I just watched a movie where the main character had been beaten by her previous boyfriend and she left him because of it. (Her boyfriend before that had spoken to her with “mean words” as her ten-year-old daughter put it, and she had left him too.) And this woman said to her friend, “You want to know the sad truth? I stayed as long as I did because I felt I deserved it; I felt I didn’t deserve any better.”
I understand abuse. I hate that I do, but it’s my truth. I didn’t know it was my truth until about three years ago, but it had been my truth for about fifteen years up to that point.
And I can totally resonate with what that woman said in the movie. I felt I deserved it. I was a bitch (pardon my language). Maybe I was a moron. Maybe I didact crazy. So, the words and treatment more than likely fit; I deserved what I got. So I thought.
But here’s where things go off the tracks for me. Because it never crossed my mind that I didn’t deserve better. Why?
Because I am a woman who believes that Scripture is God’s true word to us and because I am a woman who has been going to church for over twenty-six years, what I was taught my entire adulthood has been this:
1. God hates divorce.
2. You can only end your marriage if your husband leaves you (abandonment) or has sex with someone else (adultery). There are no other reasons that divorce is allowed, and if you divorce for reasons other than those, you are wrong, and therefore in sin. (Implied: And should be shunned.)
Well-meaning, mainstream churches teach these things. So because I believed those things – like, down into my core – there was no point in my going down the emotional path that I didn’t deserve better, because better was not an option, because I could not leave. Though I was never hit, I was everything else that abuse can be, and yet I believed I still could not leave because I thought the Bible – plus a whole bunch of people – said I could not.
And so this is what is driving me insane today, right now. Basically this: for women who choose to spend their lives loving God and trying to obey the Bible, we supposedly have less protection for our lives – physically, emotionally and spiritually – from God and from our community (our church family) than someone who does not hold to the standard of Scripture. We, as followers of Jesus, are supposed to withstand more abuse (and don’t even get me started – this is not what turn the other cheek means) from our husbands than women who don’t follow Jesus.
This is not right. This should not be.
This does not square up for me and from who I know God to be. God is a God of justice and protection and healing and, above all, Love. Why would he forbid us from fleeing emotionally, physically or spiritually dangerous marriages? Why would he demand we stay in marriages like this? And why would he punish us if we don’t?
Bottom line, I don’t think he does forbid us. I don’t think it’s right to place a premium on the institution of marriage over the health and wholeness of the individuals trying to live within those marriages.
Does God hate divorce? From reading* I’ve done, I believe the intent of that verse in Malachi was that God hates divorce that happens for no reason (or flimsy reasons). I also believe he hates the breaking of the vows that proceeds the divorce. And I believe he hates what divorce does to a family, to the spouses, and to the children. But I do not believe he hates the divorce that severs a toxic relationship that is slowly killing one or both spouses, and I know for certain he does not hate the person who is a victim of divorce or the person who felt she had no other option but to divorce.
I also believe that abandonment and adultery are not the only reasons for biblical divorce; that if you have prayed, read Scripture, sought much wise counsel and feel you have the grounds to leave based on abuse or an unchecked addiction in your marriage, that the decision is up to you and is between you and God, and you will not forever be in sin, and you should not be shunned.
Even though I did not pull the trigger on my divorce, I now believe that I could have, and that if I had, God would not have been angry with me or disappointed in me that I didn’t just let the abuse continue for another fifty years. I do not believe God would have deemed me forever in sin.
I believe he would have shown me grace and restored me, and would’ve been proud of me for trying so hard and for so long, and would have accepted that I had taken steps, in his strength, to rectify a situation he never meant for me to be in.
This is not a popular opinion to take. In fact, I could get in trouble for saying these things. (But as it turns out, I’m caring less and less what people think and more and more what Jesus does.)
As followers of Jesus, I believe we should have higher standards for staying in our marriages and helping others stay in their marriages, absolutely.
But I also believe as followers of Jesus, we should not be standing there, holding victims’ hands to the flame citing their commitment to God as reason enough to stay.
We should have higher standards for quality of marriages, not just staying at any cost simply to say that we stayed.
We should be taking more seriously the pleas for help and we should be intervening sooner, holding both parties accountable, not just the person who asks for help.
Please hear me: Abuse in a marriage does not automatically merit a divorce! HOWEVER, abuse in a marriage should automatically merit GETTING HELP.
And, to further clarify, I have said this before and I will say it a thousand times more if I have to: I will not and cannot tell you if you should or can get a divorce; no one can tell you this. So, again, start here — pray, pray, pray; share with a trusted friend what you’re going through for support and accountability; work on yourself; and ask for help until you get it (and when I say help, I mean people to confront the sin leading to the abuse, and perhaps a therapeutic separation if possible, among other things). Do not just up and leave (unless you are physically in danger) but do not just lie there and take it either. I believe God wants so much more for you.
*See Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce for Abuse, Adultery and Desertion by Barbara Roberts
If this post helped you, I would encourage you to check out “Surviving in a Difficult Christian Marriage”, found here.
Very well stated. Thank you! I needed this Today.
I absolutely believe I was in bondage within my marriage. Through therapy, I realized that God does love a person more than an institution (marriage). He does hate divorce, as he hates all sins and the consequences they cause. By filing for divorce, I was bringing truth to a situation which was full of darkness and lies. The marriage was already broken.
I cannot express the freedom He has granted and the sweetness it has been to live outside of that bondage.
Thank you for speaking out. I’m doing the same!
I am confused on this issue and not sure how to think and feel about it. How should I define abuse? I can understand grounds for leaving if my husband is physically abusive, but at what point do I have grounds to leave if he is emotionally or spiritually abusive? Such types of abuse seem to me to be a whole lot more difficult to define. My own marriage has been very hard and I’ve been tempted to leave so many times. My husband was both physically and verbally abused during his childhood. He has not been physically abusive to me or our kids, and though his words might be unkind at times, I have to admit that I’m the one who is much more harsh with my words…to both he and the kids. I’m tempted to feel abused/abandoned because I tend to shoulder the burden of responsibility in our marriage. My husband was diagnosed with ADHD and has a very difficult time multi-tasking and following through. I feel as if I’m taken for granted and he contantly feels guilty for not being there for me. I’m exhausted. I feel as if I’m raising another child instead of being married to a partner. Is he being abusive to me in this situation? Sometimes I wonder if I’m being abusive to him because my patience is so thin that I can hardly find any reason to encourage. I find myself saying things I never thought I would say, and my husband who is so sensitive from the lifelong abuses he received from his father, is so easily hurt by things I’ve said that he tends to retreat. I feel both sorry for and infuriated at him. I so badly want a man and not a child. He so badly wants to feel like a man and not child. But I can’t help but feel abused and taken for granted. I don’t like the person I’ve become since I married him. Is this relationship toxic? Is it abusive? Or am I just looking for an excuse to get out of a relationship that God wants me to stay in?
There are a lot of Christians in my life who have recently gotten divorced for reasons that are biblical and reasons that may not be. I also have seen God miraculously and completely restore my dearest friend’s hopeless marriage with an unsaved, adulterous, and alcoholic husband.
So, that said, being divorced is not the unforgivable sin and you are not “forever in sin” no matter WHAT you have done if you are reconciled to God through Christ’s blood. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” -John 10:28. No one — NOT EVEN OURSELVES.
But, in order to find true comfort from Jesus and from the Bible we have to be honest with Him and honest with ourselves.
Recently, a close relative of mine passed away, and I didn’t know if he was saved. Suddenly everything I KNEW about eternal life and hell was thrust in to terrible doubt. I found that although I could out-argue all of my doubts with irrefutable apologetics, I found I was in a place where I just COULD NOT believe what I KNEW to be true. I just could not make myself no matter what. It was astonishing to me how big of a difference it made to be confronted with the breath taking reality of something that I had heretofore only known on a cognitive level.
This is I think what happens with Christians with divorce. It is one thing to be able to spout off all of the verses and to build unassailable arguments when you are not confronted with an impossible situation YOURSELF. It is one thing to look at others’ marriages falling apart from a place of safety and judge them until you are confronted with a husband who is addicted to porn or who shouts his hatred at you or who neglects you. Very easy indeed until the blood that is shed is your own (Heb. 12: 14).
So, I see all of these people getting divorced around me whom I know love God to their core. And now I have entered into the darkest point of my eight-year long marriage 14 year long relationship with my husband, and what am I to do?
The greatest comfort I have is from what Jesus tells me. I have to believe the Bible as a whole and not pick and choose what I believe or I lose that comfort because to say He was faulty in one area means that He was fallible and cannot be trusted in other areas. Where, then, is the comfort in trusting a foundation of shifting sands?
Therefore, when I am confronted with a difficulty in scripture, I cannot go and find reasons why I don’t have to believe it else the whole of scripture falls apart. If in one area I say, “Well, this was written in a time when women were treated as property,” then this leads me to a serious problem because ALL scripture was written in the context of a culture, so then I can dismiss any part that is impossible for me to believe based on the culture argument.
Better to be honest. I told God that “I can NOT believe in hell anymore. Help. My Unbelief.” Please don’t try to make scripture say what it doesn’t say. Just come out and says the truth: that “I can’t believe at this moment in my life that God hates divorce. At least, I can’t believe that he hates mine. Because that might mean that he hates me.” Tell God. But don’t twist His words. Be honest.
He does not hate you. He does not abandon you. He does not shun you. But His word is true even when it is impossible. I have seen Him do impossible things. I have seen Him save an impossible marriage that all of the Christian counselors and pastors and friends said was past saving. Let’s grant Jesus the credit that He can do impossible things. He is in the business of raising the dead, after all. If you don’t believe, then say that. It’s OK.
“If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” -2 Tim. 2:13.
Dear Anonymous (“I am confused…”),
In your situation, I would absolutely get some kind of help to determine how things really are. Either a pastor you trust or a counselor will be able to give you wisdom in discerning your reality. If you’re being physically hurt, seek safety. If you’re being emotionally hurt, get help to set up some boundaries and to talk through how dangerous things are for you.
Elisabeth
I had always believed and been taught that abuse is a viable reason for divorce although I did live with it for almost 15 years..because it wasn’t “that bad.” Also, I didn’t want to admit that I was a victim. I have been wisely counseled since then that this truly is allowable. We are told by GOd that life is valuable and should be protected. If we have children, especially, we are protecting life by leaving or getting restraining orders. Also, that by abusing his wife, the man has already abandoned her and forsaken his vows to love her. We may have to be the one to physically leave the marriage but he had left it in all other ways already.