But It's "Just" Emotional Abuse...

If you grow up in Reformed Christianity, you learn to take marriage vows very, very seriously.

Overall, I think this is a net positive. Christians are supposed to view and define marriage differently than the secular world does. We are supposed to see it as a covenant between us and God. It’s binding. It’s forever. It’s a promise we aren’t supposed to take lightly. When you view marriage as a covenant, when you approach it with a sense of reverence and gravity, it can work to help you prioritize its preservation and cultivate your own resilience, perseverance, and faithfulness. Good things are worth working for. They don’t come easy. They require diligence and effort and work. Marriage is a choice to spiritually tether yourself to another person through life’s storms, not just when life is roses and lollipops.

I was watching some reality show last night where two people decided to get married as part of an elaborate joke. They went through all the hoops necessary to make the union legally binding, but they did so with the ultimate goal of immediately getting an annulment once the gig was over.

This may be on the extreme end of examples of throwaway marriage culture, but let’s be honest: We probably all know a handful of couples who chose to separate for reasons like, “We just grew apart” or “We stopped communicating.” In Christianity, reasons like these are viewed as obstacles to be overcome, not dead ends or reasons to jump ship. A communication breakdown is not a valid reason for divorce. It’s only a valid reason to work and pray harder and double down on the commitment you made to be faithful for better or worse.

There’s so much about this approach that I value. When abuse is not present, I think it’s largely the right way to go. Stick it out. Persevere. Weather life’s storms.

When abuse is not present.

But there’s a downside to this way of thinking, too, and it’s especially obvious when it comes to giving people permission to leave the marriage when the union is, in fact, marred by abuse. Marriage is a choice to seek the other’s best interest and good even when it costs you. Abuse is an assault on this arrangement. It’s a choice to take a sledgehammer to the vows you actually made. It’s a choice to defecate on the promise you made to God and to your spouse. Why, then, is the wounded spouse so often the one burdened with the task of preserving a bleeding marriage?

In the church, we’ll hear influential pastors regularly (and very hesitatingly) use phrases like, “If the abuse is bad enough” or “If the abuse is really severe…” Then and only then are the abused granted church blessing to pursue legal separation (not divorce) while they try to work out their issues.

I mean let’s really think about that. What constitutes “severe enough” abuse? Are we really having this conversation? Is a slap across the face bad enough, or does a broken spouse have to wait until he actually breaks her nose? Or is a broken nose still pretty superficial? Does she have to wait until he puts her on life support? Will it be bad enough then? Who gets to be arbiter of the “bad enough” scale? A man who’s never had to worry about getting beat to a bloody pulp by the one person who swore to protect and defend him forever? You’ll have to pardon my snark, but my goodness—the fact that we even have to spell this out is a bit surreal to me.

I could give you a number of examples of this type of guidance in the church, though some will accuse me of resurrecting painful history to do so.

Former SBC President Paige Patterson’s sermon bragging about his counsel to a battered wife (He encouraged her to go home and pray for her husband while he beat her and then claimed her willingness to submit to two black eyes at her husband’s hand led to her husband’s repentance) comes immediately to mind.

So does John Piper’s video clip suggesting that a woman should submit to “being smacked around for a time” before consulting the elders for assistance.

John MacArthur publicly excommunicated Eileen Gray and subjected her to church discipline for refusing to return to her criminally violent husband.

And conservative darling Voddie Baucham preaches that abuse is not ever grounds for divorce.

I’ve been conducting something of a deep dive into the wreck of my own indoctrination lately, especially as it relates to the church’s teaching on both marriage and abuse. What I found was a 118 page document that tediously analyzes the topic of divorce. But in all 118 pages, the experts never managed to reach the conclusion that beaten wives are free to leave and remarry.

Now to be fair, both Patterson and Piper have softened their original stances. (Patterson even apologized for his.) But all these examples are specific to actual physical abuse, and they illustrate just how hard it can be for a battered spouse to get the church’s blessing to divorce a violent person. So if it’s this hard with physical violence, what do you suppose it’s like for people whose abuse is emotional rather than physical?

I will tell you point blank: It’s a lot harder. Most of the time, emotional abuse is just categorized as one of those things a person can learn to endure to save the marriage. “Take up your cross,” women are told. And I think this is utter foolishness.

One of the obvious problems is that “emotional abuse” can be such a broad and ambiguous term. I understand the church’s hesitation to respond to a single incident of a raised voice by saying, “Sure! That’s grounds for divorce.” No ladies, you are not being abused if your husband has a bad attitude once in a while. Let’s not be histrionic. Context obviously matters. So what is emotional abuse? I’ll give you some examples:

• Nitpicking. Constant fault finding and criticism. Criticizing everything from the way you dress, how you speak, or even the way you walk. The humiliation factor is amplified when they do it front of your children, and the behavior serves to make the victim doubt his/her own perspective and decrease in confidence.

• The cold shoulder/silent treatment for days on end with or without explanation. Completely withdrawing affection or acknowledgment of your existence. This is a form of punishment that’s meant to infantilize and subordinate you, to make you feel inferior. It’s a massive power play.

• Restricting the spouse’s access to the finances.

• Threatening. Threatening to divorce you if you don’t comply with demands, threatening to embarrass you, threatening to hurt you or humiliate you

• Controlling the spouse’s social calendar, punishing spouse for maintaining friendships that don’t meet his/her approval

• Name calling and insults. A woman I know finally left her husband after 20 years of her husband screaming at her that she’s a “f*cking bitch.” Her church did not grant their blessing on her choice to leave. They told her to go home and try to work things out.

• Ruling by fear—devolving into violent outbursts—screaming, breaking things, and creating an atmosphere of terror where everyone walks on eggshells, afraid of another explosion

• Gaslighting—training you to believe that your correct perceptions of reality are, in fact, proof of your insanity.

• Breaking your things, punching holes in walls. This behavior is the gateway to physical violence against you. It’s only a matter of time. This is a major red flag, one that you cannot afford to ignore.

As much as conservative Christianity likes to remind us that divorce damages children (and it does), I rarely seem to see a commensurate concern for the damage that happens to children’s psyches when they’re repeatedly exposed to the above behaviors. It’s absolute poison for everyone involved. This isn’t just something that anyone should submit to for the greater good. The greater good cannot be accomplished against a backdrop of abusive conduct.

Each individual case needs to be addressed with discernment and prayer. There’s no one-size-fits-all miracle formula for addressing this stuff. Sometimes divorce will be the right choice. Sometimes it won’t. But what’s for darn sure is that leaving this behavior largely unchecked and allowing it to continue without aggressive intervention is a recipe for destruction. This tree will produce rotten fruit. The limbs of abuse must be fully excised from the body, and if a church is not prepared to assist the victimized spouse in this regard, then the church has no business even opening its doors.

Emotional abuse can do to the heart what physical abuse does to the body, and sometimes the wounds are longer lasting and farther reaching. The Bible repeatedly tells us to guard our hearts, so the logical conclusion is that a battered heart is a big problem. But someone when it comes to the topic of emotional abuse, this reality just doesn’t really seem to matter all that much to many of the people trusted with spiritual guidance.

There’s no such thing as abuse that’s “bad enough.” Any abuse is bad enough to be taken very seriously. Period.

God loves His children more than He loves His institutions. If the cost of preserving a marriage is the destruction of a person, the cost is just way too high.

Here are some resources for anyone who might need help navigating marital abuse. Some are specific to women, while others are not:

• Called to Peace Ministries

• Flying Free with Natalie Hoffman

• Psalm 82 Initiative

• Wilderness to Wild

• BTR.org

• The Sarah Society (women)

• The Samson Society (men)

• Leslie Vernick

• Chris Moles podcast on abuse and divorce

• ACBC Domestic abuse podcast

• The Life Saving Divorce by Gretchen Baskerville

• Patrick Weaver Ministries

• Confusion to Clarity

• Enough is Enough by Gary Thomas

• Not Under Bondage by Barbara Roberts

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