The Book That Made Me Sick - A Review of Unholy Charade by Jeff Crippen

I cannot remember the last time a book made me sick. I don’t mean metaphorically. I am talking about head splitting, gut churning, chest aching sick. I wanted to put it down, to stop reading, and quit inflicting this level of torture on myself, but every time I cast it aside in disgust, I found my hands reaching for it again. Sometimes I read spellbound, a prisoner of its words, and other times I rapidly skimmed through paragraphs as if I could defect the blows of what was printed there.

It took me three days to wade through the dense pages. Not because it was difficult to read, but rather it was agonizing to relive the memories of another time in my life, ripped from the forgotten recess of my mind and now splashed across my consciousness. This was no thriller, although for sheer horror Stephen King has nothing on this book.  No, this was an unflinching look at the mindset and methodology of an abuser, the sheer lack of understanding exhibited by many in church leadership, and how incorrect application of Scripture has kept may victims of domestic violence bound to their abusers.

In the years that have passed since I escaped my own abusive marriage, I have lost count of how many books I have read describing the dynamics of abusive relationships, but none have come close to the accuracy presented by Jeff Crippen in his book Unholy Charade: Unmasking The Domestic Abuser In The Church.

Nor does stop there, Crippen goes on to address how and why abuse is such a problem within the Christian community. He tears open the lies that so many abuse victims have been told about why abuse is to be ignored, accepted, and even a part of God’s plan for their lives. He explains how the Church has re-victimized those who seek help, and have sometimes even become complicit in the devastation of the lives of so many men and women who turned to Christian leadership for answers.

Crippen is no coward. He names names, and he decimates the arguments of popular Christian preachers and teachers that would require unconditional submission to abuse in the name of Christianity.  He exposes the lies and counters with the truth. He refutes cherry picked verses and clichés with sound exegesis and by placing those verses within their proper context so that we can see that God’s design for marriage make no provision for a person violence – be it physical, emotional, or sexual violence. He tackles the thorny issues that are rarely addressed from today’s pulpits. Issues such as to who is a real Christian and how can you tell who is one, what is repentance and how can you see if it is true, when is church discipline appropriate and why aren’t we utilizing this God sanctioned responsibility of our community of faith.

Crippen presents the marriage covenant as part of the Christian experience and not some separate entity that abides by its own set of rules with no bearing in or obligation to adhering to the Biblical standards we impose upon other relationships within the Church.  He does not present marriage as exemption from being living examples of Christ’s love to one another or to ourselves. And in doing so, he robs the abuser of their power to use Christianity as leverage against their victims.

Two things stood out to me as former victim of abuse:

1. Crippen does not espouse unthinking submission of a wife to an abuser. He understands that abusers do not respect, value, or love anyone they perceive as weak and therefore worthy of abuse. Instead, he offers Biblical guidelines to help women discern when submission is wrong or dangerous.

2. The manner in which Crippen addresses the issue of divorce. He builds his case thoughtfully and in a balanced manner, placing individual teachings within the context of totality of Scripture so that we might have proper understanding of what the Bible really has to say about divorce.

The book is well documented on many fronts. Scripture is scattered liberally throughout the book, footnotes abound, and testimonials are highlighted on each page. This is not a book of opinion or speculation. It is rooted deep in the Truth of God’s love for each of us while revealing the pitfalls of those who fail to move past the trite answers of a Church that turns a blind eye to the ugly realities of living in a fallen world. The almost expected sentimental idolization of marriage found in the majority of Christian books on marriage is, thankfully, nowhere to be found in the pages this book. Instead, Crippen looks the ugliness of abuse square in the eye and calls it what it is – sin.

I can overstate how much I believe that this book should be on everyone’s must read list. Even if you are not or have never been in an abusive relationship, the insights into how such a relationship functions are among the best I have ever read and will be an invaluable tool in caring for those who have had to walk this path. I would further urge everyone to not only purchase a copy for themselves, but to also to buy one for the leadership of your church body. As a whole, the Church has failed to meet the needs or address the issue of abuse in a Biblical or knowledgeable manner, and I believe sharing this book is one small step to correcting our errors on this front.

Purchase your copy on Amazon. Unholy Charade: Unmasking the Domestic Abuser in the Church

Reader's Question - Is Remarriage a Sin?

Reader’s Question –

Jesus said, whoever divorced his wife and married another commits adultery. When I married my husband (who has been in a previous relationship) I knew this. But I shrugged it off. And I thought that it probably didn’t count in our situation. But it’s pretty cut and dry. And honestly, I’m scared to death I’m going to hell for being an adulteress. What are your thoughts?

The first thing we have to do is look at what the Bible has to say about divorce. We know that God made provision for it in Deuteronomy 24:1-4. In Malachi 2:16 we are told that God hates divorce, and this is one of the most quoted verses about divorce out there. However, if we are going to quote it we need to read it in context and pay attention to what is and is not being said. God does not say it is a sin, he says the reasons for the divorce are a sin and he hates that his people are acting in violence, hurting one another.

This brings us to Jesus’ teaching in Mark 10:1-10

First, there is a set up. The Pharisees ask Jesus a dumb question, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” Jesus doesn’t take the bait, and points them back to the passage in Deuteronomy mentioned above when he asks them, “What did Moses command you?” In other words, he was saying, “Of course, it is lawful for man to divorce his wife. God already addressed that when he gave Moses the law. And then Jesus explains why the law was given, and it was given because people have hard hearts.

Think about this with me for a while. What would cause anyone to do the things that lead to divorce? What causes someone to cheat, to abuse, to control, to be insensitive, to deliberate choose to do things that hurt another human being – particularly a person you have vowed to love and who has vowed to love you? If you answered a hard heart, then you win the prize. (Go buy yourself a cookie and enjoy!) God knew that people are lousy at keeping their promises to him and each other, and that no one can force another to be true to their word. So he gave us an out for when someone breaks their promises to us and allow us to stop being hurt. That is how much he loves us!

He desires that marriages remain intact and that we grow through this intimate union, but he set a boundary in place. He said you don’t have to be the victim of another person’s harden heart. You can be free, and you can put an end to the violence committed against you.

Before we go any further, let’s back up and take a look at what was really going on in this conversation. We have already shown how the whole thing was a set up with misleading question the Pharisees asked, but a set up for what? In Jesus day there were more than one type of Jew. There were the liberal and the conservative Jews, each interpreting the law according to their own bias. The liberal Jews said that divorce could be had for any reason and still be lawful, all a man had to do was establish that his wife was displeasing to him. (I don’t know about you, but my morning breath is pretty displeasing to everyone, including my husband, but I don’t think that is grounds for divorce.) The conservative Jews said that divorce was only allowed in cases of adultery. The whole point of this question was to get Jesus to declare whether or not he was liberal or conservative. It had absolutely nothing to do with the right and wrongness of divorce – that debate had already been settled along party lines.

So Jesus, being the brilliant person he is, sidesteps the whole issue of party politics and cuts right to the heart of the matter – if you divorce then you are causing another person to sin. This was particularly true for the women whose only options were to remarry or to become prostitutes in order to support themselves. Men could decide not to marry again and carry on with their lives.

And if we go back and read Matthew 19:1-12, we get pretty much the same break down of the issue, but it is interesting that if go back a page from that to Matthew 18: 5, 6, you will see that the person who causes another to sin is held to be the guilty party – even more so than the one sinning! And the consequences are severe. Jesus is driving home the point that divorce is not to be taken lightly, but he never renounces the Torah’s provision for remarriage. Remarriage was not only allowed, it was expected under Jewish law.

If we turn on over to 1 Corinthians 7:1-16, we find that while Paul encourages married people to remain together, he recognizes that it is not always within the believer’s power to keep it from happening. He goes to say that if an unbelieving spouse leaves the believing spouse is “not enslaved.” I believe that Paul is saying that the vows of marriage no longer bind the divorcee. And it is important to note that he never renounces the provision for remarriage offered under the Hebrew law. How do we know that remarriage was expected under Jewish law? Two reasons: Deuteronomy says that a woman who was divorced and remarries a second man cannot return to her original husband if she divorces him. Notice that the second marriage is taken for granted, and there is no decree that the second marriage was wrong. Two, it is recorded within the Rabbinic teachings that remarriage is encouraged after divorce.

Now, back to the reader’s question, is she going to hell for being an adulteress? No. I don’t believe so, and here is why. Even if I thought I remarriage was a sin, I still have to believe that God is big enough and loving enough to keep his word to forgive all sins we may ever dream up. He is not a liar, and he does not break his promises.

I also cannot imagine where breaking our promises or vows within a new marriage is the right thing to do. Two wrongs do not make a right, and if we dissolve a second marriage we are merely compounding our folly. If the original relationship was ended for reasons that are not Scriptural, then repentance is the correct response, and forgiveness needs to be sought with God. However, once that has been carried out then we need to accept God’s grace and trust in his loving nature so that we may live holy lives now. Now is the time to not only embrace God’s mercy, it is a time to become a living example of how God’s love changes our lives and brings new blessings in the midst of our brokenness.

Divorce: The Great Church Idol - An Emily Rant

It happened again today. I answered the phone to hear another woman crying. We had a fight. He left. I don’t know what to do. Should I stay? Should I go? Am I honoring my wedding vows by remaining? Am I enabling his behavior by not leaving? I am trying, should I try harder? He’s great guy. He has so much potential. Life is stressful, chaotic, and he would never behave this way if things just weren’t so hard right now. Money is tight, the job is hell, and we just haven’t been able to have sex as often as we did before we had the kids. I know this is weighing on him, but I don’t know how long I can keep being the strong one. I am trying to be supportive, but I am at the end of my rope too. I told him that but he won’t hear me, he won’t listen, and I am afraid I am being too demanding. I hate telling you this, I don’t want to make him look bad, and I feel like I am failing at my marriage.

The conversation is always the same, and when I tell people this the assumption is always the same – this must not be a strong Christian woman, this has to be non-believer, or someone new to the faith. Good Christian girls don’t end up in these situations, and if they do, then they pray through, fight for their marriage, and will be rewarded with a miracle.

To all of you who think this way, I want to say one thing – YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.

Now, don’t go acting all sanctimonious on me. I know that this is not what you are wanting to hear, but it is time you get a clue. So just consider me your very own little clue dispenser. Glad to be at your service.

But, Emily, I support the sanctity of marriage. Divorce is a horrible, evil blight upon our society - *cue the rattling off of statistical data and appropriate Bible verses.*

Please, don’t bore me. I have heard it all before, and so has everyone else. So instead of repeating a bunch of regurgitated, one sided, short sighted, and Biblically inaccurate bull crap, let’s have a new conversation. Let’s talk about the women who have died, the kids who grew up in toxic homes, and all the wife-zombies out there. What? Never heard of a wife-zombie?

A wife-zombie is that woman in your church who can parrot all the proper Christian jargon about what it means to be a good Christian, how to run a good Christian home, and the grand prescriptions about how to be a good Christian wife. She smiles at all the right times, has a gentle word of encouragement, and is clinging to her faith through sheer grit. She knows all the *right* answers, but the truth is she doesn’t feel like any of them have ever paid off for her. She has been working the formula for years, but her husband has been slowly sucking the life from her one day at a time for years. She has all the latest Christian self-help books, attended every seminar, renounced all the wrong things, and prayed all the right ones.

For her there is only one path to relief – that someone dies. And knowing that does not make her life any easier because now she had to carry around the guilt of wishing her husband would be hit by a semi-truck or concealing suicidal tendencies that terrify her for the sake of the kids.

But, Emily, that’s not my fault! She just needs to have more faith!

Really? Listen to yourself for one freaking second. She needs to have more faith that God is going to force her husband to do all the things that this man has actively resisted for years? She needs to have more faith that God is going to zap this man’s freewill from existence? She needs to have more faith that another human being can be manipulated into submission through the proper application of prayers and Scriptural proclamations? Are we talking about Christianity or voodoo here?

Look, I do believe in the miraculous. I do believe that prayers have power to change the world, and I do believe that with God there is no such thing as a hopeless situation. But I also believe that humanity has been given an incredible and costly gift, we call it freewill. We get to choose, good or bad. We get to choose and being a Christian does not give you the right or ability to override anyone else’s choice. And as much as we may hate it, that means even an abuser gets to choose, and no person on the face of this earth gets to take that choice away from them.

And this is why you are part of the problem, your pious rules about how a good Christian wife should behave has robbed women of the very tools they need to protect themselves against an abuser’s choice and to seek the help she may need in order to get help both for herself and the man she loves. Women will go to great lengths to hide their husband’s flaws from the world. We call it honoring our husbands as we cover up and deny the damage he is doing. We think that we are being faithful and strong bearing the burden by ourselves. We excuse and deny that there is a problem so that they will not be shamed before the world and our church friends. We know that in the end we will be blamed for the choices our husbands make and will judged without mercy.

Everything from how we cleaned house, disciplined the kids, dressed, did our hair, and had sex will be held up for public scrutiny and ridicule. We will be given all sorts of great sounding but ineffective advice while the abuser is shielded from the consequences of his actions. Bible verses will be ripped out of context and used as battering rams against our already bleeding hearts, and everyone will get to feel so smugly superior to the broken and bruised. And we endure it all because we had too much faith in the power of church formulas to stop the abuse.

But, Emily, abuse is wrong! We don’t condone that!

Yes, yes, you do. You do it when you tell her that she should not set boundaries or limits on his spending, on the amount of time he spends in front of a computer, or the time he spends with his friends instead of his family. You do it every time you tell her that she needs to respond to his anger with love and kindness, instead of refusing to be an emotional or physical punching bag. You do it when you remind her that he is a weak and flawed human being who needs her love and support more than she needs to a partner to stand by her side. You do it when you try to silence her when she asks for help. You do it when you condemn her for leaving when her words were not enough to gain his attention. You do when you excuse his laziness, his inability or unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions, and the unhealthy ways he tries to meet his sexual needs. You do it when your only word of advice is submit.

Am I saying that Christian wives should not submit? No, I am not. In a healthy relationship where men are following their part of that command to love their wives as Christ loves the church, submission is easy – a joy even. Sure, there are individual and specific circumstance where our obedience to God’s Word might be tested, but when we know that our husbands are truly seeking the best for us and our families we can submit without fear of being used or intentionally hurt. In these marriages, submission leads to freedom because the two of you will be working to mutually empower the other to become better people.

And while we are on the subject, let me just say that overall the church has been teaching this whole concept wrong. We focus on the death while completely overlooking a far more important factor – yes, Christ died for his bride, but before he died for her he lived for her. He endured all the hardship that this earthly existence had to dish out and he remained kind, loving, and dedicated to demonstrating what love looks like even when it hurts. This is the example that men need to be following, because let’s face it. Stepping in front of a bus is far easier than getting on one so you can go to a job you hate everyday so that your family can enjoy the little luxuries like food and a roof over their heads. And if you or your husband isn’t working to provide for his family, physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the Bible says he is worse than an unbeliever. Also, if he is strutting around calling himself a Christian while failing to provide, he is a liar, thief, and manipulator who is deserving of the correction and discipline of our community of faith. So any woman who calls out her husband for this sin is not in rebellion, she is a faithful student of the Word.

Do you know what the punishment is for those who claim to be believers and do not live according the dictates of Scripture? They are to be cut off from fellowship – in other words, the wife has every right to pack her stuff and leave or toss his stuff out on the yard. It is her call and no one has the right to deny her that. In fact, if anyone does then they are in violation of the Word and fellowship should be denied to them if they will not receive correction. This is Scriptural and it preserves lives and marriages. It is not churchy answer formula; it is the way God declared it should work.  

Every marriage will face a rough place, a time when the worst of who we are as human beings will be on full display for our spouse. That is normal and to be expected, but if we fault women for seeking answers to address ongoing patterns then we are not being who we have been called to be as Christians. We are being cowards, failing to face the reality that we live in a fallen world, denying that we are accountable to and for each other, that we have an obligation to defend those in need, and yes, to advocate that victims of abuse leave their abuser if necessary.

And another thing. We have got to stop trying to shove all the broken bits of a marriage back together and declaring it a miracle. An apology and plea for forgiveness is not a fix, because apologizing and begging for forgiveness is something every abuser does quite well. Why do you think so many women stay so long to begin with? Because he said all the right churchy phrases, even was nice long enough to regain her trust, only to show his true colors once he felt secure enough to get away with it once again. We don’t get to act like it never happened, to sweep it under the rug, and pretend everything is alright now. True reconciliation can only occur when there has been true brokenness and repentance that can only be measured through a consistent demonstrations of a changed heart and nature.

Oh, divorce doesn’t look good. We hate it when those in fellowship with us fail in public. We take it as a direct reflection on our church bodies, but this is misplaced concern. It is a revelation of what we truly worship and esteem, and exposes that our fear of looking bad outweighs any perceived obligation we have to God and his Word. There is no excuse for it, and make no mistake, we will be held accountable for every one we have caused to stumble or endangered through our idolatry.  For idolatry is what we are practicing every time we bemoan divorces power to corrupt more then we celebrate God's power to redeem and to heal.We are creating an image of what good Christian people do, with no regard to what the Bible actually declares. It is time we wake and stop protecting images, God has never been a fan of them, and start protecting the hearts and lives of those most in need of our compassion and support. Maybe then they will cease to see the powerless and loveless image God we have presented to them and come to know their value as his creation and child - a child that he loves enough to set free.

For a look at why divorce is NOT a sin, click here:  http://misdirectedmusings.blogspot.com/2015/12/readers-question-should-i-get-divorce.html
   

Reader’s Question: Should I Get A Divorce?

First of all, let me say, I hate getting this question. It ranks right up there with the second most dreaded question: should I marry this person? There is just too much responsibility involved! How am I supposed to know these things? Sure, I have an opinion. I have an opinion on literally everything, but whether or not you should listen to it, that’s another question entirely. Whether or not you should use it to plot out your life? I am not even certain I should be using it to plot out mine. So with all of that laid out on the table and kept clearly in mind, I will try to answer the question.

Obviously, I know a little more about this particular situation than I am sharing, because it really isn’t any of your business. Also while the particulars vary every time I am asked this one, my answer is always pretty much the same.

I am big believer in the “Three A’s” when it comes to reasons for Christians to divorce. If you are not familiar, they are adultery, abuse, and abandonment. On the surface these all seem like well-defined terms without much need for elaboration. However, it really isn’t as simple as it seems.

Adultery can encompass emotional affairs, addictions, pornography, and just about anything else where the one’s affection has been transferred to something else. Abuse does not have to involve physical violence, but can also include emotional, mental, spiritual, and sexual abuse. Abandonment can be more than one person physically leaving the marriage, and can also refer to those situations where one spouse has emotionally and mentally checked out of the marriage. Space does not allow me to be more specific, but I go into all of this in greater detail in Scandalous.

I am also a big believer that while these are perfectly legitimate reasons to seek a divorce, they do not require you to get a divorce. More than one marriage has not only survived infidelity, but has gone on to thrive as the two people committed to work through the issues that led to the act. I have also known those who have been abandoned who waited faithfully for God to restore their marriage to have their spouses return to them more in love and committed than ever before. I have also witnessed many in abusive situations that did not include physical or sexual violence stay and work with their spouse to save their marriages.

Now, let me be perfectly clear on this, no one should ever stay in a violent situation. We are called to be good stewards of what we have been given, this includes ourselves, and allowing abuse that puts you or your children in danger is not being a good steward. If you are experiencing this, get out and get out now. Once you are safe, if you still believe that there is hope for your marriage, seek the help of professionals to guide you through a reconciliation process that should include repentance on the part of the abuser, accountability for both parties, and a sustained demonstration of change. Do not think that you can do this on your own, or that one tearful apology means that everything is fine now. You need outside, objective help. Do not return until you both seek and receive it.

 So if all of these things are reasons you can get a divorce but do not mean you don’t have to get a divorce, then we still need an answer to the question and therein lies the rub. I don’t know. Your best friend doesn’t know, you parents don’t know, and even your pastor doesn’t know. The only person with that type of knowledge is you.

Here is what I do know:

Divorce isn’t a sin. God designed marriage as the perfect union between two people, a way in which we could combine strengths and overcome weakness within an environment dedicated to helping us mature in him. However, he also recognized that we aren’t perfect and the people we marry aren’t perfect. He knew that not everyone could withstand the rigors of marriage, and there are some who will actively destroy the gift he has given to them in the love of another person. So he designed an escape hatch that we call divorce.

Someone is screaming at their computer, but God hates divorce. Yes, yes, he does, but go back and read that passage you are shouting. It is found in Malachi 2:16. Notice what he does not say in that passage, he does not call it a sin. He says that the problem lies in the lack of love, in the failure to guard ones spirit, and in being faithless. All of these things are a problem with God no matter where they are manifest in our lives, but that is the key – our lives. We cannot control the decisions of another person including our spouse, and if they choose to dishonor the promise they made to us then we have no responsibility in that. We can only choose to control our response, and sometimes the best response is to get out of the way and give God a clean shot.

And while you have your Bibles out, you should also look up Jeremiah 3. Pay close attention to verse 8.

I also know divorce changes you. I know because I have been there. There is nothing pretty about it, even when you are getting out of a horrific situation. No matter how good freedom might be, you are still going to grieve. A dream is dying, there is no way to avoid it, and when our dreams die a part of who we are dies.

 The only real advice I can offer you is this:

Search your heart, know why you are contemplating this decision. If it is just because you think you will be happier free of your marriage, you are buying into a lie. If you are doing it because they changed, you need to realize that so did you, it is called life, and part of marriage is learning to navigate the changes together. If it is because you feel dissatisfied or discontent, then you need to take responsibility for your own emotions and stop placing unrealistic expectations on someone else.

Determine what you can live with – not today, but ten years down the road. Can you leave now and feel like you did everything in your power to heal your marriage? Will you be able to look back and say, I did my best and it was all I could do, and say it with a clean conscience? Because you will, even after my ex wrapped his hands around my throat and tried to strangle the life out of me, I asked myself that question knowing that divorce was the only option I had left.

Refuse to make any decision until you have peace. Notice what I did not say, I did not say happiness because the two are entirely different critters. Peace is that quiet assurance that wells up in our souls that allows us to rest. Happiness is fleeting and easily destroyed. Peace can look past the tears and know that despite the pain the decision is one that leads you to wholeness and healing.

No one can answer these questions, only you can do that, but until you know the answers I can love you, I can pray for you, and I can support you in the search. That is what real friends do, we don’t make the decision for you. We simply offer the tools and the safe place to use them.

A Dark Part Of My Life - Freedom to Grieve the End of Abuse

I never knew what was going to set him off. One day it might be that I stepped on the white tiles of the floor, the next it would be because I stepped on the black. Maybe dinner was not to his liking, although he had proclaimed this dish to be his favorite last week. Perhaps I failed to hang his shirts in the particular order that he had decreed proper, or I had left my room before receiving permission.

Tonight it was the evening news.

Somewhere in the broadcast, I had gone from casual viewer to responsible for a story’s content. Exactly when that occurred, I could not say. I had been too busy nursing our less than six week old baby to spare much attention to anything else around me, but his rising voice and angry pacing now commanded my full attention. We exchanged some words, words I cannot recall to this day.

There are really on three other things I remember about that night. The first is none of our neighbors were home, and I was aware of how alone I was as I faced him. The second is that when I rose to turn off the TV he pounced, wrapping his arm around my neck in a headlock – there were two distinct thoughts that filled my head, don’t drop the baby and don’t let him break your neck. I held my daughter with one arm and gripped his forearm with my other, trying to take the strain from neck as he lifted my feet from the floor and shook me like a ragdoll.

I managed to absorb the force of the fall in my shoulder and hip when he threw me away from him, and avoided crushing the baby still in my arms. He never stopped screaming his rage at the television. Blood dripped from my lips onto the pastel baby blanket, causing me to freeze but simultaneously causing my mind to race. I rose to my feet and faced him. I reached out and turned the TV off. I can still remember the coldness in my voice as I said, “If you are going to act like that you need to leave.”

It was the first time that he attacked me in such a manner. The abuse until that moment had been of other kinds. The kinds that he believed would not injure his unborn child, but now, I was fair game to his rage.

It is hard for some to understand why I can honestly say that this moment was a relief, why the tangible violence was so much easier to bear than the mental, emotional, and even the sexual attacks that had gone before. I think we both always knew it was a matter of time, and we were just waiting for him to have the guts to do what he really wanted to do to me. It was the explosion after months of watching a slow burning fuse. Finally, I could breathe again instead of holding my breath in dread.

After years of study and close to two decades of reflection, I now know why I did not call the authorities. That night I believed myself to be completely alone and I was acting on the instinct to survive. There was no room for a misstep and to stumble would cause him to pounce with renewed vengeance. A glimmer of fear would be the only excuse he needed.

In the end, it was my knowledge of the danger that bought him the time he required to plant the seeds of doubt that would keep me there for another two years. For as I waited for the moment when I could escape or make a call, he was there full of contrition and affirmations of his love. The excuses for his anger and why I had to help him overcome this ugly part of who he was. He loved me, he adored me, but most of all, he needed me. Tears poured down his face as he wept at my feet, begging for my forgiveness and promising me that he would never hurt me again. This became our dance – dread and fear, ideal circumstances of isolation, violence, contrition, appeals for grace and affirmations of love, a few days of peace and hope, and then a return to dread.

When I share my story today, someone always asks the question, “Why did you stay?” The answer is not simple, for the threads that bind an abuser to their victim are so thin that they are invisible to the eyes of those not ensnared by them, but their strength is in numbers. I could say that I stayed for the children, and for a time, I believed that was true. I could say I stayed because I loved him, and I also believed that was true. I could say that I stayed because I believed that I could help him get better and we could move beyond the rage that filled his heart and mind, and this, too, I believed was true. But even all of these things do not begin to encompass the reasons I stayed, for as these threads were shredded under the weight of reality, others took their place binding me with equal efficiency.

But perhaps the biggest factor in keeping me there as long as I was, was nothing more than the idea that I should feel good about walking away from my abuser, that there would be a sense of joy and vindication at leaving such an evil situation and person. It was the response that those who loved me wished for me, encouraged me to reach for, and to embrace as my right. So I waited, hoping that I could find a sliver of the right feeling to propel me forward.

It never came.

I cried the day I packed up mine and my children’s meager belongings. I wept as I loaded my friend and brother’s trucks with the odds and ends of furniture while I prayed that my husband would not return. I did not leave a triumphant victor, but slunk away a broken and defeated shell of a woman.

It took me a long time to realize that I was not grieving the loss of my abuser, my emotional captor. It took me a long to stop feel shame for missing him and wanting to find a way back in hopes of repairing our broken marriage. It took a long time to unweave the threads that bound me, and I learned the truth that had been so carefully hidden from me – I was not grieving the loss of the man who left bruises on my ribs or bloodied my lips. I was not aching to return to marriage wrecked with violence. I was not grieving for the reality lost.

I was grieving for the death of a dream, the hope and promise of what should been, of who he claimed to be. I was crying for the person I loved, not the person he was. I was missing the man he had promised to be and had never become. My heart ached for the dream that would never be, and the person that I would never be because I dared to place my faith in lie.

Who can feel joy, or even vindication, at such truth? For even if my head could not understand it in those moments, my heart did. I will forever be the divorcee, the single mom, the abuse victim, and the woman I never intended to be. Picket fences and daisies edging the yard were ripped from my future. Happily ever after was consigned once again to fairy tales, when I had been promised it could be mine.

Grief was and is the proper response.

It was only when the pain of reality became bigger than the fear of losing a dream that was already dead that I could leave. And it was only when I could find the strength to face the truth that the dream had died a long time ago that I could turn loose of the man who killed it.

Why do I share this dark part of my life? Why when I have moved on, found new dreams and new visions for my future that have exceeded anything that I may have clung to before? Because there is a woman out there, right now, who believed the lie I once did. She is working so hard not to make him mad, and she dancing a dance I know all too well, but sister, it is time to realize that dream is dead and it is not coming back. Walking away means you will have to accept that cold hard truth, and you will grieve. Friends and family will not understand why it fills you with sadness, and they won’t get the tears or why you are not happy about reclaiming your life and freedom, but that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that you do.

Healing will come. New dreams will be found, and life will change if you have the courage to walk away. It will not be as you envisioned it before, but it can be greater than you dare hope for now. I promise, because I have lived it and I am here to tell my tale.