Foolproofing Your Life: How to Deal Effectively with the Impossible People in Your Life
• How He Gets Into Her Head: The Mind of the Male Intimate Abuser
• Necessary Endings
• Psychopath Free (Expanded Edition): Recovering from Emotionally Abusive Relationships With Narcissists, Sociopaths, and Other Toxic People
• The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists: Coping with the One-Way Relationship in Work, Love, and Family

Spiritual Abuse

• Attached to God
• Gaslighted by God
• The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It
• Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church
• Broken Trust: a practical guide to identify and recover from toxic faith, toxic church, and spiritual abuse
• Fraudulent Authority: Pastors Who Seek to Rule Over Others
• In Sheep’s Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
• Original Blessing: Putting Sin in Its Rightful Place
• Out of Sorts: Making Peace with an Evolving Faith
• Searching for Sunday
• The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse
• Untwisting Scriptures: that were used to tie you up, gag you, and tangle your mind

Parenting

• The Batterer as Parent: Addressing the Impact of Domestic Violence on Family Dynamics
• Boundaries with Kids: How Healthy Choices Grow Healthy Children
• Co-parenting with a Toxic Ex: What to Do When Your Ex-Spouse Tries to Turn the Kids Against You
• Raising An Emotionally Intelligent Child The Heart of Parenting
• Transforming the Difficult Child: The Nurtured Heart Approach

Marriage/Relationships

• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide from the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert
• Beyond Boundaries: Learning to Trust Again in Relationships
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
• Getting Back Out There: Secrets to Successful Dating and Finding Real Love after the Big Breakup
• How to Be an Adult in Relationships
• The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are
• Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
• Mutual by Design: A Better Model of Christian Marriage

Healing From Trauma

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
• Altogether You
• No Bad Parts
• The Science of Stuck
• Boundaries for Your Soul: How to Turn Your Overwhelming Thoughts and Feelings into Your Greatest Allies
• Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life
• Brain Talk: How Mind Mapping Brain Science Can Change Your Life & Everyone In It
• Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving: A Guide and Map for Recovering from Childhood Trauma
• The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole
• The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse
• Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
• Healing the Shame that Binds You
• Healing the Trauma of Domestic Violence: A Workbook for Women (New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook)
• The Journey from Abandonment to Healing: Revised and Updated: Surviving Through and Recovering from the Five Stages That Accompany the Loss of Love
• Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges
• Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self
• Safe People: How to Find Relationships that are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren’t
• Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Wholeness and Healing Your Inner Child Using IFS, A New, Cutting-Edge Psychotherapy
• Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence–From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma

The Bible on Women

• Beyond Sex Roles: What the Bible Says about a Woman’s Place in Church and Family
• The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth 
• The Black Swan Effect: A Response to Gender Hierarchy in the Church
• The Forgotten Way Meditations: The Path of Yeshua for Power and Peace in This Life
• The Furious Longing of God
• God’s Word to Women
• Half the Church: Recapturing God’s Global Vision for Women
• How the Bible Actually Works: In Which I Explain How An Ancient, Ambiguous, and Diverse Book Leads Us to Wisdom Rather Than Answers―and Why That’s Great News
• I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”
• Paul, Women, and Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul
• Playing Big: Practical Wisdom for Women Who Want to Speak Up, Create, and Lead
• Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home
• The Search for Significance: Seeing Your True Worth Through God’s Eyes
• Vindicating the Vixens: Revisiting Sexualized, Vilified, and Marginalized Women of the Bible
• What Paul Really Said About Women: The Apostle’s Liberating Views on Equality in Marriage, Leadership, and Love
• When Life and Beliefs Collide
• When We Were on Fire: A Memoir of Consuming Faith, Tangled Love, and Starting Over

Divorce

• Divorce and Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities
• The Life-Saving Divorce: Hope for People Leaving Destructive Relationships
• DIVORCE Financial Planner For Women
• Divorce Poison New and Updated Edition: How to Protect Your Family from Bad-mouthing and Brainwashing
• DIVORCE: Think Financially, Not Emotionally® Volume I: What Women Need To Know About Securing Their Financial Future Before, During, And After Divorce
• Splitting: Protecting Yourself While Divorcing Someone with Borderline or Narcissistic Personality Disorder