Thank you so much to Barbara for setting up this wonderful resource whereby victims of abuse can receive bestselling books on the topic. I am very grateful to you for the books you have kindly gifted me and for your ongoing work raising awareness of this issue through your books and other media.
A very informative blog and useful website.
Thanks, Oceanoflove, I’m glad you are finding it helpful. 🙂
Barbara – I stumbled upon your website this afternoon, and what a breath of fresh air it is. I was manipulated into marrying a “Christian” abuser when I was only 19. He stole four years from my life, until my family found out what was happening and talked sense into me. I could easily be dead right now. I am now 55 and am married to my truly Christian Prince Charming. God has made up for the years the locusts have eaten, and I am grateful. Your descriptions of abusers and their manipulation of the church are dead on accurate. I cannot wait to order and read your book. Press on with your work. It is desperately needed. Bless you, my sister in Christ.
Thanks so much for your encouraging comment!
Welcome to the blog, God is Good. 🙂 In case you have not yet checked it out, here is our FAQ page.
I just found this blog while searching for solid theology on God’s Justice for the oppressed. I was sexually harassed for months at church, the behavior was predatory and escalating. It progressed to sexual assault, which was documented on the church’s security cameras. This is NOT the first or second or third complaint against this man, and church leadership had spoken to him previously about inappropriate physical contact with younger women. He has a known history of this predatory behavior. When I complained and the security camera footage was viewed, the church leadership chose to take no action against this individual, in fact, [they] accepted his displayed remorse at being caught for true repentance.
The leadership’s treatment of me was even more horrific than the offender’s treatment of me. They minimized my pain and denied the impact, did classic shame shifting, victim blaming, and accused me of “sin in my heart” because he had “repented” and I was angry. The leaders then walked my husband and I to the door and suggested we would be more comfortable worshiping elsewhere. My husband and I were faithful servants, serving on the board and on ministry teams. We are shaken and stunned beyond belief at the church’s response, which was at best, a display of unChrist-like behavior.
[Paragraph break added to enhance readability. Editors.]
Dear StillFaithful, I believe you. My heart goes out to you. What you have suffered from those wolves is horrific.
You said that the church leadership accepted as true repentance the predator’s displayed remorse at being caught. Not to diminish your experience in any way, but that behaviour by church leadership is so common. It’s disgusting. God abhors those who call evil good.
Many Christian survivors of abuse report that the horrible ways church leaders responded to the abuse was more hurtful than the abuse by the perpetrator.
Victims of abuse need to be protected, not falsely accused of being evil or ‘bitter’. Perpetrators of abuse need to be firmly disciplined and held accountable for the harms they done and the lies they have told. When victims are maligned by the very people who should be protecting them, that deeply injures the victims.
I’m glad your husband is standing with you. May you both find comfort in each other and in clinging to Jesus Christ who was unjustly shamed and crucified outside the city by the religious establishment.
I’m so happy your found this blog. And I hope you keep commenting, as you feel able to, or want to. ((((Hugs))))
At what point can I be considered “abandoned”?
My husband and I married in 2018. He soon became physically abusive to me, including threatening to kill me several times, holding my head under a sink full of dirty water once, hitting and punching me multiple times per week, calling me every name in the book — the more foul, the better, and constantly accusing me of flirting / cheating with other men he knew — some of whom I’d never even met.
He went to prison for something unrelated in 2020. I stayed faithful to him through the abuse, and prison term. Our communication began to improve but as his prison time began to draw to a close, I knew he wouldn’t quit, and that sooner or later he’d break my face if I got back together with him.
I put our marriage on “pause” several weeks before his release this past [summer], mandating that he receive counseling before he resumed family life with me, or meeting our [child] (I was 7 months pregnant when he went to prison, and he physically abused me throughout those 7 months, also, including hitting me in the knee with a wrench and cracking a rib in my back, during my pregnancy).
He was not open to counseling. I broke up with him a couple weeks before his release, and I have only heard from him a few times (usually he texts me in the middle of the night) in the [almost half a year] he’s been out of prison. Last time we texted, he asked if he could talk to our [child]. I said he could call in the evening when I was off work. He didn’t. He texted the next day saying he’d been at some class / church thing, and that’s why he hadn’t called. That’s been [approximately a month] ago, and I haven’t heard from him since.
Meanwhile, I’ve filed for divorce, but have not had success in getting him served. (He was in prison in another state, and now lives in the same state he was in prison in.) I am in contact with him only very seldomly and although I have his phone number, I don’t initiate contact, and I’m scared to let him know I’m divorcing him.
To further complicate matters, I’ve met a truly wonderful man and I want to marry him. I’d still be trying to get free of my husband if I didn’t know this man.
Some blogs and videos I’ve watched on YouTube say abuse is not a reason to divorce, or even separate, and that we’re to obey the Lord, even to the death. This scares the hell outta me. There was a time I almost wanted my husband to kill me, but I don’t want him to harm our little [child] who’s [age redacted] now.
I love what you’ve said about not being under bondage. But I fear sometimes that the anti-divorce people are right, and that you and others who believe like you do, are twisting scripture.
I just really don’t want to do wrong! But I desperately want to put my husband and his drug (meth especially) lifestyle behind me, and embrace a new life with this lovely, lovely man who loves me the way I used to beg my husband to love me.
I’m so scared that I’m using my desire for this man to cause me to read scripture wrong. Please help me.
[For the safety and protection of the commenter and the child, the comment was lightly airbrushed, as well as the age of the child redacted. Editors.]
Hi Want To Be Free,
For the safety and protection of you and your child, I changed the screen name you submitted with your comment to Want To Be Free, as the screen name you submitted with your comment might’ve been too revealing. If you’d prefer a different screen name, please email me at reachingout.acfj@gmail.com.
I believe you, and I’m so sorry for what’s happened to you. And not to diminish your experience in any way — and a part of the reason I only needed to lightly airbrush your comment — is because your experience is so common. 😢
I’m sure as soon as Barb can, she will provide a response to your concerns regarding Scripture and divorce. 😊
Dear Want to be free,
My apologies for taking a while to reply to you.
Your husband abandoned you ages ago. His evil pattern of conduct towards you demonstrates that beyond doubt. The “Permanence View” marriage crowd are wrong, diabolically wrong, because (a) their teaching is not biblically sound, they cherry pick scriptures to argue their case, while ignoring many other scriptures; and (b) their teaching compounds the oppression and suffering of the abused, and enables abusers to sit on their egotistic thrones, sadistically delighting in covertly torturing their victims.
Regarding the relationship with the new man who you want to marry. May I gently caution you to go slow with that relationship? I know you want to feel safe and secure. And this man may indeed be both able and willing to be a good, faithful, godly husband to you. However, there are many instances of men who initially present themselves to women as “the man of your dreams”… but in time the men show their true wolf-like colours. Abusive men are skilled at putting on a false front to seduce and brainwash a woman they are targeting for long-term intimate partner abuse. I suggest you read my Don Hennessy series to understand this more.
I suggest there can be no great harm or danger in you slowing down the relationship you have with this guy. I’d hate you to end up (like I did) suffering TWO abusive marriages.
I’ve written once before, but my husband and I are in a new place and I would like an outside perspective. But I don’t know how to make it short….
My husband and I been married a long time. For many years he used alcohol and drugs to deal with his mental illness. When sober, he could be a little selfish, but overall a nice person. But when drunk he could be manipulative, dishonest and violent. I went to a church that just told me to submit. And that mental illness wasn’t usually real. They also believed women are easily deceived. So I forced myself to believe the lies and manipulation and gaslighting because I thought I could trust my husband’s mind more than my own. We also didn’t even bother to look into medication for his illness. I became very depressed, high cortisol. So exhausted trying to care for [many] kids in extreme poverty (because he spent the money at the bar and on hobbies). I remember throwing up at night simply out of exhaustion. I would try to be kind and would finally yell at him. Then I would grovel and apologize and he would withhold forgiveness for awhile. And then finally let me back into his graces. He was also having serious bouts of depression and I stopped him from suicide at one point.
We moved to a different church. I saw how my [older children] were starting to act like their dad. I called my pastor thinking I could finally see and repent of my sins that were causing so much havoc. Maybe my pastor could show me how to control my anger. To my surprise, my pastor told me I needed to acknowledge my emotions more. He then said something wasn’t adding up with my husband and wanted him to see a psychiatrist. This is when he was diagnosed and finally medicated. The church paid for this and also for counseling for me because I was confused about what was real.
Over the course of years, with my pastor holding my husband accountable for trying to get with other girls and getting drunk, things improved. A lot. But my kids were already a mess — several grown. And my hormones and body were messed up. We were broke, close to retirement. But my husband was becoming kind and thoughtful. And the pastor has moved on and the new one says things that make me think he won’t understand.
Once in awhile he [my husband] will drink too much and he won’t do or say anything terrible, but I will have a visceral response and he does not understand. He doesn’t remember anything he did. The psychiatrist believes him because of his mental illness. When he was mean his reality was often skewed. The last episode he had, his reality was still skewed, but the way he interacted with it [me?] was much more in line with the Bible. He still falsely believed I was doing all kinds of terrible things, but instead of getting even with me, like he would do before, he tried really hard to forgive me and turn the other cheek.
I feel like we just met. Like we have two different stories. His story is that we’ve always basically gotten along with a few little mutually caused bumps. My story is that he lied, manipulated, beat me, flirted with and tried to get together with other women. Sabotaged my parenting, was cruel at times to the kids, etc., and I am exhausted and my trust is broken. He’s been better for several years now. He feels he’s earned my trust again. But it’s hard when he doesn’t truly think he did the things he did. And I know he thinks I’m exaggerating. He’ll say, “I’m sorry for anything I did. I don’t remember any of it. I can’t imagine myself doing that stuff. But I’ll trust you….if you say so”. But then if I get triggered and have an emotional response, he’ll say it never happened. We’ve done [gone?] to marriage counseling but he won’t say anything except “I don’t remember”. Once he said I was projecting my dad onto him and making stuff up. But then apologized later.
I don’t feel close to him. But he has been kind for years now. And I need to let it go. I don’t mind doing stuff with him, but bedroom stuff is hard for me because I don’t feel emotionally safe. Even though it’s been years. I’ve asked him to take [the] initiative to set up marriage counseling to show he’s invested. But he hasn’t. I wish I could just tell him my story. Without him feeling accused. Those decades of marriage shaped me. Because he refused to really acknowledge them, he doesn’t know the real me. I don’t know whether to try harder to let it drop or keep pushing.
[For safety and protection, some information has been redacted. Editors.]
Hi Sarah Laughing,
I didn’t change the screen name you submitted with your comment to the screen name you last used on the blog….you wrote that you’re in a new place and used the screen name Sarah Laughing. 😊 Some of our readers use different screen names to indicate some change(s) in their life — sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
I’m sure Barb will reply to you, although there might be a bit of a delay…. 😊
Hi Sarah Laughing, if you read this comment, please reply to it, otherwise I will feel like I wrote my comment to no avail.
Whenever you comment at this blog, make sure you hit the ‘notify me’ bell icon, so that you will be notified by email when anyone (e.g. me) replies to you.
(Last time, years ago, when I replied to your first comment on this blog, you did not give me any indication that you had read my reply.)
The first church you went to treated you very badly. What they did to you made matters worse! You did well to leave that church. 🙂
The second church has treated you much better. The advice the pastor gave that you needed to acknowledge your emotions more was spot on. 🙂
That pastor also suggested your husband see a psychiatrist, which led to your husband receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and medication for that diagnosis and the church paid for this.
Hmm. It is possible that the psychiatrist correctly diagnosed your husband. But it’s also possible that his diagnosis was incorrect, or only partially correct. Let me explain. The psychiatric system’s diagnostic scheme is STILL blind or mostly blind to the existence of malicious evildoers. The psychiatric system routinely fails to identify and label (let alone effectively treat) men who choose to abuse their female intimate partners. They may label such men as “bi-polar” or “depressed” but they fail to see that this type of man covertly and intentionally entraps a female he wants as an intimate partner who he can abuse long term. The psychiatrists fail to see the intentional brainwashing these men do to the women who they target as their victims. Psychiatric medication (e.g. bi-polar medication) may take the extreme (overt) peaks off the abuse, but it does not fix the underlying problem of abuse. See my page Is my abuser’s mental illness causing him to be abusive?
The underlying problem is the man’s entrenched belief that he is ENTITLED to abuse his female intimate partner. And the psychiatrists do not yet see (because most of them do not want to see) that these men select their targets and intentionally abuse them from day one of the relationship.
The second pastor also suggested counseling for you because he thought you were confused about what was real. I think that was a pretty good suggestion. I hope your counsellor told you that it is not your fault and you are not to blame. I hope the counsellor helped you to trust your gut feelings more. I hope the counsellor encouraged you to see that your husband has an abusive mindset and that he believes he is entitled to abuse you.
You said that with this second pastor holding your husband accountable for trying to get with other girls and getting drunk, things improved a lot. But your kids were already a mess — several grown. And your hormones and body were messed up. And you were broke, close to retirement. It sounds like this pastor was holding your husband accountable for sexual immorality and misuse of alcohol, but he was NOT holding him accountable for his wrongful belief that he was entitled to lie to you and intentionally, covertly or overtly, abuse you. So in my view, this pastor didn’t fully “get it” and didn’t fully help you.
You said that under this second pastor your husband was becoming kind and thoughtful. I believe you. But kind and thoughtful can be put on without deep heart change. Read my Checklist for Repentance to get an idea of what full repentance entails. And read my page What if the abuser is repentant?
My guess is that your husband was superficially repenting and changing, but the root-and-branch reformation required was not taking place in him.
You said that fairly good pastor has moved on, and the new pastor says things that make you think he won’t understand. I believe you. I think your sense of the new pastor is spot on! I encourage you to trust that sense: it’s a gut feeling and it comes from your right-brain intuition and it is based on lots of little things you’ve seen and heard that pastor do. I honour you for paying attention to your intuition. 🙂
You said:
Once in a while my husband will drink too much and he won’t do or say anything terrible, but I will have a visceral response and he does not understand. He doesn’t remember anything he did. The psychiatrist believes him because of his mental illness. When he was mean his reality was often skewed. The last episode he had, his reality was still skewed, but the way he interacted with it [me?] was much more in line with the Bible. He still falsely believed I was doing all kinds of terrible things, but instead of getting even with me, like he would do before, he tried really hard to forgive me and turn the other cheek.
Allow me to comment. Your husband claims he doesn’t remember anything he did. The psychiatrist believes this claim made by your husband. But the psychiatrist may be wrong. It is possible, even likely, that your husband DOES remember what he did and is denying that he did those things in order to (a) shift the blame away from himself, and (b) make you doubt your memory of events, and (c) make you feel sorry for him. In other words, since your husband has found that the psychiatrist backs up his claim that he can’t remember, it’s easy for your husband to keep on lying about his memory, in order to avoid taking full responsibility for all the trauma he has caused you.
Your visceral response to when your husband drinks too much is a very understandable and healthy response to his drinking too much. He’s shown such a long history of misusing alcohol and abusing you, and you are understandably hypervigilant about that happening again. You don’t feel safe when he drinks too much, and you have good reason to feel unsafe because of the history — his long-term pattern of conduct. I validate your visceral reaction.
A truly reforming abuser would say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You have every right to feel afraid, angry and be on edge when I drink too much, because of how I mistreated you for so long.” A good husband would allow and invite you to vent your emotions, without judging you for feeling those emotions, and he would offer you comfort and profuse apologies. He would say “Your visceral response is not your fault. It is my fault, because I abused you so often in so many ways. I take responsibility. The blame lies on me.”
You said:
The last episode [of heavy drinking] he had, his reality was still skewed, but the way he interacted with it [me?] was much more in line with the Bible. He still falsely believed I was doing all kinds of terrible things, but instead of getting even with me, like he would do before, he tried really hard to forgive me and turn the other cheek.
I’m going to say something that might shock or surprise you. It sounds to me like your husband is learning to use “christianese jargon” to bamboozle you into thinking he is reforming. It sounds to me like he is still falsely accusing you of doing all kinds of terrible things, and is covertly pretending to be more Christ-like in order to get you to have hope that he is changing for the better. It sounds like he is playing the “Christian” game in order to suck you back in so that he can continue to abuse you.
These abusive men are highly skilled at lying. They are very covert in most of their tactics. They learn how better to play the psycho-babble game and the “Christian” game in order to keep their target women under control, and keep her hopeful that there is some improvement in the marriage and therefore she should give him another chance.
Don Hennessy says that men who abuse their female intimate partners are more cunning and more skilled than pedophiles. Ponder that. It’s hard to take in, but I believe it’s true.
I think you are right not to trust him.
You said:
He’ll say, “I’m sorry for anything I did. I don’t remember any of it. I can’t imagine myself doing that stuff. But I’ll trust you… if you say so”. But then if I get triggered and have an emotional response, he’ll say it never happened. We’ve done [gone?] to marriage counseling but he won’t say anything except “I don’t remember”.
See how he says one thing but then contradicts what he said? He says, “I can’t imagine myself doing that stuff; but I’ll trust you….if you say so.” But then he says he never did that stuff and it never happened. So he is being two-faced. He is lying in order to confuse you and throw you off balance.
You wrote:
Once he said I was projecting my dad onto him and making stuff up. But then apologized later.
His apologies are lies too. He makes pseudo-apologies in order to confuse you and suck you back in.
You are right that he and you have two different stories. His story is that you and he have always basically gotten along with a few little mutually caused bumps. Your story is that he lied, manipulated, beat you, flirted with and tried to get together with other women, sabotaged your parenting, was cruel at times to the kids, etc., and you are exhausted and your trust is broken.
His story is a tissue of lies with a few half-truths thrown in. Your story is true. I encourage you to believe you own story. I encourage you to keep telling yourself your own story, and refuse to listen to his story because it is full of lies.
I think you are very healthy to not feel close to him. I think he has sucked you back in by his “kindness”. Kindness is intermittent reward. The abuser gives intermittent kindness to the victim in order to suck her back in. I am not surprised that bedroom stuff is hard for you. Don Hennessy says that the battle is in the bedroom and the abuser’s chief aim is to have a woman he can abuse long-term so that he can get his sexual preferences met without having to negotiate.
You are not alone. Many, many women have suffered and still are suffering similar abuse to what you are suffering.
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A Cry For Justice 
Thank you so much to Barbara for setting up this wonderful resource whereby victims of abuse can receive bestselling books on the topic. I am very grateful to you for the books you have kindly gifted me and for your ongoing work raising awareness of this issue through your books and other media.
A very informative blog and useful website.
Thanks, Oceanoflove, I’m glad you are finding it helpful. 🙂
Barbara – I stumbled upon your website this afternoon, and what a breath of fresh air it is. I was manipulated into marrying a “Christian” abuser when I was only 19. He stole four years from my life, until my family found out what was happening and talked sense into me. I could easily be dead right now. I am now 55 and am married to my truly Christian Prince Charming. God has made up for the years the locusts have eaten, and I am grateful. Your descriptions of abusers and their manipulation of the church are dead on accurate. I cannot wait to order and read your book. Press on with your work. It is desperately needed. Bless you, my sister in Christ.
Thanks so much for your encouraging comment!
Welcome to the blog, God is Good. 🙂 In case you have not yet checked it out, here is our FAQ page.
I just found this blog while searching for solid theology on God’s Justice for the oppressed. I was sexually harassed for months at church, the behavior was predatory and escalating. It progressed to sexual assault, which was documented on the church’s security cameras. This is NOT the first or second or third complaint against this man, and church leadership had spoken to him previously about inappropriate physical contact with younger women. He has a known history of this predatory behavior. When I complained and the security camera footage was viewed, the church leadership chose to take no action against this individual, in fact, [they] accepted his displayed remorse at being caught for true repentance.
The leadership’s treatment of me was even more horrific than the offender’s treatment of me. They minimized my pain and denied the impact, did classic shame shifting, victim blaming, and accused me of “sin in my heart” because he had “repented” and I was angry. The leaders then walked my husband and I to the door and suggested we would be more comfortable worshiping elsewhere. My husband and I were faithful servants, serving on the board and on ministry teams. We are shaken and stunned beyond belief at the church’s response, which was at best, a display of unChrist-like behavior.
[Paragraph break added to enhance readability. Editors.]
Dear StillFaithful, I believe you. My heart goes out to you. What you have suffered from those wolves is horrific.
You said that the church leadership accepted as true repentance the predator’s displayed remorse at being caught. Not to diminish your experience in any way, but that behaviour by church leadership is so common. It’s disgusting. God abhors those who call evil good.
Many Christian survivors of abuse report that the horrible ways church leaders responded to the abuse was more hurtful than the abuse by the perpetrator.
Victims of abuse need to be protected, not falsely accused of being evil or ‘bitter’. Perpetrators of abuse need to be firmly disciplined and held accountable for the harms they done and the lies they have told. When victims are maligned by the very people who should be protecting them, that deeply injures the victims.
I’m glad your husband is standing with you. May you both find comfort in each other and in clinging to Jesus Christ who was unjustly shamed and crucified outside the city by the religious establishment.
You might like to explore the blog more by going here: Is it wrong to feel anger and hatred for my abuser?
I’m so happy your found this blog. And I hope you keep commenting, as you feel able to, or want to. ((((Hugs))))
At what point can I be considered “abandoned”?
My husband and I married in 2018. He soon became physically abusive to me, including threatening to kill me several times, holding my head under a sink full of dirty water once, hitting and punching me multiple times per week, calling me every name in the book — the more foul, the better, and constantly accusing me of flirting / cheating with other men he knew — some of whom I’d never even met.
He went to prison for something unrelated in 2020. I stayed faithful to him through the abuse, and prison term. Our communication began to improve but as his prison time began to draw to a close, I knew he wouldn’t quit, and that sooner or later he’d break my face if I got back together with him.
I put our marriage on “pause” several weeks before his release this past [summer], mandating that he receive counseling before he resumed family life with me, or meeting our [child] (I was 7 months pregnant when he went to prison, and he physically abused me throughout those 7 months, also, including hitting me in the knee with a wrench and cracking a rib in my back, during my pregnancy).
He was not open to counseling. I broke up with him a couple weeks before his release, and I have only heard from him a few times (usually he texts me in the middle of the night) in the [almost half a year] he’s been out of prison. Last time we texted, he asked if he could talk to our [child]. I said he could call in the evening when I was off work. He didn’t. He texted the next day saying he’d been at some class / church thing, and that’s why he hadn’t called. That’s been [approximately a month] ago, and I haven’t heard from him since.
Meanwhile, I’ve filed for divorce, but have not had success in getting him served. (He was in prison in another state, and now lives in the same state he was in prison in.) I am in contact with him only very seldomly and although I have his phone number, I don’t initiate contact, and I’m scared to let him know I’m divorcing him.
To further complicate matters, I’ve met a truly wonderful man and I want to marry him. I’d still be trying to get free of my husband if I didn’t know this man.
Some blogs and videos I’ve watched on YouTube say abuse is not a reason to divorce, or even separate, and that we’re to obey the Lord, even to the death. This scares the hell outta me. There was a time I almost wanted my husband to kill me, but I don’t want him to harm our little [child] who’s [age redacted] now.
I love what you’ve said about not being under bondage. But I fear sometimes that the anti-divorce people are right, and that you and others who believe like you do, are twisting scripture.
I just really don’t want to do wrong! But I desperately want to put my husband and his drug (meth especially) lifestyle behind me, and embrace a new life with this lovely, lovely man who loves me the way I used to beg my husband to love me.
I’m so scared that I’m using my desire for this man to cause me to read scripture wrong. Please help me.
[For the safety and protection of the commenter and the child, the comment was lightly airbrushed, as well as the age of the child redacted. Editors.]
Hi Want To Be Free,
For the safety and protection of you and your child, I changed the screen name you submitted with your comment to Want To Be Free, as the screen name you submitted with your comment might’ve been too revealing. If you’d prefer a different screen name, please email me at reachingout.acfj@gmail.com.
I believe you, and I’m so sorry for what’s happened to you. And not to diminish your experience in any way — and a part of the reason I only needed to lightly airbrush your comment — is because your experience is so common. 😢
I’m sure as soon as Barb can, she will provide a response to your concerns regarding Scripture and divorce. 😊
Dear Want to be free,
My apologies for taking a while to reply to you.
Your husband abandoned you ages ago. His evil pattern of conduct towards you demonstrates that beyond doubt. The “Permanence View” marriage crowd are wrong, diabolically wrong, because (a) their teaching is not biblically sound, they cherry pick scriptures to argue their case, while ignoring many other scriptures; and (b) their teaching compounds the oppression and suffering of the abused, and enables abusers to sit on their egotistic thrones, sadistically delighting in covertly torturing their victims.
I suggest you look at this link to confirm that what I have said is true: What does the Bible say about divorce?
Regarding the relationship with the new man who you want to marry. May I gently caution you to go slow with that relationship? I know you want to feel safe and secure. And this man may indeed be both able and willing to be a good, faithful, godly husband to you. However, there are many instances of men who initially present themselves to women as “the man of your dreams”… but in time the men show their true wolf-like colours. Abusive men are skilled at putting on a false front to seduce and brainwash a woman they are targeting for long-term intimate partner abuse. I suggest you read my Don Hennessy series to understand this more.
I suggest there can be no great harm or danger in you slowing down the relationship you have with this guy. I’d hate you to end up (like I did) suffering TWO abusive marriages.
I’ve written once before, but my husband and I are in a new place and I would like an outside perspective. But I don’t know how to make it short….
My husband and I been married a long time. For many years he used alcohol and drugs to deal with his mental illness. When sober, he could be a little selfish, but overall a nice person. But when drunk he could be manipulative, dishonest and violent. I went to a church that just told me to submit. And that mental illness wasn’t usually real. They also believed women are easily deceived. So I forced myself to believe the lies and manipulation and gaslighting because I thought I could trust my husband’s mind more than my own. We also didn’t even bother to look into medication for his illness. I became very depressed, high cortisol. So exhausted trying to care for [many] kids in extreme poverty (because he spent the money at the bar and on hobbies). I remember throwing up at night simply out of exhaustion. I would try to be kind and would finally yell at him. Then I would grovel and apologize and he would withhold forgiveness for awhile. And then finally let me back into his graces. He was also having serious bouts of depression and I stopped him from suicide at one point.
We moved to a different church. I saw how my [older children] were starting to act like their dad. I called my pastor thinking I could finally see and repent of my sins that were causing so much havoc. Maybe my pastor could show me how to control my anger. To my surprise, my pastor told me I needed to acknowledge my emotions more. He then said something wasn’t adding up with my husband and wanted him to see a psychiatrist. This is when he was diagnosed and finally medicated. The church paid for this and also for counseling for me because I was confused about what was real.
Over the course of years, with my pastor holding my husband accountable for trying to get with other girls and getting drunk, things improved. A lot. But my kids were already a mess — several grown. And my hormones and body were messed up. We were broke, close to retirement. But my husband was becoming kind and thoughtful. And the pastor has moved on and the new one says things that make me think he won’t understand.
Once in awhile he [my husband] will drink too much and he won’t do or say anything terrible, but I will have a visceral response and he does not understand. He doesn’t remember anything he did. The psychiatrist believes him because of his mental illness. When he was mean his reality was often skewed. The last episode he had, his reality was still skewed, but the way he interacted with it [me?] was much more in line with the Bible. He still falsely believed I was doing all kinds of terrible things, but instead of getting even with me, like he would do before, he tried really hard to forgive me and turn the other cheek.
I feel like we just met. Like we have two different stories. His story is that we’ve always basically gotten along with a few little mutually caused bumps. My story is that he lied, manipulated, beat me, flirted with and tried to get together with other women. Sabotaged my parenting, was cruel at times to the kids, etc., and I am exhausted and my trust is broken. He’s been better for several years now. He feels he’s earned my trust again. But it’s hard when he doesn’t truly think he did the things he did. And I know he thinks I’m exaggerating. He’ll say, “I’m sorry for anything I did. I don’t remember any of it. I can’t imagine myself doing that stuff. But I’ll trust you….if you say so”. But then if I get triggered and have an emotional response, he’ll say it never happened. We’ve done [gone?] to marriage counseling but he won’t say anything except “I don’t remember”. Once he said I was projecting my dad onto him and making stuff up. But then apologized later.
I don’t feel close to him. But he has been kind for years now. And I need to let it go. I don’t mind doing stuff with him, but bedroom stuff is hard for me because I don’t feel emotionally safe. Even though it’s been years. I’ve asked him to take [the] initiative to set up marriage counseling to show he’s invested. But he hasn’t. I wish I could just tell him my story. Without him feeling accused. Those decades of marriage shaped me. Because he refused to really acknowledge them, he doesn’t know the real me. I don’t know whether to try harder to let it drop or keep pushing.
[For safety and protection, some information has been redacted. Editors.]
Hi Sarah Laughing,
I didn’t change the screen name you submitted with your comment to the screen name you last used on the blog….you wrote that you’re in a new place and used the screen name Sarah Laughing. 😊 Some of our readers use different screen names to indicate some change(s) in their life — sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
I’m sure Barb will reply to you, although there might be a bit of a delay…. 😊
Hi Sarah Laughing, if you read this comment, please reply to it, otherwise I will feel like I wrote my comment to no avail.
Whenever you comment at this blog, make sure you hit the ‘notify me’ bell icon, so that you will be notified by email when anyone (e.g. me) replies to you.
(Last time, years ago, when I replied to your first comment on this blog, you did not give me any indication that you had read my reply.)
The first church you went to treated you very badly. What they did to you made matters worse! You did well to leave that church. 🙂
The second church has treated you much better. The advice the pastor gave that you needed to acknowledge your emotions more was spot on. 🙂
That pastor also suggested your husband see a psychiatrist, which led to your husband receiving a psychiatric diagnosis and medication for that diagnosis and the church paid for this.
Hmm. It is possible that the psychiatrist correctly diagnosed your husband. But it’s also possible that his diagnosis was incorrect, or only partially correct. Let me explain. The psychiatric system’s diagnostic scheme is STILL blind or mostly blind to the existence of malicious evildoers. The psychiatric system routinely fails to identify and label (let alone effectively treat) men who choose to abuse their female intimate partners. They may label such men as “bi-polar” or “depressed” but they fail to see that this type of man covertly and intentionally entraps a female he wants as an intimate partner who he can abuse long term. The psychiatrists fail to see the intentional brainwashing these men do to the women who they target as their victims. Psychiatric medication (e.g. bi-polar medication) may take the extreme (overt) peaks off the abuse, but it does not fix the underlying problem of abuse. See my page Is my abuser’s mental illness causing him to be abusive?
The underlying problem is the man’s entrenched belief that he is ENTITLED to abuse his female intimate partner. And the psychiatrists do not yet see (because most of them do not want to see) that these men select their targets and intentionally abuse them from day one of the relationship.
To learn more about this read this: Don Hennessy Digest.
The second pastor also suggested counseling for you because he thought you were confused about what was real. I think that was a pretty good suggestion. I hope your counsellor told you that it is not your fault and you are not to blame. I hope the counsellor helped you to trust your gut feelings more. I hope the counsellor encouraged you to see that your husband has an abusive mindset and that he believes he is entitled to abuse you.
You said that with this second pastor holding your husband accountable for trying to get with other girls and getting drunk, things improved a lot. But your kids were already a mess — several grown. And your hormones and body were messed up. And you were broke, close to retirement. It sounds like this pastor was holding your husband accountable for sexual immorality and misuse of alcohol, but he was NOT holding him accountable for his wrongful belief that he was entitled to lie to you and intentionally, covertly or overtly, abuse you. So in my view, this pastor didn’t fully “get it” and didn’t fully help you.
You said that under this second pastor your husband was becoming kind and thoughtful. I believe you. But kind and thoughtful can be put on without deep heart change. Read my Checklist for Repentance to get an idea of what full repentance entails. And read my page What if the abuser is repentant?
My guess is that your husband was superficially repenting and changing, but the root-and-branch reformation required was not taking place in him.
You said that fairly good pastor has moved on, and the new pastor says things that make you think he won’t understand. I believe you. I think your sense of the new pastor is spot on! I encourage you to trust that sense: it’s a gut feeling and it comes from your right-brain intuition and it is based on lots of little things you’ve seen and heard that pastor do. I honour you for paying attention to your intuition. 🙂
You said:
Allow me to comment. Your husband claims he doesn’t remember anything he did. The psychiatrist believes this claim made by your husband. But the psychiatrist may be wrong. It is possible, even likely, that your husband DOES remember what he did and is denying that he did those things in order to (a) shift the blame away from himself, and (b) make you doubt your memory of events, and (c) make you feel sorry for him. In other words, since your husband has found that the psychiatrist backs up his claim that he can’t remember, it’s easy for your husband to keep on lying about his memory, in order to avoid taking full responsibility for all the trauma he has caused you.
Your visceral response to when your husband drinks too much is a very understandable and healthy response to his drinking too much. He’s shown such a long history of misusing alcohol and abusing you, and you are understandably hypervigilant about that happening again. You don’t feel safe when he drinks too much, and you have good reason to feel unsafe because of the history — his long-term pattern of conduct. I validate your visceral reaction.
A truly reforming abuser would say, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You have every right to feel afraid, angry and be on edge when I drink too much, because of how I mistreated you for so long.” A good husband would allow and invite you to vent your emotions, without judging you for feeling those emotions, and he would offer you comfort and profuse apologies. He would say “Your visceral response is not your fault. It is my fault, because I abused you so often in so many ways. I take responsibility. The blame lies on me.”
You said:
I’m going to say something that might shock or surprise you. It sounds to me like your husband is learning to use “christianese jargon” to bamboozle you into thinking he is reforming. It sounds to me like he is still falsely accusing you of doing all kinds of terrible things, and is covertly pretending to be more Christ-like in order to get you to have hope that he is changing for the better. It sounds like he is playing the “Christian” game in order to suck you back in so that he can continue to abuse you.
These abusive men are highly skilled at lying. They are very covert in most of their tactics. They learn how better to play the psycho-babble game and the “Christian” game in order to keep their target women under control, and keep her hopeful that there is some improvement in the marriage and therefore she should give him another chance.
Don Hennessy says that men who abuse their female intimate partners are more cunning and more skilled than pedophiles. Ponder that. It’s hard to take in, but I believe it’s true.
I think you are right not to trust him.
You said:
See how he says one thing but then contradicts what he said? He says, “I can’t imagine myself doing that stuff; but I’ll trust you….if you say so.” But then he says he never did that stuff and it never happened. So he is being two-faced. He is lying in order to confuse you and throw you off balance.
You wrote:
His apologies are lies too. He makes pseudo-apologies in order to confuse you and suck you back in.
You are right that he and you have two different stories. His story is that you and he have always basically gotten along with a few little mutually caused bumps. Your story is that he lied, manipulated, beat you, flirted with and tried to get together with other women, sabotaged your parenting, was cruel at times to the kids, etc., and you are exhausted and your trust is broken.
His story is a tissue of lies with a few half-truths thrown in. Your story is true. I encourage you to believe you own story. I encourage you to keep telling yourself your own story, and refuse to listen to his story because it is full of lies.
I think you are very healthy to not feel close to him. I think he has sucked you back in by his “kindness”. Kindness is intermittent reward. The abuser gives intermittent kindness to the victim in order to suck her back in. I am not surprised that bedroom stuff is hard for you. Don Hennessy says that the battle is in the bedroom and the abuser’s chief aim is to have a woman he can abuse long-term so that he can get his sexual preferences met without having to negotiate.
You are not alone. Many, many women have suffered and still are suffering similar abuse to what you are suffering.
I strongly encourage you not to pursue or participate in marriage counseling. The problem is caused by him and him alone. He is an abuser. Marriage counseling is unsafe for domestic abuse.