October is a month of change, from hot to cool, green to orange. The air is crisp and clean, overnight trees morph into vibrant colors that take your breath away with their beauty, unless you live in Texas.
October is my birthday month, and the month to bring awareness to causes such as breast cancer, down syndrome and domestic violence. Though most of us don’t want to talk about domestic violence.
Each of these causes can take your breath away by the shear ugliness of their impact on lives. Compassion goes out to those who have or had breast cancer and those with children with down syndrome, who are the most delightful children, but with challenges most of us can’t imagine. Life is hard for all, and none had a choice.
Domestic violence is different, we think it’s a marriage problem. We may believe she can leave. Too many of us have the false belief that she has a choice, or that there is some flaw within her because she stays.
We may think I wouldn’t put up with that for five minutes!
You may think the women are weak. And you’d be wrong.
Some things are never what they seem. To most it looks like she has the perfect marriage, that he is a wonderful husband. What you can’t see, is what goes on behind closed doors—the control and manipulation, you can’t see the bruises on her soul, you don’t hear his constant battering with words. You may think she has it all, when really she has nothing.
From the moment they said I do, he revealed the monster hidden behind the charm. He systematically took her choices, isolate her from those to love her, to take her identity, to batter her with words, to coerce and bend her to his will, to become her god, to use violent and nonviolent tactics to condition her to respond to his needs, his desires, his will. To keep her dependent on him for her basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter.
She may not know that she lost herself, or understand she’s being abused, she has no words to define what he does to her and sounds absurd when said out loud. Over time, he takes away her choices. He conditions her to set herself aside and revolve around him. She stops thinking of herself and her kids. When she thinks about herself and her children, he yanks her back to his reality with a look.
He slashes with words; causes pain without leaving marks, the emotional battery is undetectable to the outside world. She keeps the family secret. If you ask her, she’ll deny she’s being abused. She can’t admit what she can’t acknowledge. It’s a horrifying moment for her when she finally says it out loud and no one believes her.
There are times of clarity when she has had enough and decides she wants to leave however after attending church or speaking with a pastor, they remind her to submit, pray more, forgive him, have more sex, don’t you know God hates divorce. She is told, if she would be a better wife, he would be a better man. As if she is responsible for his behavior.
His response if confronted is to say, “I didn’t do it, it wasn’t as bad as she said, or she did _____ so I did ____.” They blame her for causing him to react. She may even be told she will go to hell if she seeks a divorce.
What a distorted view of our Father. How he must grieve when his children can’t see beyond themselves to know when someone is screaming for help. Or to imagine that He expects his daughters to live in a house of horrors.
God designed the Church to look like marriage, where Jesus as the Bridegroom loves and sacrificed Himself for His Bride. He loves His Bride extravagantly; He doesn’t abuse or harm His Bride. He doesn’t demean, abuse, punish, or berate His Bride.
Yet some of us may believe that God expects women to stay in abusive marriages, that protecting the covenant of marriage is more important than protecting her and the children.
If she chooses to leave the marriage, she isn’t breaking the covenant. He broke the covenant of marriage by his choice to abuse his wife whom he vowed to love and cherish.
I hope that today I challenged what you believe about domestic abuse and that at least one woman will see him for who he is and that he may never change and decide she is worthy of more. If you’re unsure, you can read about the land called More.
It has a name: Coercive control, aka intimate terrorism. It’s what kidnappers and terrorists do to their captives, yet when it’s wrapped in marriage we see it as if she has a choice. Do you know someone who you suspect is being abused?
Reach out to her to let her know that you see her, that you love her, that if she needs anything you will help—without telling her what you suspect.